Future Pasts

At the extreme southern tip of Africa in 1652, the world’s first trans-national corporation began establishing a new port. The powerful Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) initially just wanted a resupply point for ships rounding the Cape on their long and profitable ‘spice trading’ route to Indonesia. But despite resistance from local people, over the following decades the Cape Colony spread ever further east and north, pursuing a growing hun

On Monday 11 September 2017, I attended SCOLMA’s (Standing Conference on Library Materials on Africa) annual conference at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. This year’s theme was, ‘Document to Digital: how does digitisation aid African research?' Drawing on research conducted as part of Future Pasts, this presentation was a collaboration with Samantha Venter (rePhotoSA project coordinator) and the Director of University of Cape Town's Plant Conservation Unit (PCU

On Tues 18th July, the Future Pasts research project hosted a private view of our exhibition Future Pasts: Landscape, Memory and Music in West Namibia. Held at Gallery 44AD next to the Roman Baths and the Abbey in the centre of the City of Bath, the exhibition brings together images, music and videos made in collaboration with people and organisations in west Namibia. We have aimed to create a contemplative space where the themes of sustainability, identity and displacement w