Shiraz Bayjoo in Conversation

Following years of research, Searching for Libertalia artist Shiraz Bayjoo digs into the significance of the history of Madagascar and the wider Western Indian Ocean region to the narrative of colonialism, the slave trade and its relation to contemporary legacies for the Malagasy people. Bayjoo is joined in conversation by curator and UCL Guild Research Fellow Christine Eyene.

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Shiraz Bayjoo (b. Mauritius, lives and works in London) is a contemporary multi-disciplinary artist who works with video, painting, photography, performance, and installation. His research-based practice focuses on personal and public archives addressing cultural memory and postcolonial nationhood in manner that challenges dominant cultural narrative. Bayjoo studied at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. He was artist in residence at Whitechapel Gallery in 2011 and has exhibited with Tate Britain and the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva). He is a recipient of the Gasworks fellowship and the UK Arts Council grants for the arts.

Christine Eyene is an art historian, critic and curator. She is a Research Fellow in Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire where she works on Making Histories Visible, an interdisciplinary visual arts research project based at UCLan’s Centre for Contemporary Art, led by Professor Lubaina Himid MBE, winner of the Turner Prize 2017. She is doctoral student at Birkbeck, University of London, with Professor Annie E. Coombes, and is writing a thesis on South African photographer George Hallett. She also manages the Cameroonian photography platform Yaounde Photo Network.

Eyene is curator of the Summer of Photography 2018 at Bozar, Brussels and artistic director of the 4th International Biennial of Casablanca 2018. She has curated international exhibitions as part of numerous biennials including Printemps de Septembre 2016 (Toulouse, France); EVA International 2016 (Limerick, Ireland); Format International Photography Festival 2015 (Nottingham, UK); Summer of Photography 2014 (Brussels, Belgium); 10th Dak’Art Biennial 2012 (Dakar, Senegal); 3rd Photoquai Biennial of World Images 2011 (Paris, France). Her areas of research and curatorial practice range from contemporary African and Diaspora arts, Black British arts, gendered art discourses, to non-object-based art practices notably sound art. Other interests include: urban cultures, music, design and socially-engaged initiatives.