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<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #242424;">Good day all,</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #242424;">I am writing to you from Stellenbosch in South Africa, after some encouragement from a member within this network. I am currently in the process of identifying opportunities, possibilities and limitations for doing interdisciplinary <span style="text-decoration: underline;">practice based</span> (post-grad/MA) research and creative work in the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">visual arts and design fields,</span> conducted primarily within a de-colonial frame. I am seeking scholars, artist, legal professionals, designers etc., as well as institutions and collectives that I may partner/network with and build communities around in support of the work that I intend to engage with, starting in 2024/'25. I am particularly seeking connections in, or about regions and ecologies in the Indian Ocean basin and the African continent that have historically engaged with the (V.O.C) spice trade as well as contemporary (neo-colonial) trade discourses along/via the 'Cape of Good Hope' and the Suez canal. <br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #242424;">Please find below a broad description of my work and research interests, as well as my own positionality.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #242424;"></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #242424;"><strong>About My Research & Practice:</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #242424;">I am a (2021) BA Fine arts graduate from Stellenbosch University with a professional background in architectural design and natural building technologies. Since 2021 I have been seeking out interdisciplinary academic spaces and opportunities across the globe (particularly Africa & Indian Ocean basin) which support critical practice based research methodologies for exploring and developing effective decolonial strategies based within an ecological frame through artistic -/ design praxis. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #242424;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">My early professional practice began in the Architectural field, focusing on passive systems design and natural building technologies. In my personal capacity I have also designed and built dry composting toilets -/ and systems for large festivals and residential use. These explorations along with my early exposure to the work of Vandana Shiva, Michael Perenti, Naomi Klein and Donna Harraway would later activate and inform my creative work and this inspired me to pursue academic studies through a BA(Hons) degree in fine art. My student research focused primarily on early colonial -/ and settler colonial histories within the Cape and Indian Ocean basin during the 'Spice Trade' era. My creative practice often culminated into site-specific immersive experiences using natural phenomena / physics that include camera-obscura installations, light projections, improvisational soundscape performances and sculpture.<br /></span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #242424;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I am motivated by perceptions of abject histories of negative multinational corporate externalities. Particularly how these phenomena are/were manifested, facilitated and perceived throughout the development of 'Western' economic, political and ideological hegemonies, as experienced today. By revisiting my past work in composting toilet systems design I would like to further explore and develop creative strategies towards immersive cathartic experiences to this end. I have a particular interest in studying fundamental legal constructs and colonial ideologies that guide and regulate global corporate trade legislation since the V.O.C from the 17th century to the present. My work will respond to these factors and the urgency of its geopolitical and material expressions across the globe today. My creative practice aims to explore effective strategies to deconstruct / decompose these ideologies, constructs and systems through studies of soil ecology and natural ecologies of decomposition as a creative medium and bio-mimetic guide. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #242424;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #242424;"><strong>About My Positionality:</strong></span></p>
<p class="v1v1v1v1p1"><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="font-size: 9pt; color: #242424;">I was raised during the 1980's as a (Cape Creole, aka 'Coloured') male within a small community called Pniël between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. Pniël was established in 1843 as a Christian mission station (and labour pool) for previously enslaved individuals, immediately after the abolition of slavery in the Cape colony. Most of my ancestry is woven into the historical fabric of 17th cent. Cape agricultural slavery, settler colonialism, indentured labour in the early diamond mines of Kimberly, as well as indigenous groups along the Cape coast. </span></p>
<p class="v1v1v1v1p1"><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="color: #242424;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Growing up in a rural 'working class' village surrounded by über-elitist wine farms with a high land ownership turnover of mostly foreign nationals and consortia tugged my interest in socio-economic inequities from an early age. Observing and engaging with these wine farms and other dominant local institutions added to a direct lived experience of how ecological (incl. humyn) inequities and trauma are embodied within a postcolonial landscape and the mechanisms that enable it to persist. </span></span></p>
<p class="v1v1v1v1p1"><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="color: #242424;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">These immediate inequities along with my own specific challenges have significantly contributed to the delay and disruption of my personal and academic development. At 43 I have managed to successfully complete my undergraduate studies with minimal debt, however, I feel quite isolated and vulnerable in the pursuit of my particular research interests, especially within an increasingly hostile neoliberal environment. </span><br /></span></p>
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<p class="v1v1v1v1p1"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="color: #242424;">Thank you for taking the time to read my email. Please reach out if you feel compelled to and if think there might be opportunities and possibilities for us to work together or if you know of programs/projects, particularly within Afrika or the Indian Ocean basin that might be relevant to my work. I look forward to hearing back from some of you very soon.</span><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="color: #242424;"></span></span></p>
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<p class="v1v1v1v1p1"><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="color: #242424; font-size: 11pt;">Bright regards,</span></p>
<p class="v1v1v1v1p1"><span class="v1v1v1v1s1" style="color: #242424; font-size: 11pt;">Charles Palm</span></p>
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