Journal of Contemporary African Art • 36 • May 2015 DOI 10.1215/10757163-2914350 © 2015 by Nka Publications 88 • Nka Beth Hinderliter: The eleventh edition of Dak’Art (May– June 2014), which you co-curated with Elise Atangana and Abdelkader Damani, deployed a conceptual framework of “producing the common.” Walking through the exhibitions in the biennial village, I was struck by the conversations created between many of the works regarding commonality and how it might be mobilized, enacted, or destroyed. In particular, the cabinet of anonymity, where artworks and their producers were not identified or labeled, literally enacted a space of commonality and equitability—one which runs directly counter to the notions of singularity of style and individualism that fuel much of the commercial art world. How did you come to this idea of the anonymous exhibit? Was there any resistance to its implementation? Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi: After our appointment as curators of Dak’Art 2014 we convened a Skype meeting to discuss our curatorial approach and a theme. “Producing the Common” was adopted as a general theme. We had initially decided that it was going to have three acts or platforms, of which the “Cabinet of Curiosity,” later re- titled “Anonymous,” was going to be one of them. With the “Cabinet of Curiosity,” we wanted to revisit the trajectory of African art, to consider its humble beginnings in Western wunderkammern, and to reflect on the accompanying ethnographic or anthropological discourse of the so-called unknown artists that emerged in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth. “Anonymous” allowed us to backtrack and reinsert this important history into the current discourse of global contemporary, of which art biennials are an important vehicle. The initial title “Cabinet of Curiosity” was not well received by the secretary general of Dak’Art for what he felt was its colonial legacy or associations. So we decided for “Anonymous,” which was even a better title. It allowed us to carefully sidestep some of the misconceptions about PRODUCING THE COMMON, DAK’ART 2014 Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi in Conversation with Beth Hinderliter Nka Published by Duke University Press