Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 3: colourism, casteism and its intersections 🇳🇬
During her year-long residency with Wysing Arts Centre, Seema developed podCASTE—a podcast series where each episode focusses on caste within a particular area of the world. Specifically, podCASTE opens up discussions which go beyond the notorious South Asian caste system. The lo-fi audio you’re about to hear places you firmly on Earth. This is to say that podCASTE in fact falls outside of the fictional narrative of Youterus and under a newer strand of SEEMAWORLD: da~LIT. da~LIT takes the worldly non-fictional view of a researcher, a fan labourer and an external examiner of intertwining themes around: caste, queerness, race and gender.
podCASTE episodes are presented online on Wysing Broadcasts and as part of Seema’s exhibition, The Scrawny Beauties of Ethni City, at QUAD Derby, installed in bus shelters. Every fortnight, a new shelter opens up another episode in the exhibition and a new episode will appear on Wysing Broadcasts.
Leading up to the exhibition’s launch, there were controlled environments in which visitors were able to interact physically with the bus-stop-like space as they might in real life. As a result, visitors who encounter the shelters, as more become available over time, portal between the show’s main setting in the fictional place of Ethni City and real-life responses to caste-centric lived experiences which inform the fictive storytelling that surrounds them.
Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 3: colourism, casteism and its intersections 🇳🇬
Guest speaker: Tobi Adebajo (they/them)
Tobi’s interest in the topic of caste and casteism stems from a curiosity about what can be unearthed at the intersections of casteism and colourism - especially from a Nigerian context - to focus on seeking / creating worlds and spaces where we arrive to find healing and repair from this violence.
This podCASTE episode contains strong language throughout.
Resources for the episode (as mentioned in the episode):
- Discrimination based on descent in Africa, via The International Dalit Solidarity Network
About Tobi
Tobi Adebajo is an Anti-Disciplinary artist and Doula who navigates various creative / communal spheres. Tobi works as a full spectrum Birth and death Doula - Primarily supporting the QTIBIPoC community.
Tobi’s creative pieces primarily focus on communing with ‘the Other’ via Film, Movement, Sound, Visual & Written formats. Their works centre the depths & nuances of a variety of themes such as: Dis/Ability, Black Sexuality, Desire, Healing, Queer Love, & Yoruba traditions.