You are cordially invited for the 2nd Lecture of the DOGtime lecture series 2025-2026: The Art of Being
DOGtime Lecture #2 by Wakanyi Hoffman
Date: Tuesday 11 November 2025
Time: 18:45 walk- in, 19:00 introduction, 19:15 start of the lecture.
The lecture will take about 1 hour, with a Q&A after the lecture.
Afterwards there is time for conversations until 21:30
Place: Theory Stairs at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie
The lecture is for all DOGtime -students, - teachers and - alumni
and open for Rietveld Students of other departments.
Lecture subject: In this lecture Wakanyi will explore the theme of the lecture series The Art of Being from her perspective on the human condition based on her expertise of African Indigenous knowledge, folk stories and her specialization on Ubuntu philosophy. How indigenous ways of relating with the Earth can be a tool for humanity to evolve in sync with nature and how this knowledge can be used to embed inclusive ethics into A.I. systems.
---
About Wakanyi Hoffman:
Wakanyi was born and raised in Kenya and is currently based in The Netherlands.
Wakanyi is a storyteller, an author, scholar of African Indigenous knowledge, specialized in Ubuntu philosophy.
As head of research of African Sustainable AI Systems at the Inclusive AI Lab, Utrecht University, she uses this knowledge to embed culturally inclusive ethics in emerging AI systems.
Wakanyi is the founder of the African Folktales Project, an ongoing open-sourced resource of indigenous wisdom and knowledge for school childrencreated to bridge the gap between Indigenous and contemporary African societies, and a co-founder of HumanityLink, a global system of digital communication solutions for marginalized populations. She is a board member of the Kenya Education Fund, providing high school education to marginalized gifted children. Advisory board member of the Inner Development Goals Foundation and the Citizens Assembly Network.
Wakanyi is a graduate of University College London; her thesis proposed the integration of Indigenous knowledge into global education systems.
ABOUT THE DOGTIME LECTURE SERIES 2025_2026:
The Art of Being
In the lecture series The Art of Being, artists and makers take centre stage as mediators between the self, the other, culture, technology, and nature.
Through their thinking, work, and actions, they speculate on realities in which these domains exist in alternative relations to one another.
Cultural consensus determines where nature ends and culture begins, what rights are granted to nature, where the individual ends and the other begins, and even whether artificial intelligence is truly “intelligent.” Answers to such questions cannot be empirically proven; they are assumptions that constitute a basic culturally relative ontology.
The long history of repression and censorship of art provides proof of the importance of art as a consequential, poetic, ontological force.
For the self-awareness and expressive power of art, it is essential that it recognizes itself as such. This does not stand in opposition to the idea of freedom in art; on the contrary, it underlines its necessity.
The theme of the DOGtime lecture series The Art of Being relates to this theme. At the center of the lectures are primarily artists and makers who engage with the politics of assumed relationships between the self, the other, culture, technology, and nature, and who, through their thinking, work, and actions, redefine these domains, resulting in a ‘new,’ ‘alternative’ ontological ‘space.’