S3:E4 There and back again – Basadi Dibeela in conversation with Adrian Ellis

The Three Bells

In this episode, our host Adrian Ellis speaks with Botswana-based curator, DJ, and arts journalist Basadi Dibeela. Basadi shares her cultural journey that spanned various disciplines, in various countries and continents. The two then talk about Basadi’s recently published article for GCDN, Opportunities for Cultural Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from attending the GCDN 2022 Convening.

References:

• Opportunities for Cultural Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from attending the GCDN 2022 Convening – by Basadi Dibeela
• Latitudes CuratorLab – Online curatorial residency for emerging curators in Africa:
• Basadi’s CuratorLab Viewing Room
• Blantyre Arts Festival (BAF) – Arts Festival that promotes Malawian arts and culture:
• Tropical Storm Freddy – hurricane that devastated Malawi
• Sauti Za Busara – One of East Africa’s largest music festivals held in Zanzibar, Tanzania:
• MTN Bushfire - One of Africa’s largest multicultural music and arts festival
• New Americans Forum - a growing Social Forum focused on helping all refugees and immigrants communities and enhancing the American experience based in Syracuse, NY
• Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA) – West African art museum in Nigera
• MuseumFutures Africa - a pan-African, people-centred cultural project that works with museums across the continent to test, explore and study potentials for new formats of African museology
• Keleketla! Library – an arts archive, educational workshop and performance space in Johannesburg, South Africa
• Underground – nomadic and collaborative art space in Uganda
• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkman – book referenced during Adrian’s end segment

Basadi Dibeela Bio:

Basadi Dibeela is an arts and culture curator, DJ, and freelance arts journalist. Her work centres around arts, innovation, and sustainability. Drawn to villages as much as to cities, she is interested in an expansive and accessible art landscape that does not only look to - but seeks to find new expressions and vocabularies outside of cities and metropolitan areas. She is exploring what critical cultural placemaking looks in the context of a village, and the role of the artist, the curator, and the community in shaping what that could look like.

Previously, Basadi has worked as a strategic planner and programme developer, while serving on the board of the Kgosi Bathoen II Museum in her home village of Kanye, Botswana. As a social entrepreneur, Basadi started the Loselo Kultur Network, an organisation devoted to operating a multi-disciplinary arts and innovation space that encourages critical thinking, ideas exchange, experimentation. Basadi holds a Masters in Arts Journalism from Syracuse University in New York USA, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Botswana.