Manifest Artistic Journey — Call for Artists

Trade of enslaved people and slavery has existed worldwide since the earliest Antiquity. These phenomena have adversely impacted Europe, the Mediterranean basin, and Africa for millennia. But at some point in modern times, we went from slaves of a multiplicity of origins on European soil to an almost African uniqueness of slavery in the Americas. MANIFEST: New artistic perspectives on memories of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people aims to contribute to and enhance the re-imagination of Europe’s collective memory of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people.

By organising an Artistic Journey which includes art residencies in Budapest/Zsennye, Lisbon and Copenhagen the Project seeks to empower artists to approach the subject matter, re-imagining the history of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people from the perspective of its links in the European continent and its existing cultural traces. Selected artists will create art designed to promote an artistic look into the past collective memory. Along this Journey, artists and creators will be encouraged to fully take advantage of new technologies and foster personal capacity building.

Artists and creators who are legal residents in the countries within the Creative Europe framework can apply starting from October 26, 2022, till November 27, 2022. For more information on eligibility, conditions and application process, please visit https://www.projectmanifest.eu/call-for-artists/

Consortium

MANIFEST: New artistic perspectives on memories of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people is a project funded by the European Commission under the Creative Europe Programme that will run until November 2024. It is implemented by a Consortium led by Khora, the world’s first combined virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) production house based in Copenhagen. The consortium is joined by Les Anneaux de la Mémoire, France’s leading association working with the themes of the history and heritage of the Atlantic trade of enslaved people and colonial enslavement; Pro Progressione, a Budapest-based artistic hub specialising in international collaborations in the field of culture; Gerador, an independent Portuguese platform for journalism, culture and education; and CUMEDIAE, a Brussels-based international non-profit agency providing consultancy services in the field of CCIs European-wide.

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10.10.2022 | par Alícia Gaspar | culture, cumediae, discussion, european union, gerador, khora, manifest, memories, open call, open call for artists, post-colonialism, transatlantic trade of enslaved people

Lubumbashi Biennale | 7th edition

Picha is pleased to announce the 7th edition of the Lubumbashi Biennale, Democratic Republic of Congo, to be held from October 6 to November 6, 2022 under the artistic direction of Picha. Picha, “image” in Swahili, which was founded as an association in 2008, will be joined by five associate curators - Paula Nascimento, Lucrezia Cipitelli, Bruno Leitão, René Francisco Rodríguez and Mpho Matsipa - and a curatorial advisor - Ugochukwu- Smooth C. Nzewi.


The Biennale explores the contemporary creation of the artistic scene in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the world. It is today one of the most dynamic and experimental artistic events on the African continent. For its upcoming edition, the biennale will interrogate toxicity as a condition of existence that has inextricably affected social worlds under the title ’ToxiCité’ or ’ToxiCity’. As a starting point, the theme will open the collective elaboration of a critical and transformative take on the social and cultural environment, in Lubumbashi and in the world.

Composed of two concepts, that of the ‘toxic’ and that of the ‘city’, the next Lubumbashi Biennale envisages to question and reflect upon the link between contemporary life in the postcolonial urban setting of Lubumbashi and more widely in the urban Global South, and the impact of a number of industrial, economic, ecological, social and cultural processes that have historically contributed, for better and for worse, to the shape and dynamics of urban life in this and other parts of the world today.

The theme of toxicity, then, offers a starting point for a critical elaboration and consciousness of oneself and one’s natural, social and cultural environment, ‘as a product of the historical processes to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory.’ (Gramsci 1971:324). By focusing on the theme of toxicity, the curatorial committee of this Edition endeavours to open up a critical space of artistic engagement and reflection to start exploring the possible shapes such ‘an inventory of traces’ might take, in the hope that such a compilation will also tell us something more about the possible futures to envision from here on.

