Barby Asante
Barby Asante is an artist, curator, educator and healer in training. Her practice is concerned the politics of place, space and the ever-present histories and legacies of slavery and colonialism. Her work explores memory and archival injustice through re-collecting, collating, excavating and mapping stories and narratives, through collective writing, re-enactment and creating spaces for transformation, ritual and healing.
With a deep interest in black feminist and decolonial methodologies, Barby also embeds within her work notions of collective study, countless ways of knowing and dialogical practices that embrace being together and breathing together. From 2014-2018 Barby was co-founder of agency for agency, a collaborative agency concerned with ethics, intersectionality and education in the contemporary arts who were mentors to the London based sorryyoufeeluncomfortable collective.
Her recent projects include, To Make Love is to Re-Create Ourselves Over and Over Again: A Soliloquy to Heartbreak, Untitled, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Declaration of Independence, Diaspora Pavillion, Venice, 2017, Library of Performing Rights, BALTIC, Gateshead 2019, Bergen Kusthall 2020: Black Togetherness as Lingua Franca with Amal Alhaag, Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, 2018; Baldwin’s Nigger R E L O A D E D, InIVA, London, 2014, Somerset House, London 2019; Cracks in the Curriculum: Countless Ways of Knowing, Serpentine Gallery, London 2018: SERP Revisted with Barbara Steveni, Flat Time House/ Peckham Platform, 2018.
She is also on the boards of the Women’s Art Library and 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning.