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ACROSS THE BOARD Sponsored by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. Across the board The series continued in Douala, Cameroon, in a unique collaboration with Doual’art Sponsored by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. for the third edition of the Salon Urbain de Doula, SUD 2013 in which Across the board Across the board is a two-year project that responded to the theme of Public Space / Public provides an organic and experimental Sphere. South African artist collective The platform for emerging artists and explores Trinity Session, formed by Marcus Neustteter recent artistic practices in Africa and and Stephen Hobbs, created a collaborative its Diaspora. performance, involving the residents of the borough of Bessengue – Akwa. The newly The first event in this series took place commissioned work, Bessengue B’ Etoukoa in London in The Tanks at Tate Modern 2013, explored recent urban tranformations on 24 November 2012 and invited artists in the borough through the perspectives of Otobong Nkanga and Nástio Mosquito the residents and their personal experiences, to respond to the question of the using fashion design and styling as a symbolic Politics of Representation. In a durational metaphor for change. The presentations performance piece Nkanga presented of Nelisiwe Xaba and Faustin Linyekula were a new work that considered the transience also deeply affecting. Xaba’s contemporary of states, of objects and intangible things, dance and video works Plasticization 2007 such as identity, memory and perception and Uncles & Angels 2013 engaged the public in Contained Measures of Shifting States 2012. in a reflection on the role of individuals Mosquito collaborated with Vic Pereiro in the constitution of a civic society. Whilst in a multi-projection live performance, Linyekula’s solo performance Le Cargo 2011 re-enacting a number of his provocative symbolised a vivid example of that individual videos in Flourishing Seeds 2012. engagement, particularly in relation to tradition, local production of knowledge In Accra, Ghana from 21–23 February 2013 and personal and collective narratives. participants were brought together from across the African continent and its Diaspora For this final phase of the project hosted for talks and screenings reflecting on the in Lagos, Nigeria on 18 April 2014 Across the impact of different institutional models, board has invited Chrimurenga to excavate from independent artist led initiatives to the invaluable history of interdisciplinary national museums, on the artistic production practices in Africa with a focus on FESTAC ’77 in Africa, in the event Institution Building. – The Second World Black and African The programme was organised in Festival of Arts and Culture. This ongoing collaboration with Nubuke Foundation, the research has developed into an online Dei Centre for the Study of Contemporary resource and a symposium in Lagos featuring African Art and Art in Social Structures (AiSS). key protagonists from the festival. Participants included, among others: Ato Annan, Bernard Akoi-Jackson, Mantse Across the board has enabled new modes Aryeequaye, Kader Attia, Kwaku ‘Castro’ of cultural partnership that complement Across the board is curated by Kissiedu, Godfried Donkor, Marion Louisgrand, Tate’s collecting activities, developing Elvira Dyangani Ose, Curator International Art Aida Muluneh, Nat Nunu Amarteifio, Gabi further the conceptual framework proposed Supported by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc., Ngobo, Emeka Ogboh, Jimmy Ogonga, by Tate’s approach to Africa, looking at Tate Modern with Loren Hansi Momodu, Senam Okudzeto, Kojo Setordji and Rikki theoretical narratives, cultural objects and Assistant Curator, Tate Modern. Wemega-Kwawu. traditionally ‘non-collectable’ material. The Trinity Session, documentation of the live performance Bessengue B’ Etoukoa 2013 Photo: Yvon Ngassam for Tate Photography © Tate, London 2013 Interdisciplinary ethnic groups, and promoting the sense of a multi-ethnic society with the inclusion Practices of a broad range of cultural initiatives. The government’s agenda at the international level Lagos, Nigeria hosts the final phase was for the festival to champion the image of Across the board. In June 2013, Tate and spirit of the country abroad. It was to supported Chimurenga’s ongoing research prove to the world the existence and meaning into the Second World Black and African of modernity on Nigerian terms, which was Festival, FESTAC ’77 with a dedicated by means of a black internationalist and research trip to Lagos to meet with the Pan-Africanist approach. influential figures associated with the event and to visit the Centre for Black and African The Nigerian government positioned Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), home to all itself far from the conceptualisations