Hi there !
Welcome ! Welcome ! Akwaba ! My name is Keren Lasme, I am an aesthete, researcher, interdisciplinary artist and your writer-host in this little writing corner dedicated to my writing practice and a literature project called KOKOBA: Meeting Our Griots / À la Rencontre de Nos Griots.
Kokoba means griot/storyteller in Ahizi and Odjoukrou, two Akan languages of Côte d’Ivoire. For this project, this word serves as a metaphor and a sacred container for African literatures and literary arts. KOKOBA stands at the intersection of art, research, archiving, documenting and education. It uses the transformative power of storytelling, books, self-study and collective study to expand our sense of possibility in all directions for the purpose of (inner) world-bending, (inner) world-mending and (inner) world-making. It embraces the healing qualities of storytelling and sees African literature as a playground to negotiate freedom, healing, revelation, remembrance and the reconfiguration of social imaginaries.
KOKOBA embodies a deep commitment to sharing, learning and teaching thus, it takes on multiple forms of expression from lecture performances, study circles, library curations, curated soundlists, syllabus and database creation/curation, online courses and much more. This newsletter is the most recent iteration of KOKOBA and I am glad to have you here as a reader. Expect to hear from me around the new or full moon or anytime in between when a piece of writing wishes to be born !
This newsletter is free to read but if you can afford to become a paid subscriber, you will invite more ease into my research and writing practice and contribute to watering the roots of KOKOBA.
Bia! Bia! Bia! (thank you!)
More dreaming and water gazing,
Keren
