Roberta Joy Rich is an educator, curator and multi-disciplinary artist. Her arts practice utilises historical archives, storytelling, photo-media, text and sometimes satire in her video, sound, installation and mixed media practice. Often referencing her own diaspora southern African identity and experiences, Roberta engages in a process of re-framing materials to unearth silenced narratives and the possibilities they conjure. Drawing from various epistemologies, she is interested in notions of "authenticity" and challenging singularity in constructs of race and gender identity, with hope to deconstruct colonial modalities and propose sites of self determination within her practice.

Her Africa Is Real (H.A.I.R) employs contemporary methodologies of performance, literature, soundscape and installation to reimagine the “traditional” archive, and present our narratives and histories within the context of so called ‘Australia’.Her Africa Is Real (H.A.I.R) is an interdisciplinary collective. As southern African diaspora identities in an antipodean context, we come together to discuss and create works that challenge erasure and assert black representation, histories and narratives.The collective includes Roberta Rich, Naomi Velaphi and Sista Zai Zanda.

I am an Afrofuturistic Storyteller. I use podcast to share and archive herstory, my life seen through a sista's eye. With my roots in Zimbabwe, I now live on stolen and unceded Blak lands in "Australia" where I write and share these stories. Every podcast season, I invite you to listen and journal along with me as I set of on the lifelong journey to decolonise my mind and way of being. Each season revolves around a specific poem, a theme and a question. The poem for this season is called "The Conversation Is Always The Same" or "For Visionaries And Raindancers". The theme is #AfricaSpeaksBack and the corresponding question that guides my storytelling and interviews with various folks is "What Does It Mean To Be African In The 21st Century?" As a migrant living in a world that holds such firm ideas about "Africa" and "Africans" while consuming so much African culture, I often wonder what would happen if Africans themselves interrupted the narrative. Who would we all be then - especially the folks who drive the production of the dominant narrative about Africa and Africans. The poem that informs this entire series sits at the heart of this exploration of identity and self-determination. I'd say more but then you wouldn't listen to the podcast. May I invite you to make yourself a hot drink, grab your journal and get comfy. It's storytime!