Scheherazade Tillet – “Black Girl Play: Re-visioning Freedom”
10 August 2022, 18:00 (SAST) / a hybrid gathering
The 2022 Helen Joseph Memorial lecture is hosted by the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class and speaks to its emphasis on the relationship between Black feminist intellectual and creative praxis and activism. A photographer, art therapist and community organizer, our keynote speaker, Scheherazade Tillet engages us around practices of visibilizing Black girls and women’s experiences of community, gender and police violence at local and global levels. Co-founder and Executive Director of A Long Walk Home (ALWH), a Chicago-based national nonprofit, that uses art to empower young people and end violence against girls and women, Tillet uses site-specific work to explore the themes of gendered vulnerability, racial invisibility, pleasure, and play.
The Helen Joseph Memorial Lecture has sat in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg since 2005. Named for the British-born anti-apartheid activist, the Helen Joseph Memorial lecture was spearheaded by the Centre for Social Development in Africa and Professor Leila Patel and intended to speak to Joseph’s legacy and that of the wider terrain of women’s movements in South Africa. The lecture is often held in August in commemoration of the 1956 August 9th Women’s March to the Union Buildings against pass laws that Joseph led, along with other leaders of the Federation of South African Women like Lilian Ngoyi. Tried for treason and held under house arrest for over two decades, Joseph was a strident critic of apartheid and a champion of the rights of women, children and families.
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Introductions by Prof Victoria Collis-Buthelezi (RGC Director), Prof Kammila Naidoo (Dean of Humanities) & Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, (UJ Vice-Chancellor), with a vote of thanks by Dr Danai Mupotsa (Department of African Literature, Wits). Hosted by the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class (RGC), Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg.
