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For the first public gathering of his ongoing research, ‘Distant Islands, Spectral Cities’, Olivier Marboeuf has been inspired by the tradition of the Caribbean storyteller and the way in which speech and sound institute ephemeral places of sociability and survival. He invites researchers, artists, activists and poets to enter into circles of voices and stories where they weave together with the audience the resistant and festive places of archives and transmissions to come.

• 10:00–10:30 – Coffee and welcome
• 10:30–10:45 – Introduction, ������Ƶ Institute in Paris
• 10:45–11:15 – Olivier Marboeuf, ‘Distant Islands, Spectral Cities’: Introduction to the Banister Fletcher Global Fellowship 2023–24 programme 

Rehearsing the archives: a journey from Paris to ������Ƶ, looking for sites, traces and performances of Afro-Caribbean imaginaries, sociabilities and struggles

11:15–11:30 –  Annotate (Aka Liam Spencer) - Poetic readings and spoken word # 1

Afro-Caribbean archives: sites, strategies, fragilities

During this session, we will discuss different sites of Afro-Caribbean archives related to communities living in the United Kingdom, their challenges, goals, approaches and methods for classification. But also their limits and precariousness. What kind of questions does one face in working on diasporic, vulnerable and fragmented archives? How to disrupt institutional notions of archives and their authority in order to invent paths of transmission for marginal voices and grounded knowledge? How can an archive be a starting point for an emancipatory project towards autonomy and social justice?

• Eve Hayes de Kalaf –&�Բ�����;, Institute of Historical Research, ������Ƶ’s School of Advanced Study
• Adom Philogene Heron –&�Բ�����;, Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), ������Ƶ’s School of Advanced Study 
• Natalie Hyacinth –&�Բ�����; (PDF), Race, Culture and Equality Working Group, Royal Geographical Society
• Discussion with the audience
• Annotate (Aka Liam Spencer) - Poetic readings and spoken word # 2

13:00–14:00 – Lunch

Body as an archive: violence, pleasure, sociabilities and struggles

This second session will be focused on situated and experimental methods. We will consider performances (dance, music, filmmaking, walks and protests) as sites, and bodies as archiving technologies, emphasizing the agency of local communities to storytell and actualize a living archive. We will look together to forms of transmission of struggles, the necessity of ruse and the contradictory relationships with mainstream institutions.

• 14:00–14:15 – Annotate (Aka Liam Spencer) - Poetic readings and spoken word # 3
• 14:15–14:45 –&�Բ�����;Carole Wright – Strategies from the margins of institutions: a tribute to Dora Boatemah

Learning from local minority struggles: tactics and alliances

• Discussion with the audience
• 15:00–16:00 – Listening session, with tea - Julian Henriquesin conversation with Olivier Marboeuf –&�Բ�����;Playing the archive

Transmission and politics of pleasure, paradoxes of institutions as places of discovery and validation of Black cultural practices for young generations, marrooning, diversion/misappropriation, music as a site in motion, body as a technology for archiving.

• Discussion with the audience
• 16:00–16:45 – Carole Wright – Stories from the garden

Local community initiatives and storytelling; caring for grounded archives

• Annotate (Aka Liam Spencer) - Poetic readings and spoken word # 4
• 16:45–17:45 – A Caribbean monumentality – conversation between OIivier Marboeuf, Adom Philogene Heron and Natalie Hyacinth

Colonial statues and performances of abolition; New Cross urban walks as a celebration of living heritage.

• 18:00–18:15 – Closing remarks
• Drinks reception

Annotate was in 2018 named an FLO Poet by award-winning poet and songwriter, Natalie Stewart, for his string of impressive performances at the esteemed open mic night, FLO Vortex.

Since then, Annotate has performed poetry at the world-renowned Tate Modern, showcased his work at the Lost Lectures’ multi-media spectacle The Electrograph, and presented a poem at the Tower of ������Ƶ, which was later recorded for broadcast over the historic site’s tannoy system.

Bolstered by these achievements, Annotate continued to flourish, headlining many of ������Ƶ's most reputable spoken word nights all the while developing an advanced online presence with the release of Street Tales, a spoken word film exploring the repercussions of gun crime, and later Confessions, a poem described by his peers as a masterclass in lyricism and wordplay.

