Online public lecture as part of the lecture series Conceiving the Ethico-Political Power of Africa’s Contemporary Art(ivism)

This public lecture will take place from 14:00 to 15:30 on Teams (click here to join.)

In this lecture, Professor Pfunzo Sidogi proposes the notion of Ubuntu aesthetics as a panacea to the historical and ongoing urban design segregation in South Africa. He will argue that Ubuntu design considerations can result in a soft equality between the deeply unequal urban living patterns in South Africa. While acknowledging the benevolent ethos inherent within the decolonisation rhetoric, it will be proposed that Ubuntu design thinking, as opposed to decolonial aesthetics/design, can genuinely transform the built environment in South Africa and the rest of the continent. Ubuntu design aesthetics thus offers a localised and humanist impulse that cannot be delimited to the African experience.

Pfunzo Sidogi is a lecturer in the Department of Fine and Studio Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology. His latest books are Mihloti Ya Ntsako: Journeys with the Bongi Dhlomo Collection (2022) and The De-Africanization of African Art: Towards Post-African Aesthetics (2022), co-edited with Denis Ekpo.