A Journey through Otherworld — Closing Keynote: gli tXh! Performance and Celebration

A part of:
A Journey through Otherworld

Saturday, March 15, 2025
University College, UC179

In this closing keynote, multi-genre writer m. nourbeSe explored the technological currents in her eponymous poem Zong!, which tells stories of enslaved Africans massacred on an 18th-century slave ship for insurance purposes. gli tXh!, the project, explores the congruences, resonances, and dissonances that appear when contemporary and current digital technologies encounter the legacies of the spiritual and artistic technologies of Africa. Zong! as told to the Author by Setaey Adamu is one such example.

Using Zong! as departure point, m. nourbeSe invited a group of multidisciplinary artists to engage with the notion of the “gli tXh” in relation to their own practices. During the keynote, these ten artists—Kobena Aquaa Harrison (music), Otoniya J. Okot Bitek (poetry), Yasmine (Saysah) Hassen (performance), Sistah Lois Jacob (music, performance), Y Josephine (percussion, visual art), Bushra Junaid (visual art), Amai Kuda (music), Charmaine Lurch (visual art), Vivienne Scarlett (dance), and Natalie Wood (visual art)—shared the explorations undertaken and insights gleamed through their various media.

A Journey through Otherworld was a multi-sensory program of workshops, tours, and presentations that took place at the University of Toronto from March 12–15, 2025. The program was inspired by Camille Turner’s exhibition Otherworld, on view at the Art Museum from September 4, 2024 through March 22, 2025.

Videography by Dominic Chan.