ROZEMIN KESHVANI

 “For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”  - Audrey Lourde

I am a maker. I give ideas living form by thinking through exhibition-making and writing.  My work harnesses art, poetry, voice and archive to become creative productive forces. I engage critically with art historical narratives to challenge accepted canons by activating archives and oral histories to re-frame our encounter with the past and reset our vision and imaginations for the future. My strategies aim to dislocate and disengage deeply-held narratives, catalysing truth to reveal itself through encounters that combine visual practices with performance, documentation, object-based research and voice. Together, as artists, viewers and curators, we decolonise archives, re-situate narratives and unashamedly disrupt the canon. We must be fearless as we confront the conditions that make possible the creation of works of art and the knowledges they harbour.

I have recently completed a five year research project, producing an extensive volume on the so-called 'A' Course, a radical experiment in art education undertaken at St. Martin's School of Art beginning in 1969. The publication, The Locked Room (MIT Press, 2020) includes interviews, conversations, and writings from participants alongside never-before-published photographs and archival documentation. It presents more than thirty student projects, spanning four years of inventive instruction by its four tutors, Peter Atkins, Garth Evans, Peter Harvey, and Gareth Jones, as well as student-initiated games and actions.  The project was co-sponsored by the Henry Moore Institute and the Paul Mellon Foundation and the editorial board have combined to produce The Locked Room blog.

In 2019, I co-organised Dreams & Dystopias, an exhibition exploring contemporary post-colonial East Africa at the crossroads through the lenses of two powerful image makers. The photography of renowned artist and photojournalist Guillaume Bonn is (Madagascar, Kenya, France) captures post-colonial East Africa through war-torn dystopic landscapes perennially poised between the promise of commerical extraction and legacies of colonial failure. Bonn’s images depict place as archaeological sites shuttering an unreachable disappearing past, barely effable but through the echoes of its fragments and traces. The poignancy of a past to which one can never return; ‘le mal d’Afrique’ some have called it; yet one that remains ever-present in its decaying architectural  landscape. Grace Nditiru (Kenya, UK) creates 'hand-crafted' videos and experimental photography of elusive beauty, potent insight and depict a sensitive approach to institutional critique, post-colonial healing and social transformation. 

Co-sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society, viewers were invited to engage with archival images and documentation that interrogated the colonial history of East Africa, including the transatlantic slave trade and the earliest British explorations to find the source of the Nile. Geo-political displays engaged viewers to consider the impact of climate change, migration and practices of extraction. 

Between 2010-2014, I organised the curatorial project and related exhibitions for a 1960s counterculture radical bookshop,   Better Books | Better Bookz: Art, Anarchy, Apostasy and the Avant-Garde  and  produced the exhibition research monograph published under the same name (Koenig Books, 2019). 

I have organised exhibitions for Zamana Space, The Ismaili Centre, Flat Time House, Bartha Contemporary and Laure Genillard Gallery in London as well as the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany and the Trondheim kunstmuseum in Norway. 

I am currently pursuing PhD research in philosophy and aesthetics with Howard Caygill to uncover Kant's theory of life. I completed my MPhil at CRMEP, Kingston University and have a Masters in Art History from Christies Education and the University of Glasgow.