Lubumbashi

Lubumbashi is the second largest city in Democratic Republic of the Congo. The main industrial centre of the mining district of southeastern Congo, it lies 110 miles (180 km) northwest of Ndola, Zambia. Lubumbashi is the name of a small local river. The town was established by Belgian colonists in 1910 as a copper-mining settlement and was designated an urban district in 1942. Most regional mining companies are headquartered in Lubumbashi, which is the transportation centre for mineral products (copper, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, germanium, tin, manganese, and coal) from the towns of Likasi, Kolwezi, Kipushi, and others. Mineral exploitation has been dominated by a governmentowned organisation, but foreign mining companies are also in evidence. The city’s other industries include printing, brewing, flour milling, and the production of confectionery, cigarettes, brick, and soap. Lubumbashi has a civic auditorium, a national museum, a Roman Catholic cathedral, and the Society of Congo Historians, as well as the University of Lubumbashi founded in 1955.

Picha

Picha is an initiative of artists operating independently from Lubumbashi that supports and promotes artistic creation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Picha provides visibility for contemporary art in Lubumbashi by providing a venue for exhibitions, meetings, artist residencies, training workshops and artistic accompaniment. Picha intends to promote artistic creation by taking the urban space as a stage and the image as a medium. Picha wants to bring an artistic reflection, both endogenous and speaking to the world, on the city of Lubumbashi, its history and its environment today. In addition to the organization of the Biennale de Lubumbashi, the association has to its credit the realization of several exhibitions, video and photo workshops, training programs and artist residencies, conducted with the aim of offering national and international exposure to local artists and arts initiatives. To fulfill its mission, Picha has created the following platforms:

The Biennale de Lubumbashi, founded in 2008 under the name of “Rencontres Picha”, has become one of the most experimental and dynamic artistic events on the African continent, offering a platform for presentation and meeting to local and international artists and cultural actors local.

Atelier Picha is a permanent training program dedicated to the production and dissemination of participatory artistic and cultural projects. Atelier Picha allows the networking of a new generation of Congolese artists and cultural producers with other national and international cultural actors. The program offers a period of research and production and professional accompaniment to young people in the conceptualization of their project. Since 2017, Picha has allowed a dozen emerging artists from across the country to participate in the workshops. In 2019 and 2020, Atelier Picha collaborates with Picha’s partner institutions, such as Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah), Market Photo Workshop (Johannesburg), Gasworks (London), Art Hub Asia (Shanghai), Universidad Distrital de Colombia (Bogota), Raw Material Company (Dakar). The artistic direction is led by Lucrezia Cippitelli.

The Picha Residence Program, initiated in 2014, invites artists from the African continent and abroad for a research and production period in Lubumbashi. In 2021 Picha had the pleasure to welcome/host the artists Francis Alÿs and Nicole Rafiki.

MAKWAChA, The project of setting up a screen-printing workshop in Lubumbashi and Makwacha initiated by Picha aims to revisit and enhance, through textile screen-printing, the traditional practice of mural painting existing in different regions of the Congo and the various textile creations local handicrafts (such as velvet Kuba), while integrating them into a thoughtful artistic and community approach. The period of the last Lubumbashi Biennale, from October 24 to November 24, 2019, gave visibility to the Makwacha project through numerous visits by participants and speakers from all over the world. The end of the construction work allowed the arrival and installation of artists to work and interact with the women of the community.

More informations.

16.09.2022 | par Alícia Gaspar | Art, Bienal de Lubumbashi, biennal, Bruno Leitão, culture, democratic republic of congo, Lucrezia Cipitelli, mpho matsipa, paula nascimento, René Francisco Rodríguez, Ugochukwu- Smooth C. Nzewi

Kiluanji Kia Henda | A Healing Path for Phantom Pain

Kiluanji Kia Henda

04 February - 05 March 2022

Goodman Gallery, London

Goodman Gallery is pleased to present “A Healing Path for Phantom Pain”, Kiluanji Kia Henda’s first solo exhibition in the UK. The exhibition brings together bodies of work continuing the artist’s exploration of collective memory through engagement with landscapes and public structures.

