UBT_ArtMultIndOc2019 - Multiple Artworks - Multiple Indian Ocean

The project focuses on the multi-layered co-presence and circulation of verbal arts in relation to narratives, imagery, and sound travelling the Indian Ocean. In line with the Cluster’s agenda of multiplicity, we do not conceive of literary works as neatly delineated units, but as internally multiple and dynamic configurations in relation to other literary works and artworks. Taking into account networks of literary multilingualism and going beyond the monolingual straitjacket of modern literary histories and disciplinary boundaries that partition Lusoand Francophone literature from Swahili and Arabic, we adopt a multi-sited and multilingual approach. Bringing in our joint competences, we firstly, focus on the multilingual (foremost English, French, Portuguese, Swahili and Arabic) and multimedial practices of authors, the dynamic configuration of imagery, narratives and sounds in specific works and their relationship to other media and art forms (foremost film, music, installation). Our joint project focuses on the Indian Ocean, which lends itself to theorize artworks as multiple configurations that inhabit many worlds, which do not belong to one timeline, space, language and medium. Our project brings together three fields of inquiry, i.e. 1) recent multilingual approaches to circulating literatures; 2) Indian Ocean Studies and its emphasis on fluid connections, and 3) aesthetic approaches to consider the specific ways of the arts to evoke worlds.