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- Convenors:
-
Lizelle Bisschoff
(University of Glasgow)
Isabel Mendes (Queen Margaret University)
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- Location:
- 2E07
- Start time:
- 29 June, 2013 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel will look at the increasingly diasporic, inter- and transnational positioning of African art, artists, and their cultural and creative practices, including filmmaking, music, visual arts, theatre and literature.
Long Abstract:
This panel will look at the diasporic, inter- and transnational positioning of African art, artists, and their cultural and creative practices, including filmmaking, music, visual arts, theatre and literature. Through new mobilities and methods - such as digital technologies, the internet and mobile phones - and their applications in African creative practices, artists and cultural practitioners are exploring new genres and production methods and establishing international and cross-continental links in both the production and consumption of creative products. Umbrella organisations and regional, continental and international events and initiatives within the arts and creative practices - such as the Arterial Network, music festivals, film festivals, arts competitions, conferences and think tanks - increasingly bring together a diverse range of African artists, performers, intellectuals and audiences. These initiatives and events are examples of novel and innovative spaces where creative and cultural practice is shaped, discussed and disseminated. In capital cities across the continent postcolonial structures such as the Goethe Institut, the Instituto Camoes or the Institut Francais have established themselves as privileged spaces for practitioners where art not only happens, but is supported. They are recognised and important artistic hubs, at times in contrast with the countries' own cultural policies. Similarly, government funded transnational European institutions play an increasingly important role in supporting their member's countries cultural policies. The panel will not only look at the continental connections of African artistic and creative practices, but also how contemporary African arts and culture is received outside of Africa in an increasingly globalised world.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Sara Martins (Goldsmiths College)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore the state of art of the African Contemporary Arts in the last 15 years, from an institutional and political point of view – relating it with the global dynamic of the artistic field and social and cultural policies regarding the artistic sector.
Paper long abstract:
There is an increasing presence of diasporic, inter- and transnational positioning of African arts, artists, and their cultural and creative practices among different events and institutions across the world. I called it the re-emergency because this process is no longer about the recognition of an aesthetic, but rather its refusal! This is due to the multiplication of media and contents produced and (re)distributed in global terms. The emergency was to specify the place of Africa in the artistic scene - considering its own elements of distinction/legitimation, markets and technological artefacts.
Does the label "Africa" represents an emergent process of marketing of global sales and attracts audiences? Does the "post-colonial" plays an active role on the creation of this platform of distribution and legitimisation?
I will explore different events/institutions from Documenta 11 to the Tate Modern (especially looking at the development of the new working area focusing specifically in Africa, November 2012). These different elements will help us to understand the recent development in terms of cultural policies within Europe and trace the dynamics of the global field of arts. I will also consider the projects not fully achieved as the intention of creation of the Africa.cont in Lisbon - project that was dismissed in its ambitions of a major centre of contemporary African arts to assume exclusively a role of platform of events production.
This presentation is the result of some early analysis from on-going doctoral research about cultural policies in Europe regarding African contemporary arts.
Gemma Solés (WIRIKO) Carlos Bajo (Centre d'Estudis Africans i Interculturals (Barcelona)) Vanessa Anaya (WIRIKO) Sebastian Ruiz Cabrera (Wiriko)
Paper short abstract:
Wiriko is a project that is based on the web 2.0 tools to promote African art forms. These artistic expressions have been often neglected from the Western World, so it's time to collaborate and create a real image of the continent’s cultural, creativity and vitality.
Paper long abstract:
Looking at Africa the media usually have done so through a point of view that reflects afropesimistic tendencies. Therefor in the Western World the positive image of Africa has been kept from mainstream view. In the cultural field the debates about authenticity have tended to oppose African contemporary art against African traditional art. In this debate the possibilities of transformation of the Sub Sahara cultures and the modernity of African cities today are often forgotten. Thus historical stereotypes have remained in our imagination. Currently the implementation of new technologies is a big challenge in Africa, but has the potential to be an important tool in the overcoming of the tension between tradition culture and modern culture. This less known artistic side of Africa reflects a dynamic continent full of creativity that has gone unnoticed.
In this context Wiriko is presented as the first website dedicated to the showcasing of African arts and culture in Spanish speaking countries. Wiriko is dedicated to showing the richness of African contemporary arts, without opposing the traditional arts. Giving the artists a platform to broadcast their arts and culture in Spanish speaking countries.
Wiriko.org is based on four pillars: To project a vision of African artistic expressions and to display an image of Africa, closer to reality; to take advantage of new technologies to facilitate better communication; Contributing to the awareness of the African culture that will allow better understanding of the African people that are living in Spain; To highlight the value of the communities of the diaspora.
Vanessa Diaz (Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
Since the 2000s, a new movement of artists defining themselves as contemporary artists have created new categories in the fine arts in Mozambique. How are global aesthetic standards and what is considered art intertwined with the search for new individual and collective ways of art production?
