Kim Gurney

Dr Kim Gurney is a Research Fellow at Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, and affiliated as Research Associate at African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town.

She is currently focused upon two books projects. Panya Routes surfaces the DIY institution-building principles of independent art spaces in various fast-changing cities in Africa, driven by purpose not profit. Flipside pays close attention to the backstage, invisible labour of institution building as curatorial practice by investigating a 50-year document archive of the Cape’s oldest non-profit arts associations and bringing it to literary life.

Kim’s academic work focuses upon contemporary art, city futures, and ideas around the commons - with a special interest in public art & public space, independent art spaces and institution-building. Her PhD explored art as a vector of value, positing an ecological model that put public interest first.

Kim is a former newsroom journalist and news editor, which inflects her range of writing and experiments with form - See Writing. She has recently produced digital storymaps, an artist book, a photobook, a creative non-fiction book, a visual narrative, and media articles. Kim favours an interdisciplinary approach and arts-based investigative methods.

Selected recent public engagements

'Together we can do so much'

Urban graffiti on the steps of Museum Afrika, Newtown
Photo: Kim Gurney

*Sep 2022. ‘Arts Research Africa’ international conference at Wits School of Arts, Johannesburg, paper titled ‘Epistemic Disobedience: Institution-building as artistic practice’ - summarising the key findings articulated in Panya Routes, the working principles independent art spaces have in common, extended by recent research trip to Nafasi Academy in Dar es Salaam, Video of talk available here
*Oct 2021. ‘New Shapes’, Nafasi Academy - thematic residency and lab – exploring alternative ecological frameworks. Research Module: Academic Strategies. Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, Lecture title: ‘Follow the thing’ (research method).
*22 June 2021. Public seminar: ‘Flipside: The Inadvertent Archive’, Centre for Humanities & Department of History Seminar, University of the Western Cape. Via zoom.
*Sep 2020. MayDay: Decolonisation, power and the public space, a podcast produced by Bozar, a centre for fine arts in Brussels, Belgium. “How should our streets, statues and monuments reflect the world we live in? Stella Nyanchama Okemwa, from the Belgian NGO Hand in Hand against Racism, is clear: we need to radically rethink how we celebrate power. In this episode, we take inspiration from South Africa, where #RhodesMustFall has created a space for unofficial rolling artwork, where anyone can take the stage. Writer and artist Kim Gurney, who has examined the case up close, shares her experiences with us.” Available on Spotify.
*2-19 January 2019, panelist and workshop participant, ‘Africa as concept and method – Decolonisation, Emancipation and Freedom’, Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Art & Design, Ethiopia, Hosted by Centre for Humanities Consortium International (CHCI).
*9 February 2019, panelist on #Freespace: ‘Places of Remembrance’, Zeitz MOCAA, V&A Waterfront, Exploring how the notion of memory and heritage can be celebrated in contemporary place making. Curated by Instinct with Zeitz MOCAA, V&A and UCT’s African Centre for Cities.
*28 May 2019, Public talk: ‘From platform to plotform: Artistic thinking in spaces of flux’. African Centre for Cities & Centre for Humanities Research (CHR). Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape.
*10 Dec 2019. Independent art spaces as urban indicators, a public talk at University of Leuven, Belgium. Cities in Development: Art in public spaces. Debate series on critical issues regarding cities of the global South, focusing in particular on how urban dwellers’ agency invents urban futures. Kim Gurney and Sandrine Colard, curator of the Lubumbashi Biennale, and Art Historian at Rutgers University. The talk was the final in a series, which included: Cities of exception, Cities of extraction, The right to the city, Colonial pasts and urban futures.
*30 November 2018, panel participant. Re-imagining as destruction and creation, Norval Art Foundation, UCT’s Centre for Curating the Archive. Re-imagining Museums and Archives - a symposium.
*11 Oct 2018, Seeing pink elephants: Performing the city, opening address at ‘Researching Public Art’ conference, The Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Hosted by Public Art Agency Sweden. Available on Youtube
*2-5 July 2018, Invited participant, Transversal writing workshop, co-ordinated by Catharina Gabrielsson and Helene Frichot at KTH Architecture School, Swedish House, Kavalla, Greece.
*5 April 2017, Performing the Present, keynote address at ‘Being (in) Public: Encounters - Outside Place / Inner Space’, international symposium, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Bbeyond in collaboration with Belfast School of Art at Ulster University. Keynote: Performing the Present (2017) - copy of text. This talk makes three moves through time and space to contemplate how art can help make sense of the contemporary moment and re-imagine city futures.
*April 2017, ‘In Focus’ programme, a TV interview by Northern Visions filmed on the occasion of delivering the address, above, at Being in Public, Belfast School of Art, Ulster University.
*July 2015, panel participant, ‘Dead Monuments’ convened by Professor Gavin Younge. Sorbonne, Paris. ECAS 2015. Title of Paper presented: ‘The Disappeared: Missing Artworks Task Force’.