of the materials collected and produced during modernity provided by Senghor’s Negritude FESTAC ’77. Chimurenga’s research sought or Kwame Nkrumah’s African Personality. out the personal testimonies of artists, critics, At FESTAC ’77 Nigeria celebrated the writers and filmmakers who have produced emergence of a distinctive black and African subjective accounts of the festival, exploring modernity from the collective wellspring both the official narrative of FESTAC ’77 and of traditional culture – a culture that it would the emergence of a counter-culture. A tangible recuperate and strengthen as the foundation outcome of this enquiry and exploration of its industrial development. Above all, has already manifested on the Chimurenga the Nigerian government viewed modernity website with a devoted Chimurenga Library as dependant on prosperity through the page presenting an extraordinary visual languages of modernisation and capitalism, narrative of the event and making it readily or in other words, in terms of industrialisation available to a broad audience. and consumerism. As a modernising nation, Nigeria’s successes were made visible FESTAC ’77 took place between January by initiatives like FESTAC ’77, but, what and February of 1977. Delegates from sixty was the response of local intellectuals countries and communities belonging to the to this national dramaturgy of appearances so-called ‘Black and African World’ gathered and representations that beckoned toward together to express through music, literature, modernity and brought it into being? arts and politics, the quintessential aspects of their culture. The festival extended the In pure artistic terms, FESTAC ’77 assisted Head of Queen Idia Photo © Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC) boundaries and definitions of Blackness and in enhancing an existent and ongoing Africanness in an attempt to challenge notions connection between all kinds of black of Negritude and Pan-Africanism explored and African artists from around the world. in previous festivals; the First World Festival As historian Andrew Apter indicates, of Black Arts held in Dakar, Senegal, in FESTAC ’77 was an opportunity to explore 1966 and First Pan African Cultural Festival/ ‘cultural representations produced PANAF held in Algiers, Algeria, in 1969. by Africans in a postcolonial context Across the board: Interdisciplinary Practices FESTAC ’77 aimed to accommodate and appeal of exceptional prosperity, bringing visions Sponsored by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. to both local and international audiences. of cosmopolitan Lagos and its upbeat Organised by Tate Modern in collaboration In the context of Nigeria, the event fostered modernity into critical dialogue with its with Chimurenga, Centre for Contemporary national culture, creating an appreciation of colonial past’1 and its Pan-African future. Art, Lagos and Terra Kulture. the artistic production of the country’s various Across the board: Interdisciplinary Practices takes Chimurenga’s research as the focus Programme Biographies Ntone Edjabe of a one-day event inviting scholars, Ntone Edjabe is the founder and editor poets, writers and artists to reflect on the Across the board Akin Adesokan of Chimurenga, a journal and platform for ideologies behind the international gathering Interdisciplinary Practices: FESTAC ’77 Akin Adesokan’s books include Roots in editorial and curatorial activities. He is also and the economic, cultural and socio-political Lagos, Nigeria the Sky a novel, and Postcolonial Artists and co-editor of African Cities Reader, a bi-annual context in which that venture took place. Global Aesthetics. His essays and stories have publication in collaboration with the University The project explores notions of Pan-Africanism Friday 18 April 2014 appeared in AGNI, Screen, Social Dynamics, of Cape Town. He is the founder of the and Afro-futurism, implicit in the work of Terra Kulture, African Affairs, Black Camera, Research Pan African Space Station (PASS), an internet artist collective The Otolith Group and artist Plot 1376, Tiamiyu Savage, in African Literatures, and Textual Practice, based music project. As a journalist, he has Kapwani Kiwanga, respectively. Off Ahmadu Bello Way, as well as in numerous edited volumes. collaborated with numerous radio stations Victoria Island, Lagos He is an Associate Professor of Comparative and publications, including Bush Radio 89.5, 1 Andrew Apter The Pan-African Nation: Oil and Spectacle of Culture Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington; Politique Africaine, L’Autre Afrique, BBC Focus in Nigeria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p3 10.30–11.00 Coffee and registration a columnist for Premium Times; and on Africa and more. He also performs as a Contributing Editor of The Chimurenga a musician and
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