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In May 2024, Mauritian poet and photographer Umar Timol joined the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence as a chronicler. Through poetry, portraiture, conversation, and public installations, he offered unique artistic reflections on the Cluster’s intellectual life.

For the third edition of its Cluster Chronicles, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence invited Umar Timol, an acclaimed writer, poet, and photo- grapher from Mauritius, to accompany its activities as chronicler during May 2024. With his multi-faceted artistic background Timol brought a quiet, reflective presence to Bayreuth, translating everyday moments into poetic and visual expressions.

His stay began with the event How to Capture the Soul, held on 13 May 2024 at Kulturhaus Neuneinhalb. In an intimate conversation, Timol introduced his portrait work – including his 2022 volume Graces – and reflected on the philosophical and aesthetic dimensions of photography. The event opened a space for dialogue on how art can reveal inner presence, and how portraiture becomes a form of storytelling. The evening highlighted Timol’s belief that the soul can be glimpsed in quiet gestures, captured through both lens and language.

Ten days later, on 23 May 2024, Timol moderated and participated in the roundtable discussion Writing, Mise-en-scène, Public, also hosted at Kulturhaus Neuneinhalb. This event explored theatre as a form of multilingual, intercultural expression. Together with scholars, artists, and the Bayreuth public, Timol engaged with the interplay of writing, staging, and audience reception, adding his perspective as both a poet and attentive observer of human interaction.

A particular highlight of his residency was his contribution to the inside/out series at Iwalewahaus. Under this initiative entitled La Nostalgie des Ombres/The Nostalgia of Shadows, Timol’s photographs were projected onto the building’s ground-floor windows during the evening, offering passers-by the chance to encounter art in the public space. These visual poems – illuminated in Bayreuth’s cityscape – invited reflection on memory, identity, and the overlooked moments of daily life. The installation transformed Iwalewahaus into a quiet exhibition site that blended the personal and the public, the written and the seen.

Throughout his time in Bayreuth, Timol also produced a collection of photographs and texts documenting his encounters with the Cluster’s people and spaces. Portraits of scholars and staff captured in informal moments formed a visual record of academic life beyond the lecture hall. With a soft eye for light and mood, his images portrayed the human texture of intellectual exchange.

The Cluster Chronicles are curated by Ute Fendler, the Cluster’s Vice Dean of Internationalisation and Public Engagement. Reflecting on Timol’s residency, she remarked, “Umar Timol opened a poetic space in the everyday. His work encouraged us to slow down and notice – with care and curiosity – the people and processes that shape our work.” Timol’s residency continues the Cluster Chronicles series, following in the footsteps of Elnathan John (2021) and JeanLuc Raharimanana (2023), and reaffirms the Cluster’s commitment to creative collaboration at the intersection of art and research. His images and reflections remain part of the Cluster’s evolving archive, inviting ongoing dialogue between disciplines and imaginations.