Producing a World of Remains in Indian Ocean Africa: Discrepant Time, Melancholy Affect and the Subject of Transport in Capital Art Studio, Stone Town, Zanzibar

Capital Art Studio in Stone Town, Zanzibar, employs a unique visual idiom that challenges the heritage industry's narrative by re-presenting the city as a 'melancholy palimpsest.' This approach simultaneously evokes Zanzibar's past as an 'island metropolis' while resisting its consignment to history. The studio's photographic archive reveals discrepant temporalities, offering surfaces for self-fashioning that contrast with those of other postcolonial studios. By framing the past within a neoliberal global order, the studio articulates a time that was both cosmopolitan and commodifying, providing a nuanced perspective on Zanzibar's complex historical interface between the Indian Ocean world and continental Africa.

Samuelson, M. (2016). Producing a World of Remains in Indian Ocean Africa: Discrepant Time, Melancholy Affect and the Subject of Transport in Capital Art Studio, Stone Town, Zanzibar. African Studies, 75(2), 233–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2016.1182318