The title of the exhibition couples the painful realities of the past — which present themselves as ghostly recurrences — with the hopeful possibility of recovery. More pointedly, it reflects on the history of Angola through a critique of structures of power that continue colonial legacies. The artist explains; “On the street where I grew up in Luanda, there was a school, a cinema, a police station, and a Catholic church next to an Orthopaedic centre – each of which played a part in the colonial strategy. I decided to focus on the Catholic church and the Orthopaedic centre to think through Western influences in Angola’s history and its devastating conflict.”

The 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in 2017 coincided with Kia Henda’s return to Luanda from New York — a trip during which Diana’s humanitarian efforts were advertised broadly in international media. Part of Diana’s efforts included a visit to Angola, in 1997, where she lobbied against the military industry which benefited from the terror of war, particularly in the production and distribution of anti-personnel landmines. Through photographs, a video installation, as well as new sculptural installations, Kia Henda reflects on the continued effects of active landmines in Angola. A vestige of the brutal civil war, anti-personnel landmines continue to threaten the lives of civilians across the country.

Terra inóspita is a new sculpture that gestures at illusions of safety. The work is modelled on signs used to warn people of the existence of anti-personnel landmines. Made from 117 glass rods, Terra inóspita is a reinterpretation of these warning signs which are often made of wooden sticks painted red and white. The translucency and fragility of glass as a material reflects on the battlefield as a site of deadly experimentation, a lethal laboratory of forts. Loosely translated from Portuguese as “inhospitable land”, the sculpture reflects frustration at the inefficacy of measures to prevent death. Kia Henda recalls small children playing near these signs, wholly unaware of the dangers of existing landmines. Through this work, he pushes against the historicization of the war, returning these concerns to the present moment. Alongside this work is a clay sculpture, A Healing Path for Phantom Pain, based on rehabilitation apparatus used by patients at the Neves Bendinha Orthopaedic Centre. The work reflects on processes of healing and recuperation. The sculpture functions as a model for Kia Henda’s plans to replicate a lifesize rehabilitation apparatus, using sand. For the artist, both materials of sand and clay contain fragility and have a connection to healing pains of the past.

The series of photographs in the exhibition document the Neves Bendinha Orthopaedic Centre and the Santa Ana Catholic church. Devoid of human beings and with no signifiers of time, the images capture an enduring melancholy and restlessness. Both the Orthopaedic centre and the church are a reflection of sites of hope for many Angolans who experienced the effects of war. And yet they reveal themselves as not completely within reach — enclosed, protected…and therefore empty.

Restless Landscape is a series of digital print montages. The images are an assemblage of photographs of the landscape in the central part of Angola where the civil war was particularly damaging. Thinking about the impact of war on both people and on nature, Kia Henda gestures towards trauma’s ability to root itself into the land, thereby necessitating a process of healing and renewal. By creating the photomontages, he is recreating a new landscape filled with overlapping trees — this process of manipulation is Kia Henda’s attempt at rehabilitating the land from a traumatic past.

In Phantom Pain – A letter to Henry A. Kissinger (2020), part of which is filmed at the Neves Bendinha Orthopaedic Centre, Kia Henda confronts former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for his involvement in crimes against humanity and the resultant enduring pain his decisions caused. Kissinger, of course, remains a polarising figure hailed as both war criminal and venerated as a Nobel prize laureate. Through this work, Kia Henda points to the ways in which the retelling of history is illusory, perhaps even deceptive.

Through a meditation on the geopolitical, “A Healing Path for Phantom Pain” studies how trauma travels temporally and spatially while also confronting the painful process of overcoming that trauma.

KILUANJI KIA HENDA

Kiluanji Kia Henda (b. 1979, Luanda, Angola) employs a surprising sense of humour in his work, which often homes in on themes of identity, politics, and perceptions of post-colonialism and modernism in Africa. Kia Henda brings a critical edge to his multidisciplinary practice, which incorporates photography, video, and performance. Informed by a background surrounded by photography enthusiasts, Kia Henda’s conceptual-based work has further been sharpened by exposure to music, avant-garde theatre, and collaborations with a collective of emerging artists in Luanda’s art scene. Much of Kia Henda’s work draws on history through the appropriation and manipulation of public spaces and structures, and the different representations that form part of collective memory, in order to produce complex, yet powerful imagery.

