Talks: Artist-led initiatives in Africa

Until November 2018, she served as Creative Time Senior Curator, curating among others their 11th edition of their Summit and the public art project Basilea. Previously, she curated Laura Lima’s Horse Takes King, the last iteration of the four-part project, Slight Agitation at the Fondazione Prada, where since 2015 she has curated exhibitions such as, Theaster Gates’s True Value, Nástio Mosquito’s T.T.T. Template Temples of Tenacity and Betye Saar: Uneasy Dancer.

Dyangani Ose was Curator of the eighth edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary art, (GIBCA 2015) and Curator International Art at Tate Modern (2011 – 2014). Previously, Dyangani Ose served as curator at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, as Artistic Director of Rencontres Picha, Lubumbashi Biennial (2013), and as Guest Curator of the triennial SUD, Salon Urbain de Douala (2010). Main curatorial projects include: A Story Within A Story… (2015), Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist (2013), Across the Board (2012–2014), Carrie Mae Weems: Social Studies (2010), Arte Invisible (2009, 2010), and Olvida Quien Soy/Erase Me From Who I Am (2006).

Dyangani Ose has published and lectured on modern and contemporary African art and has contributed to art journals such as Nka and Atlántica. She studied a Doctoral Degree in History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, New York; has a MAS in Theory and History of Architecture from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona; and a BA in Art History from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

The artist’s use of photographic archives enables him to manipulate time and space and thus to compare the old colonial reports with contemporary economic imperialisms. His video works, installations and photographic series examine the ways in which identities are shaped, transformed, twisted and reinvented. His critical view of contemporary societies stands a warning about the way that cultural clichés continue to forge collective memories, making it possible for social and political power games to continue to dictate human behaviour. As he declared in a recent interview: “I’m not interested in colonialism for nostalgic reasons, or for the fact that it represents something from the past. I’m concerned with the perpetuation of the system.” 

Sammy Baloji (born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, RD Congo) lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. Since September 2019, he has been conducting an art research doctorate at the Sint Lucas Antwerpen School of Arts called “Contemporary Kasala and Lukasa: towards a Reconfiguration of Identity and Geopolitics”.
He has been awarded the title Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and has received a number of grants, awards and distinctions, particularly at the African Photography Encounters of Bamako and the Dakar Biennale. He is also a winner of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. In 2019-2020, he worked as an artist-in-residence of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici. Since 2018, he has been teaching at the Sommerakademie of Salzburg. In 2008, Sammy Baloji co-founded the Picha Encounters/Lubumbashi Biennale.

Among his recent monographic exhibitions are Sammy Baloji, Other TalesS, Lund Konsthall and Aarhus Kunsthal (2020); Congo, Fragments d’une histoire, Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg (2019); A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2018); Sven Augustijnen & Sammy Baloji, Museumcultuur Strombeek (2018); Urban Now: City Life in Congo, Sammy Baloji and Filip de Boeck, The Power Plant, Toronto and WIELS, Brussels (2016-2017); and Hunting and Collecting, Mu.ZEE Kunstmuseum aan zee, Ostend (2014). He recently participated in the Biennale of Sydney (2020), documenta 14 (Cassel/Athènes, 2017), the Biennale de Lyon (2015), the Venice Biennale (2015), and the Festival Photoquai at the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, 2015).
In 2020, he joined the “Power 100”, a list of the “most influential personalities in the art world” as ranked by the British magazine “ArtReview”.
His first exhibition was held in 2016 at Imane Farès: 802. That is where, as you heard, the elephant danced the malinga. The place where they now grow flowers. For the occasion, the artist unfurled an installation through the spaces of the gallery that is now part of the collections of the Tate in London.

She is the 2007 recipient of the European Union Prize in the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, in Bamako, Mali, the 2010 winner of the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy, a 2018 CatchLight Fellow in San Francisco, USA. In 2019, she also became the first black woman to co-curator the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition and in the following year she returned as a commissioned artist for the prize.

She has been a jury member on several photography competitions, most notably the Sony World Photography Awards 2017 and the World Press Photo Contest 2017. She has also been on various panel discussions on photography, such as the African Union cultural summit, Art Basel, and Tedx/Johannesburg. In 2019, she also gave the renowned Sem Presser Lecture at the World Press Photo Festival in Amsterdam. A Canon Ambassador, Aïda is the founder of the Addis Foto Fest (AFF), the first international photography festival in East Africa held since 2010. As an educator and cultural entrepreneur, she continues to develop projects with local and international institutions in Ethiopia and Côte d'Ivoire.

