‘Curating as a practice of Love’

25th of February – 6 pm

Conversation between Adama Sanneh and Lwando Xaso, coordenated by Monica de Miranda. This first lecture is part of a series of lectures related to the theme of investigating the practice of curating as a practice of love .

The conversation between Adama Sanneh, the CEO of the Moleskine Foundation and Lwando Xaso, a South African constitutional lawyer, writer and curator of a forthcoming museum on the history of South Africa’s constitutional democracy in Johannesburg, will explore what it means to love a country founded on violent colonial occupation and separateness (apartheid) and which continues to struggle today to remake itself as a new country founded on freedom, equality and justice. Lwando will share how her identity was shaped by this history, especially by Nelson Mandela’s presidency which showed her what it means to conceive of a new country as a possible idea from the ruins of the past. They will also discuss what it means to love a deeply flawed and complicated country and how that love of country now informs Lwando’s curatorial approach and at what cost. They will explore whether it is indeed love or nostalgia or worse, propaganda. And consider how an institution tells a national story which belongs to the people who themselves are so divided on what the actual story is. And they will explore whether museums, which are historically elite, are the appropriate tool today, to tell a very African and people centred story.

“Lwando Xaso obtained her LLB (law) at the University of Johannesburg. She also holds a LLM in constitutional and administrative law from the University of Cape Town and a LLM in international law (Magna cum Laude) from the University of Notre Dame. Her career highlights include the privilege of clerking at the Constitutional Court for Justice Edwin Cameron and the opportunity to practice law for over 8 years at Norton Rose Fulbright and Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs. She is the recipient of the Franklin Thomas Fellowship.

She has also contributed to the book One Law One Nation which details the history of the making of the South African Constitution and frequently writes for various publications on topics on identity, history, culture , politics and law. She has also worked as a senior researcher for the Public Service Remuneration Review Commission tasked with the transformation of the public service and was also a researcher to former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. Currently she works for herself through her consultancy, Including Society. She is the author of “Made in South Africa; A Black Woman’s Stories of Rage, Resistance and Progress” published in 2020. You can follow Including Society on Instagram at @Including_Society- on Facebook at Including Society and on twitter.”