Rashaad Newsome in Conversation with Dr Michael T. Stuart (York University)

Rashaad Newsome

New Orleans-born Rashaad Newsome (b.1979), whose multi-disciplinary work explores Black and Queer space in art history, will present a new collection of collages that look to the cultural traditions of the past, the social complexities of the present, and the possibilities of the future. Using objects from the Sainsbury Centre’s collection, the collages will be utilised as part of a visual dialogue with African sculptures and masks that position them as older forms of technology.

Newsome has also been commissioned to make a new holographic work titled In the Absence of Evidence, We Create Stories (2024), which will be added to the exhibition during its run. This new piece will transform various objects from Africa in the Sainsbury Centre’s collection into futuristic cyborgs that poetically speak about their past, present, and future.

Dr Michael T. Stuart

Dr Michael Stuart is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of York, working on the epistemology and ethics of science. In particular, on scientific imagination, the aesthetics of science, and artificial intelligence.

Stuart is working on a book about scientific imagination and understanding, as well as beginning a project on the epistemic and ethical consequences of artificial intelligence in science, including the ways that AI might model, supplement, complement, or replace imagination in science, and the ways that AI might be said to instantiate scientific understanding.