Upcoming Events
Image: Ghost ship off the south-eastern coast of Barbados, 2017. Image courtesy Dr S Ayesha Hameed
Upcoming Events
Events are co-organised by the The Art School: GSA Students' Association and The GSA Public Lecture Series.
Unless otherwise stated, all events are open to the public.
Events are always free.
If you require any further assistance/information to attend the event, please do let us know by contacting us.
You can view our further Accessibility statement here.
Talk
Digital Colonialism:
The Threat of Neutrality
Libby Odai
Technology is often touted as a “neutral tool” but how does this “neutrality” become a form of oppression?
In this lecture we will learn about the history and manifestations of digital colonisation, its future and digital resistance.
From guns to AI, missionaries to influencers, phrenology to facial recognition. Looking at the “Tools of Empire”, Libby Odai links the methods of colonial past to the present. Through exploration of technology we will see how neocolonialism is defined and
developed with technological advances, and how this is realised in the digital present.
This event will be live captioned

Image courtesy Libby Odai
Seminar
Decolonising the
Digital Self
Libby Odai
This seminar provides an opportunity to unpack and discuss ideas explored in the lecture Digital Colonialism: the threat of neutrality. Participants will explore strategies for decolonising our digital selves through informal group discussion and an introduction to subversive techniques that can aid in decolonising digital diets.
This event will have automated captions.
Libby Odai is a creative technologist based in Glasgow, developing and producing digital sculpture and performance with digital elements. She has previously produced digital works shown at Dancebase Edinburgh, The University of Edinburgh, Plat:form and the Swap Market in Govanhill.
Her work focuses on bringing digital concepts into the physical world. By breaking down barriers in technology, blending traditional arts such as dance and crochet with high tech components, she brings tech to new more diverse audiences. Her work aims to bridge the STEM gap as well as exploring the creative applications of new technology.
Lecture
Knocking on the Door: Complaints and Other Stories about Institutions
Sara Ahmed
16 February 2021
17:30 - 19:00
Online via Zoom
Free, tickets available soon.
In this lecture, Sara Ahmed will share some stories of making complaints about abuses of power at universities. She will show how complaints can bring so much about institutions into view. The lecture attends to how and why doors come up in stories about making complaints. It concludes with a consideration of the work of "complaint collectives" and how, by complaining, we can keep "knocking on the door" of institutions not in order to demand entry, but to cause disturbance.
Sara Ahmed is an independent feminist scholar and writer. Her work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. Her book Complaint! is forthcoming with Duke University Press in September 2021. Her previous publications include What's the Use: On the Uses of Use (2019); Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010), Queer Phenomenology (2006), The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014, 2004), Strange Encounters (2000) and Differences that Matter (1998).
This event will have live captions.
