Decolonising concepts through memes

Workshop Call: “Decolonizing Concepts through Memes”

Date: March 18, 2025, Time: 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Date: March 26, 2025, Time: 12:00-4:00pm

Date: April 1, 2025, Time: 1-5pm

Date: April 10, 2025, Time: 2-6pm

Workshop Overview:

Join us for an interactive workshop on “Decolonizing Concepts through Memes,” where participants will take inspiration in the Brazilian sociologist and educator, Paulo Freire, and French Philosopher, Henri Bergson, to critically deconstruct mythologies of AI and creatively reinterpret visual media, and the transformative potential of memes to challenge and disrupt colonial narratives embedded in political, social, and cultural concepts as reinforced by predictive and generative AI.

Workshop facilitator:

This workshop is facilitated by Dr Christoffer Guldberg, who has written extensively on the war on drugs and online activism and violence in Brazil and beyond, most recently in a peer-reviewed article on multi-modal memes. By bringing his research on the war on drugs, AI and memes into the university in this interactive workshop he intends to push the boundaries of participatory research and active learning. His teaching methods have been published as blogs and peer-reviewed article at King’s Academy, the University of Warwick, and the KCL Decolonial Blog, undotcomfortable, and he hosts a podcast on decolonising AI at KCL – a Mostly Human Podcast.

Objectives:

• Examine Coloniality in Visual Media: Begin with guided Google Image searches of terms like “International Development,” “Refugee,” or “Drug Trafficker” to critically assess how visual representations reflect and reinforce colonial, racialized, and gendered biases.
• Creative Disruption: After identifying biases, participants will reframe these narratives by creating layered, multi-modal memes, drawing on their own knowledge and experience. Using screenshots from their searches, participants will draw, write, and collage over images, challenging the colonial undertones of these depictions.
• Collaboration and Sharing: Participants will be able to share and develop each other’s works, both through institutional channels and their own networks, echoing the iterative and community-driven nature of meme culture online and offline.
• Competition and Exhibitions:

Selected works will be displayed at our exhibition at the Science Gallery, inviting feedback and engagement from a broader audience and continuing the critical conversations initiated in the workshop.

Agenda:

*2:00 pm – 2:45 pm: Introduction – Concept and Coloniality
2:45 pm – 3:30 pm: Hands-on Image Search and Critical Analysis Exercise
3:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Coffee Break
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Creative Meme-Making Session
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm: Sharing and Group Reflection

*Note: While each workshop follows the same sequence of activities, the start and end times vary by date to align with the different start times. This is to make sure that staff and students with different schedules and responsibilities have the chance to attend.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is open to all students, as well as teaching and research staff, including PhD students, who are interested in media literacy, decolonial studies, and creative forms of resistance. No prior experience with meme creation is required.

Registration:

Please register by Skillsforge: Register here

Embark on a critical journey with us to uncover and subvert colonial narratives through the power of digital media and meme-making!