Diasporic life: Sensing Black
A conversation with Norman Ajari & Sorana Munsya
What does it mean to see and be seen beyond the shadow of anti-Black violence? What kinds of visual and archival practices do Black cultural workers and thinkers craft to attend to the textures of internal Black life?
This conversation zooms into the kinds of visual and archival practices Black artists and thinkers build to attend to the textures of Black life — not in reaction to brutality, but in celebration of presence, multiplicity, and becoming. Together with contributors we look into how the Black gaze informs modes of making that center self-determination, imagination, and refusal.
Norman Ajari, philosopher and lecturer in Francophone Black Studies at the University of Edinburgh, explores the philosophical implications of Black radical thought and the racial unconscious of Continental philosophy. His work theorizes Blackness as a site of revolutionary thought, tracing how the historical dehumanization of Black people gives rise to powerful practices of dignity, refusal, and aesthetic invention.
Sorana Munsya is an independent curator and writer based in Brussels. Her practice engages with themes of fugitivity, opacity, and healing in relation to Blackness in Europe, with a focus on diasporic narratives.
Together, they will discuss: How does the Black gaze move beyond reaction and toward generation? What do speculative archives and curatorial refusals reveal about the worlds Black communities are building? And how might Black Aliveness itself be understood as a methodology — a way of seeing, imagining, and living otherwise?
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🔥Date: June 25, 2025
🔥Time: 7pm
🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597
🔥Entrance: Free