ASAI is an independent visual arts research initiative based at the University of Cape Town. Working in the spaces between and across art history, art criticism, art education and art practice, ASAI situates itself as part of the broader projects of reclaiming art as a socially engaged practice, and of recentering Africa and the global south in a new international art history. ASAI’s project is effectively an ‘art history from below’, where history is shaped by practitioners and is as much about learning from the past as it is a process of engaging the present in order to influence the future. Knowledge production and making meaning is as much about critical reflection on ‘yesterday’ as it is about taking charge and shaping ‘tomorrow’. Historically, most of ASAI’s projects have been produced for its website, an online research platform that hosts several distinct but complementary projects. These include an international journal (Third Text Africa), digital archives of African artists (Enhancing Visibility) and community organizations (People’s Culture), and the South African Artists Index and Bibliography. While most of ASAI’s work occurs in this accessible, cost-effective virtual space that has a wide global reach, ASAI also works in real time, through exhibitions, publications, workshops and public discussions.
