Indigo Waves and Other Stories : Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora

The exhibition brought together thirteen contemporary artists, historians, filmmakers, musicians, writers and thinkers interested in the historical, cultural and linguistic links between the African and Asian continents. Craig Santos Perez describes it in his excerpt: Praise Song for Oceaniaces, “Taking the stories and histories of the Indian Ocean as its starting point, the group exhibition Indigo Waves and Other Stories: Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora brings together 13 contemporary artists, historians, filmmakers, musicians, writers and thinkers to investigate, unpack and shed light on certain historical, cultural and linguistic links, large and small, between the continents of Africa and Asia. The exhibition approaches the Indian Ocean as a communal horizon from there reading the Afrasian (i.e. belonging to both Africa and Asia) histories of forced and unforced movements across currents of mercantile and colonial empire,…, there is a lot in a name, they say, but no name seems to have the potential to encompass, contain, signify or express all that this plan of water represents, tells, sings or invokes. It is too complex, too deep, too vast and full of stories, to bear only one name. What is certain is that instead of dividing, it is based on geographies, cultures, peoples, languages, foods, sounds, winds, waters, economies, philosophies and more . The ocean is a fluid joint”.