Paper long abstract:
Since the 2000s profound changes have begun to emerge in the visual arts in Mozambique. A new movement of artists, is implementing new visual strategies for artistic production. They are creating new categories in Mozambican fine arts defining themselves as contemporary artist. As one of the strategies for implementing their ideas, MUVART created a Biennale of Contemporary Art that has taken place since 2004. For the participation in this Biennale they encourage artists to deeply reflect on questions of art production and presentation. The introduction of this new approach to art in Mozambique is raising questions and dilemmas about local artistic productions, theories and curatorial practices both within the circle of MUVART as in other local artistic circles. In a country where art was strongly influenced by historical and political processes, and its output forged a connection to the search for national identity, these questions generate new notions of self-perception and identity.
I explore the interactions of contemporary Mozambican artists inside and outside of Mozambique at the level of aesthetic standards, the art market and their notions of self and world that underlie their art production. What are the existing aesthetic categories in Mozambique that define contemporary art? How are these categories manifested in artistic and curatorial work? How does the awareness of global aesthetic standards and the question of what counts as art, especially African art—both inside and outside of Africa—intertwine with the search for possible new ways of individual and collective art production?
Daniel Kuenzler (University of Fribourg)
Paper short abstract:
Songs recorded by artists from different countries are very particular to popular music in East Africa. Interviews with Kenyan artists reveal that these transnational collaborations are strategies to open up markets in an environment where musicians are rather performers than recording artists.
Paper long abstract:
Tanzanian rapper Professor Jay recorded a song called Ndivyo Sivyo with Ugandan raggaman Jose Chameleone, Kenyan rapper Nonini did the song Nani Mwenza with Tanzanian Juma Nature, and two Kenyans (Wyre, Nazizi) collaborate with an Ugandan (Bebe Cool) to record songs under the name East African Bashment Crew. These examples point to something very particular to the popular music scene in East Africa - transnational collaborations - and could easily be multiplied. Cross-border exchanges are not a new phenomenon. Previously, they were mainly motivated by political violence and differences in the recording infrastructure. Interviews with Kenyan musicians clearly revealed one major motivation for contemporary transnational collaborations: they are perceived as a strategy to "open up markets". Artists don't target record selling markets, however. Due to rampant piracy and limited purchasing power, most musicians don't make much money from record sales; although ringtone downloads have recently become more important as a source of income. More central to the economic survival of artists are the fees for performances. Concerts are organized by private promoters or, to a lesser extent, by political actors or European cultural institutions among other actors. Private companies (especially breweries and mobile phone operators) are important sponsors for concerts. Transnational collaborations raise the chances to get solicited for concerts. In an environment where musicians are rather performers than recording artists, transnational collaborations are thus strategies by 'cultural entrepreneurs' to access other performance markets. This explanation is astonishingly similar to the arguments put forward in theories explaining top-down regional economic integration.
Claudia Boehme (Unversity of Leipzig)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will look at the transnationalisation of the Tanzanian film industry and its consequences for local film production practices and aesthetics.
Paper long abstract:
Through the liberalisation of markets and media in the mid-1990s a viable and fast growing video film industry has developed in Tanzania. Starting with film distribution on a national level, movies soon entered the whole of the East African market and, with the use of English subtitles, via the South African Pay TV channel Africa Magic and now also Swahili Magic, can be watched all over Africa. Always on the lookout for alternative sponsoring, through the Internet and local film festivals, filmmakers aim at presenting themselves and their work to a global audience. With these globalisation strategies local film production has received growing recognition not only in their respective countries but also by international cultural and development institutions.
In this paper, which is based on extensive field work and participant observation in the Tanzanian film industry, I want to discuss the consequences of this growing transnational tendency for local creative practices. I will firstly trace the development of the Tanzanian video film industry and the film maker's strategies for looking for sponsors and gaining a global market. With the example of two development film projects in Tanzania and in Kenya I will show how, through these initiatives, elite spaces are created which have a severe influence on local creative practices and aesthetics. In showing how these foreign initiatives try to use the industry for educational and development aims, as with colonial cinema in the past, I will argue that film production is a battlefield over power, control and contents.
Alessandro Jedlowski (Free University of Brussels)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the way the Nigerian video industry has been represented in international film festivals and documentary films, and proposes an interpretation of how this representation has impacted on the industry’s recent transformations
Paper long abstract:
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Nigerian video industry has been the subject of a large number of documentary films and festival retrospectives around the world. Their objective was, in most of the cases, introducing the Nigerian video phenomenon to non-African audiences. As much of the literature on the video industry has evidenced, Nollywood's specific modes of operation made the Nigerian video industry almost incommensurable to other experiences of filmmaking in the world. As a consequence, during its first decade of existence the Nigerian video phenomenon remained practically "invisible" to non-African audiences. The retrospectives and documentaries that appeared since the early 2000s had the objective of filling this gap and making Nollywood visible within the global cinema arena. However, the representation of the video phenomenon that these "metacultural" constructions (Urban) circulated have participated in creating a rigid (and in some cases stereotypical) definition of Nollywood, which has had a specific role in defining the position of the Nigerian video industry in the global cinematic landscape.
In this article, I analyze these discursive constructions in order to understand and interpret the representation of the video phenomenon that they have produced. As I will show in the last section of this presentation, in reaction to this kind of representation a number of directors and producers moved toward new economic and narrative strategies. By doing this they aim at moving Nollywood away from the marginal position in which the "postcolonial-exotic" discourse implicit in these representations has positioned it.