Annotate’s reputation as a formidable spoken word poet and performer has led to notable performances on BBC Sounds and Soho Radio, and earned him acclaim from several high-profile names, including former WBA Heavyweight Champion boxer, David Haye.

In recent times, Annotate has appeared on Channel 4’s Confession Couch to discuss mental health, exhibited poetry for the internationally-recognised Sofar Sounds, headlined TNT Sports’ first-ever spoken word show with a heartfelt tribute to boxing legend and icon, Muhammad Ali, and performed at a screening of Cassius X: Becoming Ali at the prestigious Hackney Picturehouse.

Eve was, until February 2024, a Research Fellow on the AHRC-funded project  based in History and Policy,  at the ������Ƶ’s School of Advanced Study. She recently finished conducting high-level oral history interviews with senior diplomats, government representatives and Caribbean and UK High Commissioners to explore how prominent issues of migration, citizenship and forcible return were in UK-Caribbean diplomatic relations from the 1960s onwards.

Eve’s research also examines the use and abuse of modern-day identity-based development 'solutions' - including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - which aim to provide all people, everywhere with a legal and, increasingly, digital identity over the next decade. This interdisciplinary work examines the ways in which states have historically used registration systems to manufacture, block or deny access to citizens to their documentation. Her widely acclaimed book, , is part of the Anthem Series in Citizenship and National Identities and includes a Foreword by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz. Her in-depth study illustrates how digital identification systems can exacerbate statelessness by excluding traditionally marginalised groups based on their race, national and ethnic origin. Eve is convenor of the popular  held monthly at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (ILCS), ������Ƶ.

Julian is convenor of the MA Cultural Studies programme, Principal Investigator on the project, director of the Topology Research Unit and a co-founder of the practice research group in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, ������Ƶ. His credits as a writer and director include the reggae musical feature film  and  short. Julian researches street cultures, music and technologies and is interested in the uses of sound as a critical and creative tool. His sound sculptures include Knots & Donuts at Tate Modern and his books include Changing the Subject (Routledge, 1984), Sonic Bodies: Reggae Sound Systems, Performance Techniques, and Ways of Knowing (Bloomsbury, 2011) and Sonic Media (forthcoming).

Natalie is Researcher and Research Manager on the ERC funded project at Goldsmiths, ������Ƶ. Natalie’s research is intersectional and interdisciplinary, incorporating themes from Cultural Geography, Black Studies, Philosophy and Afrofuturism. Natalie has worked on a number of academic projects including as a Senior Research Associate on the Bristol based ESRC project Everyday Integration, as a Doctoral Researcher on the AHRC Making Suburban Faith research project, as well as publishing  (PDF) for the Race in the Geography group for the Royal Geographical Society.

Natalie is a founding member of the Black Music and Cultures Research Group ������Ƶ that seeks to centre Black female writings and thought on diaspora Black music and culture and makes and thinks about sonic worlds as part of the . Natalie inherited a large collection of vinyl records from her father including many Dub and roots reggae records. As part of her heritage and cultural and spiritual lineage she believes it is important to share this music and message of love and unity through the music through DJing and radio shows, as well as continuing the sonic explorations of her Caribbean forebearers by experimenting with new sounds and sonic technologies, a creative practice she explores under the name The Black Astral.

Olivier is an author, storyteller, film producer and independent exhibition curator of Caribbean origin. After his studies in the sciences (mathematics and biology) at the University of Paris XI-Orsay, he created in 1992, with the author Yvan Alagbé, the alternative comic press edition  and then the art centre  in Les Lilas, a northeastern outskirts of Paris, which he directed from 2004 to 2018.

He taught visual arts from 2002 to 2008 at the École Supérieure d’Art in Nancy (France) and critical visual theory at Advanced Master of Sint Lucas – Antwerp (2020-2021). He has been an external tutor for MFA at Goldsmiths, ������Ƶ, HEAD Genève and École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels. He also frequently contributes workshops and master classes in French and international fine art schools and universities. He was adviser for the  from 2014 to 2015 and was on the jury for the acquisitions of the  from 2016 to 2018. He is currently a member of the artistic council of the Akademie des Künste der Welt in Cologne, and from 2020 he has been part of the Ateliers Médicis research and writing residency programme in Clichy-Montfermeil (outskirts of Paris).

