Fiona Siegenthaler
Siegenthaler, Fiona (Lic. Phil / MA Art History, University of Basel, 2005; PhD Social Anthropology, University of Basel, 2012).
Dr. Fiona Siegenthaler is an art historian and social anthropologist with a specialization in the interdisciplinary field of contemporary African art, performance, and visual culture. Since October 2021, she is the senior curator of the Africa department at Linden-Museum Stuttgart (Germany). In this position, she engages in various collaborations towards decolonizing curatorial work and addressing the colonial legacy of the Africa collections.
From 2012-2018, she held an Assistant Professor position at the Institute for Social Anthropology at the University of Basel where she served for many years as a senior lecturer. Following her PhD (2012) on Imageries of Johannesburg. Visual Arts and Spatial Practices in a Transforming City, she coordinated the SNF-funded research project Art/Articulation: Art and the Formation of Social Space in African Cities (2015-2018). Her post-doctoral research focused on the contemporary art scene of Kampala (Uganda). She was awarded a Fulbright Visiting Scholarship at the Department of Art History and Archaeology and the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, New York (2018).
She has published widely on contemporary art in Uganda and South Africa, on creative practice, public art and performance art in African cities, as well as decolonial practices and processes in academic and cultural institutions, amongst other in Critical African Studies, Critical Interventions, Critical Arts, African Arts, Social Dynamics, Journal of Transcultural Studies or Research in African Literatures.
Recent publications (selection):
Siegenthaler, F. (2023): “Provocation, Resistance, and the Arts of Persuasion: Between the Rhetoric of ‘No’ and ‘No’ to Rhetoric in Challenging Socio-political Settings”, in NO Rhetoric(s). Versions and Subversions of Resistance in Contemporary Global Art, eds. S. Alonso Gomez, I. Piniella, N. Radwan, and E. Rosauro. Diaphanes/University of Chicago Press, pp. 175-198.
Nagawa, M. and Siegenthaler, F. (2022): “Higher Art Education and New Initiatives in Kampala: Potentials and Problems of Decolonising Knowledge”, in: Decolonising State & Society in Uganda. The Politics of Knowledge & Public Life, eds. K. Bruce-Lockart, J. Earle, N. Musisi and E. Taylor. James Currey, 2022, pp. 222-243.
Bublatzky, C. and Siegenthaler, F., eds. (2022): (Un)sighted Archives of Migration—Spaces of Encounter and Resistance. Routledge. Book publication of special issue Visual Anthropology 34(4), with a new foreword by M. de Bruijn.
Hopmann, S. and Siegenthaler, F., eds. (2021): Hey, do you know Rudolf Duala Manga Bell? Book accompanying Hey Hamburg, Kennst du Rudolf Duala Manga Bell?, an exhibition for young people. Hamburg: MARKK.
Battaglia, G., Clarke J., and Siegenthaler, F., eds. (2020): Bodies of Archives / Archival Bodies. Special issue Visual Anthropology Review 36(1).
Förster, T., and Siegenthaler, F., eds. (2019): Aesthetics of Articulation. Basel Paper on Political Transformations no. 18/19.
Siegenthaler, F. and Allain Bonilla, M.-L., eds. (2019): Dekoloniale Prozesse an Schweizer Hochschulen und Kulturinstitutionen: empirische und theoretische Ansätze. Tsantsa 24/2019 (Zeitschrift der Schweizerischen Ethnologischen Gesellschaft).
Siegenthaler, F., Nzewi, U.-S., and Siegert, N. eds. (2018): Rethinking the Dialectics of Rural & Urban in African Art and Scholarship. Special issue Critical Interventions 12(3).
Siegenthaler, F. and Förster, T., eds. (2018): Re-Imagining African Cities. The Arts and Urban Politics. Special issue Social Dynamics 44(3).
Pensa, I., Pucciarelli, M., Siegenthaler, F., Douala Bell, M., Verschuren, K., Nibbeling, X., Adukaite, A., de la Chapelle, M., eds. (2017): Public Art in Africa. Art and Urban Transformations in Douala. Geneva: Métis Presses.
Siegenthaler, F. (2017): Imageries of Johannesburg. Visual Arts and Spatial Practices in a Transforming City. Publication of the PhD thesis completed at the University of Basel in 2011.