Yaa Addae (she/they) is a writer, researcher, and participatory curator who is committed to imagining ways of being outside of the colonial structures we have inherited and holding space for collectively designing alternative systems to support this work.
They are currently investigating structural barriers to loving through Open Heart Clinic, a social design incubator for imagining future care infrastructure. Previously, Yaa founded A-KRA Studio which housed Decolonize The Art World, an anticolonial art history platform and The Imaginarium, a virtual residency program for Ghanaian digital artists. She also was the curatorial assistant for Ano Institute‘s travelling Kiosk museum, an experiment in creating exhibition architecture informed by locality. Alongside their cultural work, Yaa works in healthcare as a design researcher.
As Above / So Below
2024
As Above, So Below challenges the assumption that the internet is a ‘post-national’ space, highlighting the relationship between colonial cartographies and the hidden infrastructure that enables our networked lives. Utilising a Side A and Side B, this essay reflects on the duality of what is seen and unseen by drawing on instances demonstrating how subverting encoded colonial logic, both online and AFK, can enable alternate ways of relating to one another.
