In this pilot study, black feminist writer, researcher and lecturer Lola Olufemi assembles a glossary responding to ‘Gneiss’ the collaborative process that emerged between Touki – an independent platform centering Black voices in art, culture and politics, and artist Rehana Zaman. This open ended collaborative process was commissioned by BEK — Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts – in early 2025 and took the form of group meetings, meals, workshops, moving image experiments and collective writing culminating in an expanded screening and live performance with Daiyen Jone Castro as part of The Only Lasting Truth is Change Symposium in Bergen, November 2025.

In Lola’s text, keywords, rather than linear narratives, speak to the notion of the collective, not as a bounded, fixed group or form of enclosure but as a fluid set of relations. In this poetic and fragmented account, strangers become comrades and makers, feeling out together what it might mean to build a practice that is at once insurgent, tender and playful.

Context

This text is one of the pilot studies of Re-Imagine Europe: New Perspectives for Action. In these contributions we explore and reflect on artistic practices and experimental approaches in the cultural field that can engage and activate audiences and communities to address ecological, social, and political challenges. The pilot studies provide an overview of practices of cultural organisations that can serve as models, recipes, or tools for transformation for current and future generations of cultural workers and artists.

Read the pilot study directly on our website or download the PDF to save for later.