Kia Henda has had solo exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world. His work has featured on biennales in Venice, Dakar, São Paulo and Gwanju as well as major travelling exhibitions such as Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design and The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory revisited by Contemporary African Artists. In 2019, Kia Henda’s work was acquired by Tate Modern in London, and he was selected to participate on the Unlimited sector at Art Basel. In 2020, Kia Kenda exhibited at the MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro in Italy, marking his first solo exhibition in a major European museum.

Kia Henda currently lives and works between Luanda and Lisbon.

05.02.2022 | par Alícia Gaspar | A Healing Path for Phantom Pain, Art, culture, exhibition, goodman gallery, kiluanji kia henda

Streams of Memories — 28-30 January 2022

A free online screening programme of Black experimental cinema curated by CAS as part of a residency with The Showroom at Metroland Studio


Schedule:

S. Pearl SharpBack Inside Herself, 1984, 4 minutes

Barbara McCulloughWater Ritual #1: An urban rite of purification, 1979, 6 minutes

Kym RagusaDemarcations, 1992, 5 minutes

Omah DieguAfrican Women, U.S.A., 1980, 20 minutes

Martina AttilleDreaming Rivers, 1988, 30 minutes

Please note that Demarcations (1992) and African Woman, U.S.A (1980) contain references to rape so viewer discretion is advised.

Please note that you must book via the eventbrite link below.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/streams-of-memories-tickets-230343442437

About this event

Streams of Memories is a free online screening programme curated by us at the culmination of our curatorial research residency with The Showroom at Metroland Studio, Kilburn, 2021.

The programme presents five experimental short films by S. Pearl Sharp, Barbara McCullough, Kym Ragusa, Omah Diegu, and Martina Attille; exploring the ways in which these experimental filmmakers weave and unravel stories, fears and hopes across the African continent and diaspora, between generations and over time.

Each film touches upon the sociality and sensuality of gathering; heightened by being shown together as part of this programme in company and dialogue with one another. S. Pearl Sharp’s film Back Inside Herself (1984) is a visual poem on self-invention and shows a Black woman finding her own sense of self while rejecting white hegemonic societal expectations of who she should be and how she should behave. Barbara McCullough extends the poetics of cinema in Water Ritual #1: An urban rite of purification (1979) to enact the spiritual and psychological journey of a Black woman as she (re)connects with the African continent and the Caribbean on a cosmological level. A different sense of wandering and wondering is conveyed in Kym Ragusa’s Demarcations (1992) through mediations on how the trauma of rape leaves its inflictions on the body yet does not determine self-identity. African Women, U.S.A. (1980) by Omah Diegu further explores misogynoir and transnational complexities by addressing family, labour and gender power relations. Dreaming Rivers (1988) by Martina Attille reflects and recalls the ghosts of love, loss and kinship.

Together these short films pull, release and upsurge the histories, experiences and lives of Black women. Rather than merely presenting how they are viewed, particularly by the white gaze, these films - or memories - intervene in dominant Western cinematic aesthetics and redirect vision towards how Black women themselves view the structures, relations and intimacies of their lives. These five filmmakers look at the camera not for recognition, but to confront and impose their looking onto and against the camera.

It is this ambivalence to visibility and wildness to capture that led us to accompany the screening programme with the essay Why Black Cinema? (1987) by the late poet, writer, and social activist Toni Cade Bambara. The text and film programme will be discussed in an accompanying reading group at The Showroom. This follows our s ongoing work to both explore and host discussion framed by the intersectional relations between contemporary art practice and (Black) literary theory.

The programme is free to attend, although booking via Eventbrite will be essential. after which you will receive a link to watch the films online over full the screening programme weekend, Friday 28–Sunday 30 January 2022.

With thanks to each of the filmmakers and to distributors Cinenova, Third Worlds Newsreel, UCLA Film Archive and LUX.

