A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined, positioned, memorialised and asserted African and African-descent experiences. It contributes to the critical discourse on African and Black liberation, intellectual and philosophical movements. The title of the exhibition...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world....
A wind of change is sweeping through Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where the recently announced renaming of French colonial-era streets marks part of a broader movement. The new government, led by former opposition activists President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, signals a political rupture and systemic transformation—both in relation to the former colonial power, France, and in domestic affairs. Amid these shifts, Dakar pulses as a hub of new ideas, driven by the ambition to...
A wind of change is sweeping through Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where the recently announced renaming of French colonial-era streets marks part of a...
There’s something happening in Algeria. A spark of curiosity has been ignited and a community of photographers are emerging with different perspectives and questions on nationalism, tradition and the lived experiences of the people who exist within the country bordered by the Mediterranean Sea. Award-winning photographer, Abdo Shanan - who was born in the Algerian city of Oran to a Sudanese father and an Algerian mother, partially raised in Libya before later returning to Algeria in his twenties -...
There’s something happening in Algeria. A spark of curiosity has been ignited and a community of photographers are emerging with different perspectives...
Humans adapt, move and connect. Environments change, landscapes can be challenging, and infrastructure is expected to support it all. An exhibition, on view only for one day at the 5th edition of the ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture on February 16 in Amsterdam, gets into testing the relationship between humans, environment and infrastructure as climate change worsens, affecting those who are on the periphery -the vulnerable- the most. The beautiful Western Cape in South Africa is a home to incredible...
Humans adapt, move and connect. Environments change, landscapes can be challenging, and infrastructure is expected to support it all. An exhibition, on...
The Amsterdam Open Space Contemporary Art Museum (OSCAM), dedicated to art, fashion, design, craftsmanship, and development, will unveil its inaugural exhibition, What's the 411: STRANDS & STRUCTURES , curated by Esmeralda Tan, on Saturday, 22 February, from 19:00 to 22:00 hrs. The What's the 411 series celebrates the vibrant diaspora community in Accra, Ghana. STRANDS & STRUCTURES , the third edition in the series, is a photo-documentary exhibition created by multidisciplinary hair artist Asia...
The Amsterdam Open Space Contemporary Art Museum (OSCAM), dedicated to art, fashion, design, craftsmanship, and development, will unveil its inaugural...
In a new documentary, now showing in Dutch cinemas, Raoul Peck creates a space for the South African photographer to tell his own story. Raoul Peck is one of the world’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers. Since the 1970s, he has created socially engaged films on subjects that are as critical as they are diverse—ranging from the death of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba (Lumumba, Death of a Prophet) , to the Rwanda genocide (Sometimes in April) , the friendship between Marx and Engels (The Young...
In a new documentary, now showing in Dutch cinemas, Raoul Peck creates a space for the South African photographer to tell his own story. Raoul Peck is...
Thembeka Heidi Sincuba’s forthcoming exhibition Umngqwambo at the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) in Cape Town (16 January - 27 February 2025) presents a reimagining of African initiation rites and the interstitial spaces between memory, transformation, and the body. Through an evocative interplay of oil painting, installation, and video, Sincuba constructs a sensory landscape that interrogates the deep tensions between tradition and modernity, the individual and the collective, the sacred and...
Thembeka Heidi Sincuba’s forthcoming exhibition Umngqwambo at the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) in Cape Town (16 January - 27 February 2025) presents...
Congratulations Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi and Sana Na N’Hada, two of six winners of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award! Va-Bene is a multidisciplinary artivist and curator from Ghana. She is also a transwoman in a country where the LGBTQIA+ community faces significant challenges. Sana Na H’Hada, from Guinea-Bissau is a filmmaker. Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi , known as crazinisT artisT, is a multidisciplinary artivist, curator, mentor, and philanthropist from Ghana. Raised in a deeply religious community, she...
Congratulations Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi and Sana Na N’Hada, two of six winners of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award! Va-Bene is a multidisciplinary...
An increasing number of African stand-up comedians are touring Europe and the US, often satirising misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa and Africans still prevalent in many Western minds. South African Trevor Noah has become an established international celebrity, but others, such as Noah’s fellow South African Loyiso Gola, Captain Khalid from Tanzania, Learnmore Jonasi from Zimbabwe, and Maira Santos from Mozambique, are rapidly joining him in claiming the world’s stages. These comedians...
An increasing number of African stand-up comedians are touring Europe and the US, often satirising misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa and...
Breyten Breytenbach (1939 - 2024) The South African poet, writer, and visual artist passed away in Paris on Sunday, 24 November 2024. A video of his poem Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan was produced as part of the ATKV Filmverse Project, with music by Laurinda Hofmeyer. The video includes English subtitles. Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan Wellington toe met lang bene blink in die lig waar die kamers swaar en donker is waar sterre soos seemeeue sit op die nok en engele vir wurms spit in die tuin,...
Breyten Breytenbach (1939 - 2024) The South African poet, writer, and visual artist passed away in Paris on Sunday, 24 November 2024. A video of his poem...
The impact of climate change is devastating but communities find ways of surviving despite corruption and governmental planning. Wata Na Life (Krio for ‘Water is Life’), is a phrase photographer Ngadi Smart heard time and again in Sierra Leone, a country where water is very much a currency. Smart spent three months in the country of her heritage in 2021 exploring the link between water and our changing climate. What she found were communities adapting as best they could to the fall-out from a...
