Ruth Simbao

Ruth Simbao is the National Research Foundation SARChI Chair in Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa and a Professor in the Fine Art Department at Rhodes University, South Africa. She runs the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme, and is the founder of the Art POWA Network. Her recent research interests include contemporary art with a particular focus on Africa, the geopolitics of art, knowledge and society, ‘strategic southernness’, theories of ‘place’, cosmolocalism, faux pas and failures, Africa–China relations, walking as artistic practice, site-situational art and sideways learning.

Simbao received her PhD from Harvard University’s Department of History of Art and Architecture in 2008, and was an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) postdoctoral fellow as part of the Humanities in Africa programme in 2010. Recent curatorial projects include Converge (curated with Brunn Kramer), Consuming Us (curated with Azu Nwagbogu), SLIP: Mbali Khoza and Igshaan Adams (2014), BLIND SPOT performance art programme (2014) and Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China (2012 to 2013).

R.simbao@ru.ac.za, www.ru.ac.za/artsofafrica, www.makingway.co.za.