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- Convenor:
-
Amarildo Ajasse
(Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- Arts and Culture
- Location:
- Chrystal McMillan, Seminar Room 1
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The main goal of the proposed panel is to bring together researchers working in the field of African contemporary expressive culture and the papers included on it will explore the connections and dis-ruptions on its several dimensions both in the local and international art contexts.
Long Abstract:
Since the 90's, African contemporary expressive culture has gained increased recognition in the glob-al context as a result of greater visibility and connections with the international art scene.
The most relevant impact of this trend has been the opening up of related fields, such as African cin-ema, fashion, design, digital media and visual arts, etc. For example, recent African visual art practi-tioners have gained visibility through their representation and participation in the most important inter-national art shows such as the Venice art biennale and documenta Kassel.
Nevertheless, in the academic context, African expressive culture is predominantly studied through its traditional forms, the so called "authentic" practices. Therefore, one of the main goals of the proposed panel is to bring together researchers working in the field of African contemporary expressive culture and arts to explore its several dimensions both in the local and international global art contexts broadly focussing on issues of identity, history and legacy of colonialism, the global artworld and new trends in art collections, research and curatorial practies.
More specifically, papers included on the panel will explore questions such as: how are African prac-titioners received in local and international art scene? How do practitioners manage to navigate through the need to be located between the local and global artworlds? How are contemporary practic-es connected to the ongoing challenges present in local contexts? How are practitioners managing to go beyond traditional practices as international artists?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes the contemporary art in the renovated Royal Museum for Central Africa, and how the artists view their roles. Artists connect past artistic practices to the present and historic objects with contemporary communities, reflecting debates on transnational flows of objects and people.
Paper long abstract:
The presence of contemporary African art in ethnographic museums highlights questions of such art's categorization as contemporary or African, and how it can build connections between present day communities and historical objects found in the museums. The renovation and reinstallation of ethnographic museums in Europe have brought such questions to the forefront, as objects once relegated to the ethnographic sphere are reconsidered and museums prioritize community engagement. Questions about the role of contemporary arts in ethnographic museums are infrequently posed to the artists themselves, however. In this paper, I analyze the contemporary arts in the recently reopened Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. Based on interviews with the artists whose work is featured in the museum, I suggest that contemporary arts can indeed disrupt traditional ethnographic displays and provide new points of view, changing the course of conversations about arts and Africa.
Nonetheless, I argue that contemporary arts are not a cure-all, and that their mere presence does not "decolonize" a museum or sufficiently address colonial legacies. Further, their presence in an ethnographic museum changes the meanings of art works and risks categorizing the artists and their artwork in a similar manner to their predecessors. In being relied upon to create connections, artists are placed in between multiple communities on at least two continents. Their interstitial place, however, provides a window onto questions of transnational circulation of arts and people, and wedges open the door to further conversations between Africa, the African diaspora, and Europe more broadly.
Paper short abstract:
My paper will explore, from an anthropological point of view, the rise of a new "art world" in postcolonial Morocco and its relation with "Africanity" by focusing on Marrakech's emerging artistic scene, increasingly connected to the floating and controversial concept of "African contemporary art".
Paper long abstract:
The "Red City" has been seducing and inspiring artists for centuries, but only in the last few years it is becoming a key hub for contemporary African art and its growing global market. Since 2017, it hosts the renowned African art fair, 1:54 and the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (Macaal). However, the Marrakech's new artistic scene is wider and includes many other foundations, collaborative spaces, curatorial platforms, artists' studios, galleries, etc., which are making their mark locally as well as attracting international audiences.
As French anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle pointed out, African contemporary art is a strategic site of encounter (and misunderstanding) between Africa and the West. However, rather than putting contemporary African art only in relation to Western views, I will try to "provincialize Europe", by taking "an African perspective" and by focusing on intra-continental artistic and cultural interactions.
Marrakesh's cultural scene, therefore, gives us the opportunity not only to explore the rise of new art worlds in the "Global South" but also to critically interrogate Morocco's "African identity" and to considerate some crucial local/global questions (such as "race", the legacy of slavery, migration) through the lens of visual expressive culture. How do local art practitioners deal with these topics?
What does it mean to be a "contemporary African artist" in postcolonial Morocco? What is the relation between "Africanity" and Moroccan contemporary visual culture? How is Marrakech's local scene connected to other continental and global "art worlds"?
Paper short abstract:
The '#KenyansOnTwitter' ha(r)shtag, as an intervening space for subversive discourse, allows ordinary Kenyans to interrogate and transform their lived reality. These encounters yield a modern global imaginary that disrupts and (re)constitutes everyday experiences in time and beyond.
Paper long abstract:
Contemporary times have been accompanied by many radical shifts in the lived reality of Africans. A general view that many people's lives have now become more global, decentered, and even fragmented persists. Consequently, these developments have brought into question many of the traditional social-cultural orders and paradigms that informed thought in previous decades. These transformations have also been witnessed in cultural industries across the artistic spectrum, particularly in terms of the changing modes of artistic production and reception across the African continent. It stands to reason that art forms evolve as need arises for far more complex and dynamic ways of perceiving our lived reality. In that regard, the advent of new media technologies has expanded possibilities for artistic expression and reception in African societies. Indeed, artistic experience and thinking about art in general is constantly shifting in today's new media environment. Thus, new media contexts, e.g. social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, constitute the emerging 'new modes' of African contemporary expressive culture. I consider these new media contexts as 'real-time' projections of our ever-shifting sense of social-cultural experience, i.e., agency, imagination and social action. Thus, this paper explores how the "KenyansOnTwitter" ha(r)shtag (#KOT), as an intervening space for subversive discourse, enables ordinary Kenyans to interrogate and even transform their lived reality. As it shall emerge, encounters of these 'imagined selves' at the site yields a modern global imaginary that disrupts and (re)constitutes the everyday experience of ordinary Kenyans both in time and beyond it.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the emergence of literary choral music among Ibibio of Nigeria. It explores the changes of oral music culture as a product of disruptions, and how practitioners of the genre treat connections in the global church music to preserve a written culture, language and identity.
Paper long abstract:
Renewed interest in the relationship between music as expressive culture and identity draws its vigour from strongly divergent sources. Globalized musical culture in the Ibibio church supplies new paradigms for understanding the central tasks of contemporary indigenous music and their responsibility to a multicultural ethic of diversity, hybridity and difference available as connections and disruptions. Yet recent studies in ethnomusicology and African musicology emphasise both the centrality of ethnic and cultural particularism to the formation of musical awareness and expressive orientation, factors in which such particularism is embedded.
Composers of literary choral music in Ibibio culture in the "Old-Calabar Region" in Nigeria are caught in the web of these connections and disruption in their expedition. Yet they have explored these seemingly contrasting perspectives on the relationship of music to culture and identity. By the use of Ibibio language and global church music models, they have evolved a new genre which offers a fertile context for redefining the place of music in acquiring a global consciousness in expressive culture within a linguistic enclave.