The BA + DA and R | O research streams have established vital partnerships with collaborators whose contributions are critical to advancing the decolonial mandate that VIAD upholds. These collaborations are central to our approach, highlighting the importance of shared knowledge, diverse perspectives, and collective agency in shaping the transformative programming that VIAD facilitates. These partners include:

This long-term partnership between R | O and the Ruth J. Simmons Centre for the Study of Slavery and Justice in collaboration with the Africa Institute, culminates in its third phase with The Imagined New Volume III – Confronting Violence and Catastrophe: War, Grief, and Hope.

R | O established a media partnership with Culture Review Magazine for the Radical AddLib feature which acts as is a living library that archives and adds to ongoing documentation of practices of freedom by African and African-Diaspora artists, bridging the gap between scholarly concepts and accessible public engagement through critical writing.

BA+DA is partnering with the Dutch organisation Zone2Source Testing Ground for Art & Ecology to develop the Decolonial bioart and design: Tools and practices towards multispecies climate justice project.

BA+DA is a lead curatorial partner in Fluid Boundaries: The Interplay of Water, Art, Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. South African partners include Tankwa Artscape Residency Programme, the UJ Water and Health Research Centre (WHRC), and the Environmental and Water Science Programme at University of the Western Cape. Swiss partners include Artists-in-Labs Programme at Zurich University of the Arts, Departments of Environmental Microbiology and Aquatic Ecology at Eawag – Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, IBSA Foundation for Scientific Research and Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, both in Lugano. Brazilian partners include Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and Portas Vilaseca Galeria, Rio de Janeiro.

BA+DA has an inter-institutional partnership with the Fine Arts Departments of Wits and Stellenbosch University. Titled Uncertain Entanglements, the partnership explores the art–science interface through the areas of bioart and biodesign (UJ), physical science and electronics (Wits) and forensic science (Stellenbosch).

Through partnership with the WHRC, BA+DA works with environmental health and social scientists in the Gauteng Research Triangle. This extends its functional partnerships to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), University of Pretoria and the South African Medical Research Council.

Afrifungi (a Johannesburg-based-company that specialises in outdoor mushroom growing).

The International Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Network (DESIS)