On May 4, 2024, the Art Gallery of York University launches Uncontainable Collections: Speculative Futures of Objects a limited-series podcast featuring three conversations exploring the prospective and yet-unknown condition of the might-be through the lens of museum collections and contemporary art.

In this series, scholars, curators, and artists engage with articulations, expressions, and representations of the (im)possible, (extra)ordinary, and (un)imaginable—i.e., speculative—futures that diverse individuals, groups, communities, and societies are envisaging, dreaming, composing, conjuring, imagining, and bringing into being. Please stay tuned for episodes with Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Ayana V. Jackson, Camille Turner, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Subash Thebe Limbu, and Crystal Mowry.

This series developed from conversations between AGYU curators, Lillian O’Brien Davis and Clara Halpern, and Anthropology Professor Zulfikar Hirji related to the University’s art collection and a course at York University that considers various perspectives: Indigenous Futurisms, African Futurisms, Afro-American Futurisms, Arab/Gulf/Muslim Futurisms, Asian/Sino/Indo/South-Asian/Adivasi Futurisms, MesoAmerican/LatinX Futurisms.

Uncontainable Collections: Speculative Futures of Objects is the third in a series of programs that are part of the Uncontainable Collections Research Project presented by AGYU. This annual workshop series re-orients York University’s art collection, serving as a pedagogical tool for faculty, students, and arts practitioners while also informing the development of collection guidelines that promote ethical current practices of collections care. In 2023, the thematic was Permanence/Impermanence: The Life of Public Art, featuring Allison Glenn, Vanessa Kwan, Mohammed Laouli, and Raqs Media Collective, and was moderated by Jenifer Papararo. In 2022, the first iteration of the series focused on African cultural and ceremonial objects, featuring Sanchita Balachandran, Dr. Gus Casely-Hayford OBE, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Ciraj Rassool, moderated by Liz Ikiriko.

Zulfikar Hirji, co-host, is Associate Professor in Anthropology at York University. His research explores Muslim materialities in coastal East Africa before the twentieth century, with particular focus on a corpus of illuminated Qur’an manuscripts produced on Pate Island in the Lamu Archipelago between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The first episode is currently available on our website, located here: https://agyu.art/project/vessels-voyages/ Alternately, you can follow the series on Soundcloud or subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.