Since, he has participated in large international gatherings like the Venice, Seoul, Sao Paulo, Bogotà biennials and exhibited in prestigious contemporary art venues. Today he is considered one of the greatest representatives of pan-Arab contemporary art.

Showing complex cultural processes currently underway in the Islamic world, his work surpasses idiosyncrasies and geographical limits and voices the worries and torments of the African continent. The feeling of belonging to a specific geopolitical and cultural context and the need to maintain a link with his homeland are key elements of the artist’s life and work. Art and life are inseparable for him. His childhood memories, frustrations, and the society in which he is evolving seem to fuel his paintings, sculptures, videos and installations. His work concerns Egypt with its traditions, people, colors, without ever slipping into the exoticism or creating distance. It appears, on the contrary, close to everyone’s preoccupations. In fact, Egypt is just a background, a territory inhabited by human beings whose fragility is universal, as are indifference, powerlessness and solitude, weaknesses inherent in human nature. 

Sedira has in group shows at Tate Britain (London, 2002); Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2004, 2009); Mori Museum (Tokyo, 2005); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead, 2005); The Museum of Modern Art of Algiers, (2007); Brooklyn Museum (New York, 2007); Gwangju Museum of Art (South Korea) and the Centre Pompidou-Metz, (France , 2013); MMK Museum für Mordern Kunst (Germany, 2014);

Power Plant (Toronto); Smithsonian (Washington, 2015); Guggenheim and Studio Museum (NY); Museum Colecao Berardo, (Lisbon, 2016); MAC VAL (France , 2017) and Whitechapel Gallery (London, 2019)

Also in biennials and triennials including the Venice Biennale (2001 and 2011); Limerick Biennial (Ireland 2001); ICP Triennial (New York, 2003); Sharjah Biennale (UAE, 2003 and 2007); Folkestone Triennial (2011); Thessaloniki Biennale (Greece, 2011), Prospect, New Orleans, (USA, 2016) and the Liverpool Biennale (UK, 2021).

Zineb Sedira is at the origin of aria (artist residency in algiers), an artist residency in Algiers which supports the development of the contemporary artistic scene in Algeria through intercultural exchanges and collaborations.

The artist has been shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2021.

Her forthcoming solo exhibitions in 2022 will be at the De La Warr Pavilion, UK, Dallas Contemporary, US and Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Portugal

Finally, in April 2022 Zineb Sedira will be representing France at the 59th Venice Biennale, 2022.

He founded Bandjoun Station there. The foundation was inaugurated in 2013 as a residence featuring live-in workshops for artists and researchers from all over the world working to develop a cultural offering suitable for the local community. He describes it in the following terms: “My idea for Bandjoun Station was to combine traditional African art with contemporary art from all over the world, and to exhibit all the works in a single space, without ghettoisation or a hierarchy of values. […] Thus Bandjoun Station became a meeting place at the crossroads of classical art and contemporary art.”1. He also developed agricultural projects there in a healthy spirit of sustainable development.

From the late 1990s, his works were noticed by several critics and curators, who invited him to large-scale events: In 1999, Hans Ulrich Obrist, to Migrateurs (ARC, Paris); in 2000, Jean-Hubert Martin to Partage d’exotismes (Biennale de Lyon); in 2001, Pierre Restany to Political Ecology (White Box, New York); and in 2015, Okwui Enwezor to the Venice Biennale, All the World’s Future. In 2016, Barthélémy Toguo was one of the four artists nominated for the Marcel Duchamp prize. For the occasion, he presented the installation Vaincre le virus ! at the Centre Pompidou.

Showing his perpetual rebellion against the world’s dysfunctions, a number of his pieces deal with migration and exile. Nature, another of the artist’s favourite themes, is also present, such as in the “Homo Planta” painting series, expressing his desire to see man living in harmony with nature. Barthélémy Toguo’s works waver between the condemnation of inequalities and the celebration of life, the body and nature.

His works are present in a number of collections, including those of the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Paris), the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris), the MAC/VAL (Paris), the Tate Modern (London), the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Miami), the Pérez Art Museum (Miami), the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la création (Paris), and the Collection Agnès b. (Paris). The artist recently received an order for four lintels to be permanently exhibited at the Musée Rodin (Paris).