From the reenactment of art conferences in Africa to South-South collaborations, we revisit articles that examine Blackness in a global art context.
Clockwise: Kyle Malanda, Who Will Bury You? III, 2018. Courtesy the artist; Ja’Tovia Gary, Image from Giverny I (Négresse Impériale), 2018. Courtesy the artist; kate-hers RHEE, And then there were none. ©2013, performance HD video and C-Print photography, courtesy of the artist.
A Groundbreaking Congress in Zimbabwe
How a Historical Art Conference in Africa Was Restaged
The International Congress for African Culture (ICAC) brought scores of international art practitioners and scholars to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1962 to discuss the global influence of art from Africa. Despite taking place in a still colonized territory, the event went on to change the course of the arts on the African continent. However, this happening almost fell into oblivion if it hadn’t been for Raphael Chikukwa and his team who restaged it in 2017. Here writer Percy Zvomuya talks to the curator about the importance of reviving African history and the similar challenges many art sectors in Africa still face.
Will Furtado on Global Diaspora
Notes on how a wider scope of Blackness is taking center stage in mainstream media.
In Conversation with Zoe Samudzi
Blackness as a State of Matter
In this interview, Will Furtado speaks to Zoe Samudzi about institutional space to focus on Black womxn’s cultural production, narrow representations of the African continent, and the exceptionalization of Blackness through major art awards.
“A Drip of Beauty & Horror” (2018) by Leila Weefur. Courtesy the artist
Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone
The Forgotten Social History of International Blackness
In this long read extracted from her book, Minna Salami talks us through the sociohistorical context of Blackness and how it can offer a conceptual space of freedom; of reconfiguration, revelation, and revolution.
Racism: a bigger picture
The Black, Asian and White Racial Triangulation
C& spoke to the South Korean- US American artist kate-hers RHEE about the racial triangulation between Black, Asian, and white people and how this plays out in the German context, now that she lives in Berlin.
In Conversation with Bola Juju
Dreaming up Radical Resistance
Artist Mia Imani Harrison uses her dreams to envision new forms of collectivity. In conversation with Witchdoctorpoet Bola Juju she explores ways in which Blackness can expand.
Mia Imani Harrison, Soil is an inscribed body. On Sovereignty and Agropoetics. Exhibition at SAVVY Contemporary e.V. Photo: Raisa Galofre/ Savvy Contemporary.
A Latin American Universe
The term “Latinx” is an update of traditional labels such as “Hispanic” or “Latin” which emerged around the mid-twentieth century to describe Latin American migrant communities in the US. Aldeide Delgado looks for Contemporary And América Latina (C&AL) into the implications and opportunities of the new expression.
Conversations in Gondwana
Expanding Political Imagination Through South-South Collaboration
Conversations in Gondwana is a project initiated by Brazilian curators Juliana Gontijo and Juliana Caffé to connect pairs of artists from countries of the Global South. In this interview, Will Furtado talks with the curators about expanding our political imagination, breaking through the dominant geopolitics of the colonial-capitalist world system, and the work of the artist duos.
Exhibition view “Babidi Mbapite”, curated by Nicole Rafiki, Oslo, 2021.
In Conversation
Rafiki Arts Initiatives: Building Bridges Between Norway and Africa
We spoke to Nicole Rafiki, the artist behind a series of actions that support African artists in Norway via Congo and South Africa.
Kaloki Nyamai’s Mwaki Nginya Evinda Enge
The Intervention in Nairobi Questioning Who’s Black Enough
Kopano Maroga writes about how Kaloki Nyamai’s exhibition Mwaki Nginya Evinda Enge (The Fire Next Time) engages with ideas of Black precarity and spectacle.
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