A Virtual Presentation on African Literary Restitution by Angela Wachuka
Join us on September 30, 2025, for Worlding from Below: Mapping African Literary Spaces, a virtual presentation by Angela Wachuka, Co-Founder of Book Bunk. This event is part of the AAL Lab convening series Contemporary Art and Archive Practices (CAAP), jointly organised by Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation and Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.) within the framework of the Re:assemblages programme. Across 2025–26, CAAP will unfold as a constellation of hybrid public convenings exploring the porous borders between contemporary art and archival practice. The series welcomes the inaugural African Arts Libraries (AAL) Lab and Affiliates Network, incubated under Re:assemblages, alongside the wider public.
Worlding from Below: Mapping African Literary Spaces critically engages with the concept of African literary restitution as the reclamation, restoration, and activation of African literary archives shaped by colonial legacies. The convening follows the 2025 premiere of How to Build a Library, a documentary by Maia Lekow and Christopher King that accompanies Shiro Koinange and Angela Wachuka in the founding of Book Bunk, a charitable trust established in 2017 to restore public libraries in Nairobi, including the McMillan Memorial Library, a former whites-only colonial library established in 1931. Angela will share insights on the transformation of the former McMillan Memorial Library into a living civic infrastructure anchored by women-led and community-centered approaches.
Event Details
Date: 30th September 2025
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 WAT (GMT +1)
Location: Online (Zoom Webinar)
This webinar is free to attend, however it is essential to register to receive the link to attend.
About the Speaker
Angela Wachuka
Angela Wachuka is Co-Founder of Book Bunk, an organisation restoring Nairobi's iconic public libraries. She previously led Kwani Trust, East Africa's pioneering literary journal and publishing house. After earning a degree in Anthropology & Law from the London School of Economics (LSE), she worked at BBC's African News and Current Affairs. Wachuka has held fellowships at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts (Washington DC) and the Obama Foundation. Her expertise spans media, popular culture and creative industries. She has served as a judge for the Caine Prize for African Writing and PublisHer Excellence Awards. She is publisher at Bunk Books and director at Nairobi Litfest, an annual literary festival anchored in Nairobi’s public libraries. In January 2025, How to Build a Library, a documentary film chronicling Book Bunk’s founders, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
About the Facilitator
Naima Hassan
Naima Hassan is a researcher, curator, and archivist based in Berlin. Her practice foregrounds alternative epistemologies, curatorial and archival ethics, with a focus on the epistemic transformation of postcolonial collections and memory cultures. She currently leads Re:assemblages, jointly developed with Guest Artists Space Foundation and Yinka Shonibare Foundation, as Associate Curator and Archivist. Under the multi-year programme Re:assemblages, she aims to connect the G.A.S. Library and Picton Archive and other allied archives to a transnational network of communities, artists, scholars, and institutions.
The AAL convening series is made possible through the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art.
