Presenter: Dr. Prita Meier

The study of art and art-making allows greater insight about temporality, or the way time manifests itself in our lives. Yet the question of how art shapes temporal experience remains a largely understudied subject in African art history. This talk by Dr. Prita Meier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign art historian and co-curator of the UMMA exhibition African Art and the Shape of Time (on view August 18, 2012-February 3, 2013), will consider why concepts of time and time-consciousness have received little attention in African art scholarship, and will discuss the role of African artworks as “objects of time.” In doing so, Dr. Meier will invite audiences to explore how a focus on the temporal side of things can engender new ways of experiencing African art and visual culture more generally.

Prita Meier (PhD, Harvard University) is Assistant Professor of African Art at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary research focuses on the arts of the Swahili coast of east Africa and the politics of cultural translation. She has a book in preparation titled Architecture of the Elsewhere: Swahili Port Cities, Empire and Desire. Her writing, on topics ranging from colonial-period photography to contemporary exhibition praxis, has been featured in African Arts, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Arts, Artforum, and The Arab Studies Journal.

Lead support for the exhibition African Art and the Shape of Time is provided by the University of Michigan Health System and the James L. and Vivian A. Curtis Endowment Fund. Additional generous support is provided by the CEW Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund.