SITAAD is a platform and artistic-collaboration initiated by archivists Leyla Degan and Naima Hassan in 2022. Deriving their name from a type of devotional gathering organised by Somali women, sitaad as practice represents the sum that (de)occupies their artistic habitation of colonial sites, museums, and archives. SITAAD’s border-thinking is situated in the geographies of Soomaaliya Talyaani, Ingiriiska iyo Faransiiska (former Italian, British, and French Somaliland). Engaging the shadows cast by colonialism, they experiment with analogue formats, artistic methods, feminist epistemologies and Xirsi, a clandestine Somali practice of protection. They have organised and participated in residencies, exhibition presentations, public programmes and fellowships in international settings. Currently, they are 2023-24 Hub Residencies Fellows, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota in association with Soomaal House of Art. In the course of the fellowship, they aim to develop a socially-engaged and pedagogical framework for their long-term project Transmigrating Cassettes. SITAAD reside in Italy and Germany.
contact: info.sitaad@gmail.com
contact: info.sitaad@gmail.com