The African Art in Venice Forum presents its second edition on 7-8-9 May 2019

The African Art in Venice Forum (AAVF) is a public and free discursive event presented every other year in Venice, Italy during the opening week of the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte di Venezia. The project provides new opportunities of exchange and visibility for contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas in the cultural, professional, and infrastructural context of the Venice Biennale.

The second edition of the Forum has been designed as a highly interactive experience featuring talks, workshops, readings, facilitated open consultations and more, with an expanded format spanning across three full days. The AAVF will take place in the centre of Venice and will feature an auditorium hosting the over 15 events foreseen by the programme, alongside a lounge space conceived to accommodate more intimate and spontaneous conversations and exchange.

The full program of talks at this year’s African Art in Venice Forum is now online! Taking place 7-9 May, the event features panels including Ngone Fall, Simon Njami, Bruno Leitão, Christine Eyene, Zanele Muholi , Ibrahim Mahama, Kiluanji Kia Henda , Nana Oforiatta-Ayim,Shiraz Bayoo, Ekow Eshun and many others! C& will be part of a panel on 9 May about publishing in Africa. To attend please register via @aavforum website.

In line with the Forum’s vision of inclusivity and accessibility, a Kickstarter campaign has been launched on March 18 for the development of a digital platform to livestream the event. Thanks to this fundraising endeavour a broader audience will be able to interact from remote with the AAVF community during the event. The rewards for this exciting fundraising campaign span from new editions of Something We Africans Got, a leading publication in the field of arts and culture, to artworks by Musa Nxumalo and Cyrus Kabiru .

A network of partnering screening sites across the African continent will back the digital platform initiative to allow old and new participants to join the Forum’s community and engage in the dialogue, regardless of their geographic location and ability to travel. The campaign will also support the recording of the content of the 2019 edition and the creation of open online resources on the AAVF website and YouTube channel.

The African Art in Venice Forum is presented by African Art Dialogues, a not-for-profit organization based in Italy, with members from 3 continents contributing pro-bono to the project.

Key features of the 2019 edition:

–  Three days of programmed events
–  New discursive design centred on interactive formats and workshops
–  Lounge space with a dedicated library for conversations, readings, and networking
–  Kickstarter campaignlaunched on March 18 to fundraise EUR 10,000 to live-stream the
events on a dedicated platform and allow the creation of online open resources on content emerged during the three days

About the African Art in Venice Forum:
As art professionals gather from all over the world to attend the Venice Biennale, many countries are made invisible by the lack of national pavilions and projects transversally representing regional, cultural, or historical components stemming from the African continent.
AAVF was born in 2017 with the aim of bringing together in Venice the unrepresented voices of the contemporary African art ecosystem, present their creative message, and open a broader cultural dialogue during the Biennale’s opening week. During this first edition, 75 speakers from 5 different continents contributed with their knowledge, experience and thought-provoking ideas to the creation of a rich information sharing process that signalled the success of the project. A varied range of more than 1,000 art professionals, art lovers and researchers gathered around the free, open and inclusive platform of the African Art in Venice Forum demonstrating the need for this innovative, open and accessible platform to expand the dialogue around contemporary African art.
AVVF advocates for a broader spectrum of creative practices and cultural dialogues, and for a more diverse, inclusive, and balanced art ecosystem that nourishes the ability to address individual, societal and global issues of our time.

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www.aavforum.com