Visionary Africa
This summer, Africa explodes in colours and life to celebrate 50 years of independence in Congo and 16 other African countries. A festival with the finest in theatre arts and dedicated creators. The fascinating GEO-graphics exhibition constitutes the first part of a new vision of our relationship with Africa. All the festival artists are then encouraged to come join the discussion and the engagement for this visionary Africa during their 48 hours in Brussels.
GEO-graphics exhibition
National heritage, context, modernism: these three conceptual focal points of his teacher in architecture, David Chipperfield, profoundly influenced Ghanan David Adjaye when he set about photographing the runaway urbanisation of African cities. From them, he brought back not only monumental photos, but more importantly, a vision.
In his view, the six major types of landscape that one encounters in Africa directly influence the culture and artistic production of the peoples who inhabit them. This observation led directly to the decision to divide the exhibition, of which he is the artistic director, into six sections. Each section hosts, according to origin, 220 ethnographic masterpieces of the Musée de Tervuren and/or private collections, re-contextualised by Adjaye’s snapshots, contemporary works selected by eight art centres from civil society in each zone concerned.
A new cultural map of Africa is drawn in front of our eyes. It sweeps away the artificial sectioning imposed by colonisation, re-sewing the link between the works of the past and the present, and replacing them in the same continuum – a great millennial history.
A summer of African photography
Alongside GEO-graphics, there are three other expositions that will capture your attention from 26 June to 26 September as part of Visionary Africa and the Summer of Photography: A Useful Dream (African photography 1960-2010), the Roger Ballen Retrospective and the 3rd Edition of Pôze, Africa Town in Brussels.
48 Hours in Brussels
Even more than the plastic arts, the living arts spontaneously convey the plural identity of Africa found both within its borders and beyond. That is why we have invited artists committed to the development of the African cultural sector to go beyond their artistic performance. By remaining for 48 Hours in Brussels, aside from their performance, they will visit the exhibitions and hold a public discussion of the future of cultural institutions in Africa and their role in the development process in Africa. More than 500 hours of dedicated joy in Brussels.
At the cinema, an African symphony
Two previews with Soul Boy, an initiatory tour through the very heart of the largest shantytown in Nairobi, with the irresistible Kinshasa Symphony. This documentary explores the everyday life of the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra, a patchwork orchestra including electricians and auctioneers, amateurs and autodidacts, with moments of grace that sweep over everything they pass.
Congo@Bozar
On the 30th of June, the Democratic Republic of Congo will celebrate 50 years of independence. The celebration will extend to Brussels in July, with 5 acoustic rumba concerts in the Horta Hall, a parade between Matongé and the Palais des Beaux-Arts, a gospel concert and a mega-concert showcasing 50 years of Congolese music. Not to mention the cinema, with Kinshasa Symphony.
