Qanita Lilla on curatorship, community, and the power of podcasting
Qanita Lilla, Associate Curator of Arts of Africa at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Agnes), and the Jackman Humanities Institute’s 2025-26 New Media and Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, is the host of With Opened Mouths: The Podcast. The podcast grew out of the 2021 exhibition With Opened Mouths at Agnes, which combined West African masks, face coverings, hoods, helmets and crests from the Justin and Elisabeth Lang collection with film footage of the Atlantic Ocean and contemporary sculpture by Nigerian Canadian artist Oluseye. The exhibition questioned the authority of the museum and its colonial traditions, encouraging more vital and embodied ways of engaging with collections. Building on that foundation, podcasting became a way to extend those conversations beyond the museum walls and to create a space for artists, poets, performers, activists and curators to speak in their own voices.
Origins in the Pandemic
“I started podcasting during the COVID pandemic as part of the programming for the exhibition With Opened Mouths at Agnes,” Lilla recalls. Agnes digital coordinator Danuta Sierhuis suggested that podcasting could extend the exhibition’s emphasis on open communication. Working from Cape Town during lockdown, Lilla found the idea of podcasting compelling and drew inspiration from the city’s history of community radio and cassette tape activism.
Podcasting versus the Museum
“The museum is often thought of as a vessel, with its systematic technologies (very much like an archive) that shape a particular narrative,” Lilla says. Podcasting, by contrast, “exists in a space that is more fluid and spontaneous” than the museum space. Unlike the museum, “it is a space of conversation where you listen to one another in the moment and where your engagement is based on trust, care and a willingness to listen.”
Curatorship and Community
“Podcasting has definitely shaped my curation and vice versa,” she says. Sometimes the episodes tie directly to exhibitions, and she often interviews artists to give audiences deeper insight into their lives, journeys and interests. Other times she speaks with creatives during the conceptual stages. “I want to show that, as a curator, I am not making knowledge by myself but that I sit within a community of creatives who are brilliant and generous with their stories.”
Influence of Early Work
Her early work at Cape Town’s District Six Museum, which focused on decolonising exhibitions and undoing institutional narratives, continues to influence her. “Following apartheid there was a dearth of stories [about Black lives] in museums, [and] we were also confronted with damaging white supremacist narratives that had been institutionalised in museums. It was not only about adding histories and people’s stories, but it was also about undoing the institutional narratives museums had perpetrated.” Through the podcast she has “realized that voice and sound carry unique potentials for creating new histories and public memory.”
Liberation Pedagogies
Lilla grew up in apartheid South Africa, where creative and scholarly practices were closely tied to resistance. She recalls Steve Biko’s teaching that education was a powerful weapon for imagining liberated futures, with art, literature, poetry, music and drama all playing a vital role. “I am interested in ideas of liberation pedagogies, how they are communicated through art practice, but also how they move transnationally and across geographic borders,” she adds.
Guests and Themes
The podcast features a wide range of guests, from poets (Juliane Okot Bitek) and performers (Garth Erasmus) to curators (Emelie Chhangur) and visual artists (Rajni Perera, Camille Turner). “The theme of each With Opened Mouths season develops organically and is either based on ideas I am working with for curatorial projects, or thinking about in my research more generally,” she explains. “My range of guests is based on my ideas of what constitutes art in the broadest sense, and the subjects I am drawn to.”
Parallels Between South Africa and Canada
One early conversation revealed unexpected parallels between South Africa and Canada. “During that conversation, I realized that the context in Cape Town and Toronto as it relates to Black and racialised boys is startlingly similar. That made me think about Canada in a new way, and to be as critical of the Canadian cultural mosaic narrative as I am about South Africa as the rainbow nation.”
Podcasting as Public Scholarship
Lilla believes podcasting is an effective way to bring academic ideas into public spaces. She describes it as “more intimate than traditional forms of communicating… if the academy is about ideas, it is also intimately about people, the lives they have led and the way they see the world.” For her, podcasting “holds the possibility to make connections that other forms like academic publishing might not.”
Looking ahead
Lilla plans to record season four while at the Jackman Humanities Institute, focused on the 2025-26 theme, Dystopia and Trust. “My current research looks at the transnational movement of visual activisms from South Africa during and following the end of apartheid. I am especially interested in the role of art, language and sound and the ways in which a liberated ‘anti-dystopian’ future is imagined through these things. But, I am keenly aware that dystopia has existed in many different forms through various political histories in the Global South and I am interested to have my guests, and our conversations, explore this more.”
Advice for Aspiring Podcasters
For those considering their own podcast, Lilla advises listening and collaboration. “People who want to start podcasting have to listen to podcasts and think about how they can add to the conversations taking place.” She credits Sierhuis with helping her navigate the technical side. “As the curator, I focus on ideas and research, and she makes the digital world accessible and less like a foreign country to me. I’m very fortunate to have her support to make With Opened Mouths possible.”
Conclusion
What began as an exhibition project has become an ongoing platform for dialogue, shaped by trust and collaboration. “Through podcasting I want to make safer spaces, especially for racialised people,” Lilla says. With her podcast With Opened Mouths, Lilla continues to expand curatorial practice, inviting audiences into conversations that cross borders, disciplines and histories. You can listen to With Opened Mouths on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and CFRC 101.9 FM.