The African Futures Festival Bridges Cultures in Berlin
The Festival will offer a platform for cultural exchanges between Africa and Germany
June 28th, 2016The exhibition of artistic, political, literary and scientific influences is taking place in the Berlin art forum SAVVY Contemporary, a famous location in the city for the promotion and exchange of Western and Non- Western cultures, and will run until August 7th.
The African Futures Festival, initiated and sponsored by the Goethe Institute and the TURN Fund of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, aims to find a solution to the questions posed by the uncertainty of the artistic, cultural and political future for the various countries of Africa.
Three concurrent interdisciplinary festivals already took place in Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi from the 28th of October to the 31st of October 2015, with the aim of exploring the future, following potential narratives and artistic expression in literature, fine arts, and various performances, as well in other media like films and music.
The Berlin event, started on June 3rd, will provide a continuation to the debate already begun in the larger African festival. The most interesting outcomes of artistic positions and discourse elements will be part of an interdisciplinary festival at SAVVY Contemporary.
The Festival in Berlin will focus on the future production of culture and knowledge in Africa. The festival will speculate about how knowledge is generated in Africa and also about what both the future of the continent and the continents culture is. In light of this, European and African representatives will attend the Festival, presenting elements of conjunction between the Western and the African culture, and showing how deep the two affect each other.
Although Berlin has been chosen for its cultural diversity and its ever-changing artistic influences, the festival also features live video conferences connecting the German capital with other Western cities all around the globe – like São Paulo and New York - providing further evidence of the effects of the African cultural Diaspora in the West.
References:
- - http://africanfutures.tumblr.com/
- - http://www.gicafrica.diplo.de/Vertretung/suedafrika-dz/en/__pr/2016/06/06-African-Futures.html
News from Berlin
Giorgio Malvermi, Berlin Global