In his recent essay, “The Children of the Minotaur” OBI Global Senior Fellow Bayo Akomolafe invites us to reconsider the very essence of belonging and democracy against the backdrop of climate chaos, geopolitical upheavals, and declining trust in democratic institutions from less familiar vantage points. If liberal democracy were an art project, who or what would be the curator? What ingredients would need to be present to compose a compelling account of democratic citizenship in the 21st century? And what stories, archetypes, choreographies, cartographies, and concepts might help us reconvene freshly stimulating accounts of the ways we are governed, named, and held in regimes of belonging?

Join us on Thursday, February 2024 (8:00 AM - 9:30 AM PST / 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM ET / 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM CET) for our next event in the ongoing series The Edges in the Middle, where philosopher and political theorist Achille Mbembe and Bayo will think with and through everyday objects around us to explore liberal democracy, its limitations, and its possible futures. The objective is not to present a definitive view on democracy, but to embark on a provisional, tentative, and tactile adventure in shared inquiry about the sensorial field of democracy that raises new questions in our journeying together.