On 31 March 2022, the Stellenbosch University-based herri received the Award 2022 for Best Digital Humanities Collection Visualisation / Infographics from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The award ceremony was held in Tshwane and was accepted by AOI affiliate, Aryan Kaganof, who conceived, curates and edits herri.

herri is a unique online archival resource representing cutting edge decolonial thinking and doing. It is a digital hub with an unprecedented focus on music, art and all forms of digital creative work. Since its first edition in 2019, herri has received critical acclaim from a stellar reading and writing constituency, including not only writers, artists and scholars from across the globe, but also an engaged, socio-politically sensitized stratum of young African aesthetic activists. For example, artist Kneo Mokgopa, who manages narrative development at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, contributed to herri#05. He subsequently tweeted about this issue: “every page is divine and dangerous. I am unspeakably honoured to have made a contribution next to Jannous Aukema, Vangile Avukile Gantsho, Ari Sitas, Mbe Mbhele, Tumi Mogorosi and many other leaders in love, revolution and the arts. https://staging.herri.org.za/5/ (July 22, 2021).

herri is a project of the Africa Open Institute. Director, Prof. Stephanus Muller, describes the Institute as a “laboratory for scholars and artists to pursue experimental work that seeks to give meaning to what I conventionally understand as 'research'… herri is a kind of display window for how we see this happening in practice." Through herri, AOI is contributing to wider efforts to re-position SUN as an institution that supports racial transformation and innovative research. The herri archival resource is rapidly growing in popularity and has reached over a quarter of a million individual page views. We invite readers to visit our site and enjoy this unique digital experience (www.herri.org.za).

For more information, please contact: Dr. Astrid de Oliveira (née Treffry-Goatley). Africa Open Institute. [email protected]/0793736308​