Making Africa
A Continent of Contemporary Design
The exhibition showcases the work of over 120 African artists and creators and illustrates how design fuels economic and political changes. "Making Africa" speaks, from Africa, of a new continent “under construction” and places emphasis on its possibilities over its problems.
"Making Africa. A Continent of Contemporary Design" Exhibition Report
The exhibition showcases the work of over 120 African artists and creators and illustrates how design fuels economic and political changes. "Making Africa" speaks, from Africa, of a new continent “under construction” and places emphasis on its possibilities over its problems.
Africa from the West: a Biased View
Alex Hinojo
Africa is clearly subject to systemic bias: it is under-represented from the point of view of participation, content, and perspective.
Against NGO aesthetic
Interview with Sam Hopkins, cofounder of Slum TV, a project of African narratives
Sam Hopkins, artist and curator, co-founder of Slum TV, Nairobi, argues against the “NGO aesthetics”–the one-sided representation of his home country of Kenya, and Africa in general, in the global media–and talks about the SlumTV project, as a creative, identity-building and dynamic effort involving the local community in the informal settlement of Mathare, to counter these main stream media representations.
Art, religion and homosexuality in Africa
Interview with Sunny Dolat and Jim Chuchu, founders of The Nest
Jim Chuchu, filmmaker, artist and founder of the arts centre The Nest, Nairobi, and Sunny Dolat, stylist, fashion designer and member and co-founder of The Nest, clarify the purpose of The Nest in questioning what is African and what is “Un-African,” in relation to religion, sexuality, music, fashion, art, design, and so on, looking for meanings in before unquestionable values to acknowledge and perhaps re-define African identity in its plurality.
Koyo Kouoh: "There is a generation that is changing the image of Africa"
Interview with Koyo Kouoh, member of the "Making Africa" exhibition advisory board
Koyo Kouoh, curator based in Dakar and member of the Making Africa exhibition advisory board, sheds light on “a young generation of savvy, creative, artistic, intellectual, political African people” who are less influenced by the heavy political history of Africa, and being influenced instead by the free Internet, mobility, access, on-the-click life style. A change that is shifting the fundamental on-look Africans have on their own image, and how they want to be perceived.
The Digital Citizenry Revolution in Africa
Carlos Bajo
Citizens are monitoring elections, challenging dictators, claiming basic rights and building communities. African civil society takes control of digital space.
Akosua Adoma Owusu
New Voices of African Cinema
As part of the activities parallel to the “Making Africa” exhibition, Xcèntric brought American-born Ghanaian filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu to Barcelona. In 2013, her short film Kwaku Ananse was highly acclaimed at the Berlin International Film Festival. Conversation with Ako...
Mia Couto
My Africa
From his singular perspective as a scientist and poet, a white man and an African, and a novelist in a society with a long oral tradition, the celebrated Mozambican author and biologist Mia Couto offers a ver personal look at the African continent. Often, the noise of current events keeps us ...
Chigozie Obioma
Africa as a story
Chigozie Obioma, author and assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, explains that his novel aims to “build a portrait of Nigeria at a very seminal moment in its history (the annulled presidential elections of 1993), and by so doing deconstruct and illuminate the ideological potholes that still impede the nation’s progress even today.”
Afrofuturism, Science Fiction and African Identity
Ferran Esteve
Afrofuturism is an artistic and cultural movement that has been calling for a new identity for decades through the science fiction and historical fantasy genres.
Interview with Okwui Enwezor
Consulting curator of the Making Africa exhibition
In this interview, the curator Enwezor discusses the influence of design in Africa and why it is important to redefine the traditional design terminology in this new context.
The new correspondents
Conversation with Tania Adam, Xavier Aldekoa, Samuel Aranda and Gemma Parellada
African music, Dance and Culture at the Civic Centers of Barcelona
"Making Africa" exhibition goes out from the CCCB
The network of Civic Centres of Barcelona programmed a series of activities alongside the exhibition Making Africa to introduce us to the contemporary art and creativity of this continent and its diaspora by means of photography, dance, video art, gastronomy, poetry, art and digital crafts. To tell ...
Making Africa
A Continent of Contemporary Design
The exhibition showcases the work of over 120 African artists and creators and illustrates how design fuels economic and political changes. Making Africa shows works from diverse creative areas: design of objects and furniture, the graphic arts, illustration, fashion, ...