The Creative Life of Research at FZA Bayreuth: Research as an art experience

When research becomes art: Encounters with African worlds

The vernissage The Creative Life of Research: Encounters with African Worlds opens on October 28, 2026, in Bayreuth, featuring an exhibition that makes scientific research visible as a creative, sensory, and relational process. The works of twelve doctoral candidates from the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies will be presented, whose perspectives trace connections through Africa and its diaspora.

Artistic research between sketch, image, and sound

At the center of the exhibition are sketches, paintings, photographs, films, field notes, and sound works. These different media showcase traces of research that often remain invisible in classical scientific publications. The works arise from encounters with African life worlds and invite familiar patterns of thinking to be questioned.

From Benin and Brazil to Tunisia and Sudan, a multifaceted geographical and cultural resonance space unfolds. The exhibition connects aesthetic experience with cultural education and opens a vivid access to questions of knowledge production, representation, and collaboration.

An exhibition about the emergence of knowledge

The curators Nihal Ouazzani Chahdi, Victoria Ifeoluwa Amaechi, and Valerie V.V. Gruber understand research not as a completed process but as an open process of listening, observing, and jointly reinventing. The presented works appear as unfinished, relational traces: They show how knowledge takes shape through perception, imagination, and social relationships.

This places the exhibition at the intersection of contemporary art, African studies, and Artistic Research. Painting, photography, installation, film, and sound enter into dialogue with ethnographic and cultural scientific questions. The exhibition makes visible how closely scientific expertise and artistic design can be intertwined.

Special program for the opening

The opening starts at 6 PM in seminar room S 145 of the Africa Research Center. Welcoming words will be addressed by Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Seesemann, Dean of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Prof. Dr. Natasha Kelly, Scientific Director of the Iwalewahaus, and Prof. Dr. Thoko Kaime, Head of BIGSAS.

A particular highlight is the unique screening of three short documentaries from the project Marqa by Samah Khalaf Allah. The films address queer presence during the Sudanese revolution and expand the exhibition with a cinematic, political, and socially engaged perspective.

Official channels of BIGSAS and Africa Multiple:

• Instagram: no official profile found
• Facebook: no official profile found
• YouTube: no official profile found
• Website: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/

Conclusion: An art experience between science and imagination

The vernissage offers an extraordinary art experience for all who are interested in contemporary art, African worlds, scientific image production, and new forms of knowledge dissemination. The exhibition atmosphere combines visual impressions, cinematic perspectives, and sound dimensions into an open contemplation of the works. Those who want to experience how research transcends texts and data into images, spaces, and relationships should visit this exhibition live at the FZA.

Sources:

• Region Bayreuth – Event details for the vernissage
• Region Bayreuth – Exhibition period and information
• Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence – University of Bayreuth
• Kulturzettel Bayreuth – Exhibitions and cultural program