Presenting: Black Time
Mpho Matsipa is a 2022 Loeb Fellow (Harvard GSD), educator, researcher and curator. She received her PhD in Architecture from UC Berkeley and teaches Advanced Studio, History and Theory of Planning and Architecture, in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She is a researcher at WiSER and co-investigator on an Andrew Mellon research grant on Mobilities. She has written critical essays on art and architecture and curated several exhibitions and discursive platforms, including co-curating the South Africa Pavilion at the 11th and a collaborative art installation at the 14th International Architecture Exhibitions, Venice Biennale (2008; 2021); chief curator of African Mobilities at the Architecture Museum, Pinakothek der Modern in Munich (2018); and Studio-X Johannesburg, in South Africa (2014-2016).
As a curator of exhibitions and public discursive platforms about architecture and urbanism she has contributed to numerous other significant curatorial projects: at the Pompidou Centre (Cosmopolis II, 2019), Zeits MOCCA (Radical Solidarity Summit, 2020), and the Lubumbashi Biennale (Ultra-Sanity, Savvy Contemporary, 2019). She has served as a member of the WiSER podcast committee (2020-2021), the Lubumbashi Biennale curatorial committee (2022) and served as a critic and guest speaker at numerous institutions, including GSA, University of Johannesburg; the University of Lagos, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Canadian Center for Architecture, Tulane University, University of Pennsylvania, McGill University, University of Chicago, Columbia GSAPP, Harvard GSD, CAA-Getty and MoMA among others. Additionally, she has served on numerous advisory boards, including Ellipses Journal of Creative Research (South Africa) and forA on the Urban - a journal at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts (Vienna), and the African Futures Institute (Ghana). She has authored numerous critical essays on art, urbanism and architecture, founded an African architecture podcast series, and written reviews on public art, culture, and space for e-Flux, Architectural review, SAVVY Contemporary and Art South Africa.
Mpho is currently a Loeb Fellow (2022) at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and a Chancellor’s fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Discussant: Olani Ewunnet (Harvard University)
A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the Harvard African Studies Workshop listserv. It is assumed that everyone has read the paper before the workshop. After presentation and commentary, Workshop attendees are invited to engage in critique and discussion, under the moderation of the Workshop Chairs.
Register for the Spring 2022 workshops here.
View workshop recordings here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/2369529
ORGANIZER(S): Harvard University Center for African Studies
EVENT WEBSITE: https://africa.harvard.edu/african-studies-workshop-0