SKULKESKOLEN
Plattform: Kathryn Yusoff and Nolan Oswald Dennis
15:30
Del av SKULKESKOLEN, 2–6 September 2026
Kathryn Yusoff, Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London, works at the fault lines between geology, race, and subjectivity, tracing how inhuman and nonorganic materialities underwrite these categories and their relations. Nolan Oswald Dennis is an artist, currently in residence at Bergen Kunsthall’s Live Studio. Dennis’ practice works through the material and metaphysical layers of decolonization, their recent research turning toward Black Earth Study, a cosmo-poetic framework that stages an encounter between Black Study and Earth Science.
The two practices share a common grammar. Structured as a call-and-response, this conversation gives space for Dennis and Yusoff to sound through a shared vocabulary, across geology and cosmology, sediment and study, extraction and refusal. Together, they ask how the ground itself becomes a site of memory, relation, and world-making beyond the colonial imagination.
Kathryn Yusoff joins the conversation online.
Kathryn Yusoff is Professor of Inhuman Geography in the School of Society & Environment at Queen Mary University of London. Her research examines how inhuman and nonorganic materialities shape understandings of environmental change, race and subjectivity. She is the author of A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None (University of Minnesota Press, 2018), Geologic Life: Inhuman Intimacies and the Geophysics of Race (Duke University Press, 2024), and Planetary Portals, with Casper Laing Ebbensgaard and Kerry Holden (Goldsmiths University Press, 2026). Her work theorizes the processes by which race and racialization emerged geologically and how geophysical forces shape racialized environmental experiences.
Nolan Oswald Dennis is an artist based in Johannesburg. Their practice explores the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonization, questioning histories of space and time through system-specific interventions. They hold a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and a master’s degree in art, culture, and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Swiss Institute, New York; and Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town. They have been featured in group exhibitions at FRONT Triennial, Cleveland; the Lagos Biennial; the Liverpool Biennial; MACBA, Barcelona; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Seoul Mediacity Biennale; the Shanghai Biennale; and the Young Congo Biennale, among others. They are a member of artist groups NTU and Index Literacy Program, a research associate with the VIAD Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg, and a member of the Édouard Glissant Art Fund Scientific Committee. They were invited by Koyo Kouoh to participate in the 61st Venice Biennale.
Plattform is Bergen Kunsthall’s series of lectures and debates. This summer we present lectures and conversations in connection with the exhibitions of Anawana Haloba and Hanni Kamaly. This Plattform event will not be streamed live but will be recorded and posted on our website, Facebook and Vimeo.
Also part of SKULKESKOLEN
Saturday 5 Sept: Dr. Memory Biwa · C.A.N.V.A.S
Credits
The first edition of SKULKESKOLEN is co-curated by Jade Meili Barget and Nora O’ Murchú and developed in partnership with the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick in Ireland. The programme is generously supported by Culture Ireland, as part of Cultúr 2026: Sharing Ireland’s Culture, the culture programme for Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2026, Fritt Ord, KORO, Kulturrådet/Arts Council Norway, Mondriaan Fund and Sparebanken Norge.
Design: Minami Shimakage.
