Africa Centre
Encyclopedia
The Africa Centre is structured as a not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide a platform for Pan-African arts and cultural practice to function as a catalyst for social change. All the projects it conducts, facilitates or supports have some social intention. These projects are supported by a variety of Pan-African artists.
, South Africa
. This group became the original Board of Directors
. The process began however in 2003, with the creation of a land development policy framework, a spatial planning
analysis, a feasibility study
and a financial model devised to determine possible directions and potential support for the initiative. At this time it was envisioned that the Africa Centre would be housed in an iconic building in South Africa as part of a broader housing development called the South Bank. This development was intended to created a model of sustainable living that combined mixed income, mixed use and was modeled on strict ecological principles. While the building planning was being developed, the Board appointed a reference group of internationally recognised visual and performance artists, scholars and curators to determine the philosophical goals of the Centre. The members of this group were:
Over a period of eighteen months, members of the group held several colloquia and workshops in Africa, North America and Europe. These meetings gave rise to a series of position papers focusing on the contextual framework, the potential audiences and the content of the Africa Centre, its architectural form and the programs expected to be developed over the next five years.
What emerged from the work of the reference group and the Board was an intention to create an organization that could innovate, lead, challenge and transcend its geographical reality; to draw in new and wider audiences to novel experiences that recalibrate how we perceive and locate our society and ourselves. The intention was to provide a space dedicated to the celebration, creation and performance of contemporary African artistic and intellectual expression. What was paramount was the recognition that this voice is the fruit of an ever-evolving conversation, argument and counter-argument. As such the Africa Centre aims to reflect this multiplicity of identity, be proactive as well reactive and always provocative. The Africa Centre strives to be a hothouse for avant-garde ideas, sewing original avenues for exchange and debate; a brain trust with the capacity to project manage, partner with other organizations, sponsor, curate and develop an archive of resources. It wants to be a curious citizen that is committed to social activism and a sustainable future, as well as has the capacity of art and cultural expression to enhance the full range of the human experience.
As the vision developed it became clear that constructing an iconic building to house its projects was both counterproductive and counterintuitive. The Africa Centre's aspiration to work with and in a Pan-African context makes the creation of ideas and content in one city in South Africa impossible. By 2007 the Africa Centre decided that it would no longer seek to build a physical Centre, but instead would develop a decentralized approach to project creation and manifestation throughout Africa and its Diaspora.
is a platform dedicated to showcasing poetry from Africa and the Diaspora. It is the only podcasting platform in the world dedicated to Pan-African poets. The Badilisha project started with live events in 2006 hosting 1-2 poetry festivals per year. Badilisha Poetry Radio
launched on 30 April 2010 and presents new voices and poetic genres through its weekly podcasts of poets from Africa and the Diaspora. Currently there are more than 100 poets featured. “(Its) intention is to platform who and what Africa has to say to itself and the rest of the world.”
is a public art
festival held annually in the central business district of Cape Town
. For a week each year, ‘Infecting the City’ (ITC) turns Cape Town into a city-sized gallery exhibiting provocative, cutting-edge international and local public art works that resonate within the City’s urban landscape. Infecting the City typically hosts three types of artworks: collaborative works, commissioned works, and audience interventions. These works are collectively presented free to the public in the communal spaces City. The Infecting the City vision is to develop public art that grapples with social issues pivotal to both the South African and more broadly the human condition, which are accessible to everyone living and working in the City. Since inception in 2008 it has been experienced by over 50,000 people, included 814 local and international artists, and showcased 81 different productions.
The idea behind the project is to embrace the lineages that shape music making on and from Africa and to challenge the stereotypes associated with music from this continent. This project isn’t about connecting with African roots, it’s about exploring African cosmopolitanism in the 21st century through music.
Functioning as a triennial project. which started in 2008, its three-year thematic modules open ambits for exchange between participants and their audiences. The theme for the project is “Net / Works: Trans-Local Cultures in the Making of African Worlds.” This theme is about cities and the art of the deal. Its starting point is an observation: cities in Africa today are crucibles of change, movement, imagination and visions for the future. Despite immense difficulties, not least of which massive infrastructural collapse, urban spaces across the continent are put to use by a wide variety of actors as mechanisms for constructing and renovating economies, cultures and selves. Through complex intersections of migration, commerce and related diasporic practices, they are emerging with increasing strength as platforms for cosmopolitan, highly prolific engagement by Africans with, through and across the globe. SPARCK through the lens of various artistic projects explores, debates, and manifests new ways of understanding this theme. www.sparck.org
as well as a competition in 2008 and 2010. It was conceived to provide a platform for South African visual and performance artists n every kind of medium, from the more traditional, such as painting and sculpture, to performance art and new media installations, to show their work, uncompromised by the limitations of technology, space and access. Artists in South Africa often work under extremely varied conditions and see the world from radically different perspectives. These differences shape the countries collective identity and unique social and cultural landscape. The Spier Contemporary has provided a platform for exploring South Africa's diversity, giving audiences insights into its complexity and thus contributing to South Africa's understanding of difference.