At Khiasma, one of the first artistic venues to take an interest in postcolonial perspectives in France, he developed a programme focusing on the representation of minorities and overseas diasporas, associating seminars, exhibitions, projections, debates, and collaborative projects with local communities. Interested in different modalities for the transmission of knowledge, he reinvests the figure of the storyteller by imagining him/her as a position from which it is possible to organise stories, interrogate manners of speaking and the structures of power in the artistic and cultural field. In parallel, he develops texts and essays about decolonial practices in the fields of culture and questioning the body as an archival space. A selection of texts is accessible at the blog . His performance work takes place in spaces dedicated to contemporary art and live performance art, but also university or scientific seminars. He collaborates with researchers, artists and collectives such as  (with Emilie Hermant, Vinciane Despret, Isabelle Stengers...).

In recent years, his work has focused on new epistemologies of the Caribbean, non-extractive art practices, diasporic identities and the creation of alternative pedagogical platforms to train Caribbean researchers, artists and cultural actors. He participates in the Rayo inter-Caribbean research programme and develops residency and cultural mediation programmes from a decolonial perspective. He is scientific adviser to the seminar programme for the Year 2024 of Overseas Territories in France.

Adom is an ethnographer and grandchild of the Caribbean whose work spans: (I) Black and Indigenous ecologies, hurricane survivals and repair; (II) the material & affective afterlives of slavery in his natal Bristol; and (III) Caribbean kinship and fatherhood. Methodologically, he is committed to collaborative and experimental ethnographies and his work seek to ‘ground’ live questions – on environmental racial justice, how we remember slavery and Caribbean fatherhood – within public dialogues. From 2019 to 2023 he led the GCRF , mapping hurricane survivals and repair in Dominica. From 2017 to 2022 he was a Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths University. Prior to that he held a post-doc (2017) at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), ������Ƶ - where he developed the  for Senate House Library. He is currently Lecturer in Visual Anthropology at the University of Bristol.

Carole manages Peabody Blackfriars and Brookwood Triangle community gardens in Southwark, South ������Ƶ. In 2020, Carole initiated , a grassroots-led, intergenerational project supportive of social housing residents and QTIBIPOC (queer, trans, intersex, Black, indigenous people of colour). The project will build on existing work, particularly the thirty four years of community work by Carole, to provide a long-term legacy within the communities where she lives and works. For more information, follow Blak Outside on or .

The programme was made possible by the Banister Fletcher Global Fellowship in Urban Studies

The Banister Fletcher Global Fellowship in Urban Studies is a ������Ƶ initiative to foster experientially embedded attention to urban dynamics of welfare, collective life, and inventiveness in and of solidarity. Much scholarship focuses on macro-factors in global city analysis, stressing the intensification of global competition between urban centres. This emphasis tends to occlude significant transformation of community-led innovation, knowledge and practices, which are increasingly shaping cultures of access to public and private spaces, just as they are generating new vernaculars and alternative forms of circular economies and infrastructures for living together. Can these processes be mapped, shared, rerouted from what are often perceived as ‘only’ local dynamics into a transnational frame? 

The ������Ƶ Institute in Paris will be launching the new round of applications for the 2023-2024 Fellowship on 2nd May 2023 and will be inviting expressions of interest via the link on the ������Ƶ Institute in Paris website: Banister Fletcher Global Fellowship.

The ������Ƶ Institute in Paris is a unique centre for Franco-British academic exchange with over a century of history. Rooted in the diverse and rich environment of Paris, our interdisciplinary research spans four themes: Mobilities, Environmental Politics, City Studies, Literary Studies, Cultural Translation, Multilingualism, Contemporary Political Theory, and Knowledge Diplomacy.

The ������Ƶ Institute in Paris’ research takes a comparative and connected approach, situating France and the francophone world within local diversity and global dynamics. Engaging actively with Parisian communities, our work explores emerging practices and cultures, extending its impact beyond academia through partnerships with various entities.

Supported by a vibrant community of postgraduate students and academic visitors, the ������Ƶ Institute in Paris hosts research seminars and events throughout the year. In collaboration with prestigious research institutions in Paris and ������Ƶ, we contribute to the intersection of cultural production, international politics, and environmental humanities.