The impact of climate change is devastating but communities find ways of surviving despite corruption and governmental planning. Wata Na Life (Krio for...
Amsterdam, November 2024 Onlangs verschenen: The Complicit Camera [English text below] Zodra een foto het publieke domein betreedt, lijken de oorspronkelijke intenties van de maker uit het zicht te verdwijnen. Zo ontstaat een beeldeconomie, meer dan een beeldcultuur. En die cultuur wordt nog steeds gedomineerd door witte en westerse percepties. De verbeelding van het Afrikaanse continent is een ‘goed’ voorbeeld van veelvuldige vertekening. In het fotoboek The Complicit Camera onderwerpt Pieter van...
Amsterdam, November 2024 Onlangs verschenen: The Complicit Camera [English text below] Zodra een foto het publieke domein betreedt, lijken de...
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging. While her mother earned a living as a domestic worker in Johannesburg, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi was raised in the countryside by her grandmother, from whom she learned the traditional crafts of mural painting and pyro engraving of calabashes. As a teenager...
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential...
This exhibition features (diasporic) artists from Somaliland telling their own story, unobscured by a colonial gaze. The Anarchist Citizenship: People Made of Stories explores the possibilities of visual storytelling, imagination, and self-determination. In doing so, it offers an alternative approach to understanding this self-declared independent region of Somalia. It places the agency of Somali(land) people at the centre. As a result, we are presented with an approach that overrides Eurocentric...
This exhibition features (diasporic) artists from Somaliland telling their own story, unobscured by a colonial gaze. The Anarchist Citizenship: People...
Both tender and melancholic, the French-Cameroonian photographer series interrogates the ideas of love. Naam Na La , takes its name from the Wolof expression which translates to "I long for you". “Love is undeniably common and universal, but also overused and overrepresented in our visual cultures,” begins the photographer Charlotte Yonga. “As a feeling, it’s capable of great amplitude and density, but also exists in its deficiencies, flaws, ambiguities and vanities.” With these musings in mind,...
Both tender and melancholic, the French-Cameroonian photographer series interrogates the ideas of love. Naam Na La , takes its name from the Wolof...
The International Theatre Amsterdam celebrates the annual event with two amazing shows. Eight years after leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama are looking for their place in society. Michelle is a bestselling author and one of the most influential Americans today. Barack travels around the world giving lectures while campaigning. But in a world of extremism and centre-right thinking, their relevance and influence are declining. Duizend aanslagen op de Obama’s is a biopic that is made...
The International Theatre Amsterdam celebrates the annual event with two amazing shows. Eight years after leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle...
The 8th satellete edition of the iAfrica Film Festival (iAFF) is set to take place on October 17, 2024. This special event will feature a thoughtfully curated selection of inspiring feature films, documentaries, and short films, showcasing the vibrant tapestry of contemporary African culture. The iAFF serves as a platform to highlight the immense contributions of the African continent to the world. Beyond its well-known role in providing raw materials, agricultural products, and natural resources,...
The 8th satellete edition of the iAfrica Film Festival (iAFF) is set to take place on October 17, 2024. This special event will feature a thoughtfully...
In this exhibition visual artists Amado Afdani (Sudan/Egypt) pays homage to the Sudanese soldiers who served in European colonial armies (‘askaris’). They are martyrs rather than sell outs. Askari Soldiers is one of Alfadni’s socio-political art projects on the history of the Askari (Arabic and Swahili for a military soldier). The Askari refers to the enslaved Sudanese soldier who served in the European colonial armies in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. During both world wars, Askaris also...
In this exhibition visual artists Amado Afdani (Sudan/Egypt) pays homage to the Sudanese soldiers who served in European colonial armies (‘askaris’)....
Based on the theme of Belonging, Afrovibes has shaped this year’s festival programme with performances that focus on North Africa and the (north) African diaspora in the Netherlands. Northern African countries are often seen as ‘non-African’ but as belonging to the Arab world. How do artists who identify with this part of the world look frames that continue to divide us? How do we connect, engage and live in solidarity? Afrovibes opens on October 2, 2024, and runs until October 13 in Amsterdam,...
Based on the theme of Belonging, Afrovibes has shaped this year’s festival programme with performances that focus on North Africa and the (north) African...
During the last decade of Apartheid in South Africa, William Matlala (1957) made photographs of and for the people around him. William and I met because of his contributions to a research project about cultural responses to the consequences of mining in the Witwatersrand. He took me on a tour through his life, captured on a hard drive, containing scans of negatives. I instantly fell in love with the photographs, in which the people posing present themselves as they wished to see themselves and be...
During the last decade of Apartheid in South Africa, William Matlala (1957) made photographs of and for the people around him. William and I met because...
African artists from the continent and the diaspora imagine utopian dreams of abundance and well-being beyond geographical hierarchies. According to the curators, the works on display show a fusion of specific features of African culture with other cultures and other geographical spaces, revealing the “original energy of the itinerant fate of exile and settlement, demanded by the context of slavery, or of voluntary or forced migration. ”Many of these phenomena result from the current global...
African artists from the continent and the diaspora imagine utopian dreams of abundance and well-being beyond geographical hierarchies. According to the...