The core objectives of the Spier Contemporary were to:
Create a large-scale national exhibition, which genuinely reflects the diversity of the visual and performance arts community living in South Africa;
Develop new audiences and markets for artists, which do not normally have access to 30,000+ potential buyers;
Access new audiences and develop their respective appreciation of a spectrum of artistic forms; and
Provide training and development for visual and performing artists and curators.
The inaugural 2008 exhibition received over 2,500 artists submissions from around the country, exhibited 95 artists in Cape Town and Johannesburg and hosted 25,000 visitors. The 2010 exhibition received over 2,700 artists submissions, exhibited 101 artists, attracted over 20.000 people in Cape Town. The winning artworks selected as part of the competition in 2010 toured four cities in South Africa and attracted 23,000 people.
is a multi–layered, knowledge-sharing platform that was conceived to identify, showcase and expose Africa’s thought leaders. It profiles the ideas, visions and manifestations of experts, mavericks and extraordinary people living in Africa. The project has multiple dimensions, but the two primary parts are Talking Heads Live and Media. The Live events are designed to provide participants with the opportunity to have an intimate 20- minute conversation (two audience members and one expert per table) with four different experts. Each event includes 40-50 experts ranging from cosmologists, economic forecasters, futurists, to sex worker activists and nuclear physicists, a real Wikipedia evening of Africa's thought leaders. The Media component takes the benefits of the Live events to a broader audience by creating mini-documentaries of compelling participants from the Talking Heads live events. These mini-documentaries are filmed and edited in such a way as to bring to life the information and expertise present from Africa's thought leaders to the broadest pool of people possible.
project was initiated by lettera27, a non-profit foundation based in Milan
. The project is now a collaboration between the Africa Centre and lettera27. This project is designed to producing 30,000 Wikipedia articles about Africa
, expanding African content that is already available online, proving a catalyst for the online community
and advocate an implementing a Copyleft
approach. The project is designed to achieve these objectives in two years from 2011-12. Africa Centre starts with the WikiAfrica project by focusing on getting content related to literature
, art
, cinema
and other cultural products online. It will not exclude anything that falls outside of these categories.
History
The Africa Centre was formally established in 2004 as a Non-Profit Section 21 Corporation by Tanner Methvin, Ralph Freese and Adrian Enthoven in Cape TownCape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. This group became the original Board of Directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
. The process began however in 2003, with the creation of a land development policy framework, a spatial planning
Spatial planning
Spatial planning refers to the methods used by the public sector to influence the distribution of people and activities in spaces of various scales. Discrete professional disciplines which involve spatial planning include land use planning, urban planning, regional planning, transport planning and...
analysis, a feasibility study
Feasibility study
Feasibility studies aim to objectively and rationally uncover the strengths and weaknesses of the existing business or proposed venture, opportunities and threats as presented by the environment, the resources required to carry through, and ultimately the prospects for success. In its simplest...
and a financial model devised to determine possible directions and potential support for the initiative. At this time it was envisioned that the Africa Centre would be housed in an iconic building in South Africa as part of a broader housing development called the South Bank. This development was intended to created a model of sustainable living that combined mixed income, mixed use and was modeled on strict ecological principles. While the building planning was being developed, the Board appointed a reference group of internationally recognised visual and performance artists, scholars and curators to determine the philosophical goals of the Centre. The members of this group were:
- Adegboyega Adefope – Architect,
- Bongiwe Dhlomo-Mautloa – Artist and Curator,
- Ntone EdjabeNtone Edjabe- Life and career :Ntone Edjabe was born in Douala and he moved to Lagos where he began his studies. In 1993 he interrupted his studies to move to South Africa. He works as journalist, writer and DJ and basketball coach. He became co-founder and manager of the Pan African Market in 1997, a...
– Cultural Activist, - Stanley Hermans – Artist and Curator,
- Faustin LinyekulaFaustin LinyekulaFaustin Linyekula is a Congolese dancer and choreographer of contemporary dance. His works are structured along the lines of the dance form Ndombolo and its associated music and address "the legacy of decades of war, terror, fear and the collapse of the economy for himself, his family and his...
– Choreographer, - Dominique Malaquais – Architectural Historian,
- Olu OguibeOlu OguibeOlu Oguibe is an artist and public intellectual. Professor of Art and African-American Studies and interim Director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Oguibe is a senior fellow of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, New...
– Artist, Art Historian and Curator, - Edgar Pieterse – Political Scientist, and
- AbdouMaliq Simone – Sociologist.