About CAS

CAS is an interdisciplinary curatorial platform founded in 2013 that foregrounds archival research to facilitate institutional as well as public awareness and engagement with past and present artistic productions from the African continent and diaspora. Core to CAS’s work is creating access to these knowledge productions and artistic curricula, including hosting trans-geographical dialogues that centre critical pedagogies and decolonial paradigms to bring into focus the historiography, theory, and practices of Black cultural workers for exhibition projects and public programming.

About Awa Konaté

Awa Konaté is a London and Copenhagen based curator, researcher, and founder of CAS. Her curatorial practice foregrounds archives, decolonial thought, and interdisciplinary frameworks of artistic productions from the African continent and diaspora with a focus on lens-based practices. Konaté has worked with The Showroom and The Danish Film Institute to mention a few. Her writings have been published in Third Text, Phaidon, Paletten Art Journal, and more.

About The Showroom

The Showroom is a contemporary art space focused on collaborative and process-driven approaches to cultural production; be that art work, exhibitions, events, discussions, publications, knowledge and relationships, within its locality
 and beyond.

About Metroland Studio

A new site for research, experimentation and production, the new Metroland Studio residencies carry forward the core aims of Metroland Cultures to make new places for artists and art in Brent; and to build a legacy for the borough and its surrounding spaces, institutions and organisations.

28.01.2022 | par Alícia Gaspar | black cinema, black movies, cinema, culture, films, online events, online screening

Refugee Arts Networks: Extending the Frame

This panel discussion & exchange brings together refugee artists’ advocacy networks to discuss new models for resilient creative networks.

About this event

What are the strategies and challenges faced by refugee artists today? How can networks foster systemic change? How can we develop new frameworks driven by artistic vision created by refugee artists?

This panel discussion & exchange will bring together refugee artists’ advocacy networks to discuss new models for resilient creative networks, featuring grassroots organisations from the UK, France, Germany and Portugal.

This is an event for artists, scholars, cultural workers and policymakers, aiming to increase visibility and opportunities for refugee artists and groups, to share experiences and practices across geographic and cultural settings. The hybrid event will facilitate an open conversation on the role of networks in advocating change on various artistic and institutional levels, aiming to build alliances across research and the creative sector within and outside the UK.

This event is FREE to attend, and we welcome everyone who is interested in refugeedom and performing arts! Tickets are available to attend either in-person or online. Space for social distancing will be created for the live event. For those who attend in person, the event will end with a reception and networking opportunity lasting until 18:00. For those who choose to join us online, the link and details of how to join will be sent to you on the morning of the event(02/11/2021)

Event organisers:

Drama Department, University of Manchester

Community Arts North West (CAN)

Migrant Dramaturgies Network 

New Tides Platform

Participating organisations:

Migrants in Theatre, UK

MENA Arts, UK

L’Atelier des Artistes en Exil [Agency of Artists in Exile], France

PostHeimat Network, Germany

UNA- União Negras das Artes [Union of Black Artists], Portugal

26.10.2021 | par Alícia Gaspar | Art, culture, france, Germany, Portugal, refugee arts networks, refugees, UK, união negra das artes

Research Film Festival 2011-2012 - Call for Applications

The Canadian-based Research Network “Slavery, Memory, Citizenship”, the European network of EURESCL: Slave Trade, Slavery, Abolition and their Legacies in European Histories and Identities (7th PCRD), and the CIRESC “Centre International de Recherches sur les Esclavages, Acteurs, Systèmes, Representations” are pleased to announce their fourth annual international research film festival and welcomes submissions that address the realities of slavery in its past and contemporary forms.

The theme for Festival 2011-2012 is once again “Culture, Diaspora, and Citizenship”.

 

The fourth edition of the festival will begin in May 2011 and will travel to locations that include:

- Paris (May 2011)
- Mexique, Mexico City
- Veracruz, Mérida, Chetumal
- Dakar
- Abidjan, Cotonou, Lomé, Ngaoundéré
- Port au Prince
- Havanna, Santiago de Cuba
- Ouagadougou
- Rio de Janeiro (November 2011)
- Quebec/Toronto (February 2012)

The Toronto version of the festival will be hosted by the Harriet Tubman Institute.

 

 

17.03.2011 | par nadinesiegert | culture, diáspora, film festival