Over a period of eighteen months, members of the group held several colloquia and workshops in Africa, North America and Europe. These meetings gave rise to a series of position papers focusing on the contextual framework, the potential audiences and the content of the Africa Centre, its architectural form and the programs expected to be developed over the next five years.
What emerged from the work of the reference group and the Board was an intention to create an organization that could innovate, lead, challenge and transcend its geographical reality; to draw in new and wider audiences to novel experiences that recalibrate how we perceive and locate our society and ourselves. The intention was to provide a space dedicated to the celebration, creation and performance of contemporary African artistic and intellectual expression. What was paramount was the recognition that this voice is the fruit of an ever-evolving conversation, argument and counter-argument. As such the Africa Centre aims to reflect this multiplicity of identity, be proactive as well reactive and always provocative. The Africa Centre strives to be a hothouse for avant-garde ideas, sewing original avenues for exchange and debate; a brain trust with the capacity to project manage, partner with other organizations, sponsor, curate and develop an archive of resources. It wants to be a curious citizen that is committed to social activism and a sustainable future, as well as has the capacity of art and cultural expression to enhance the full range of the human experience.
As the vision developed it became clear that constructing an iconic building to house its projects was both counterproductive and counterintuitive. The Africa Centre's aspiration to work with and in a Pan-African context makes the creation of ideas and content in one city in South Africa impossible. By 2007 the Africa Centre decided that it would no longer seek to build a physical Centre, but instead would develop a decentralized approach to project creation and manifestation throughout Africa and its Diaspora.
Artist in Residency
The artist in residency programme is a collaboration with residencies in Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Finland, Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey and the United States of America in which the Africa Centre conducts an Africa wide search for 10 artists each year, across disciplines, to participate in one of the collaborating residencies. The programme has been conceived to support artists from Africa who are provocative, innovative, relevant and highly engaged with both social issues and their art forms.Badilisha Poetry
Badilisha Poetry X-ChangeBadilisha Poetry X-Change
Badilisha Poetry X-Change is a platform dedicated to showcasing poetry from Africa and the Diaspora. The project came out of recognizing the lack of documentation of African poets, on the African continent and in the rest of the world. Its aims are to fill this void as well as create a...
is a platform dedicated to showcasing poetry from Africa and the Diaspora. It is the only podcasting platform in the world dedicated to Pan-African poets. The Badilisha project started with live events in 2006 hosting 1-2 poetry festivals per year. Badilisha Poetry Radio
Badilisha Poetry Radio
A project of the Badilisha Poetry X-Change Badilisha Poetry Radio is an online platform created to appreciate, celebrate and discover contemporary Pan-African poetry. Badilisha Poetry Radio focuses on weekly podcasts featuring poets from the African Continent and its Diaspora...
launched on 30 April 2010 and presents new voices and poetic genres through its weekly podcasts of poets from Africa and the Diaspora. Currently there are more than 100 poets featured. “(Its) intention is to platform who and what Africa has to say to itself and the rest of the world.”
Infecting the City
Infecting the CityInfecting the City
Held in Cape Town, South Africa Infecting the City is a public arts festival that is committed to making art freely available to everyone. The Festival hosts a range of different types of site-specific art, artistic interventions and performance art in the central part of the City. Each year the...
is a public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
festival held annually in the central business district of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. For a week each year, ‘Infecting the City’ (ITC) turns Cape Town into a city-sized gallery exhibiting provocative, cutting-edge international and local public art works that resonate within the City’s urban landscape. Infecting the City typically hosts three types of artworks: collaborative works, commissioned works, and audience interventions. These works are collectively presented free to the public in the communal spaces City. The Infecting the City vision is to develop public art that grapples with social issues pivotal to both the South African and more broadly the human condition, which are accessible to everyone living and working in the City. Since inception in 2008 it has been experienced by over 50,000 people, included 814 local and international artists, and showcased 81 different productions.
Pan-African Space Station
This project attempts to stake a claim to what African music is and can be. The Pan-African Space Station PASS includes an annual 30 day musical intervention through a free form radio station and in unexpected venues across greater Cape TownCape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
The idea behind the project is to embrace the lineages that shape music making on and from Africa and to challenge the stereotypes associated with music from this continent. This project isn’t about connecting with African roots, it’s about exploring African cosmopolitanism in the 21st century through music.
Space for Pan-African Research Creation and Knowledge (SPARCK)
This project is a Pan-African initiative of experimental multi-disciplinary residencies, workshops, symposia, exhibitions, publications and performances centered on innovative, ethically driven approaches to urban space. The project involves a number of cities in Africa and beyond: Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Aba, Nigeria; Touba, Senegal; Karachi, Pakistan; Dubai, UAE and Guangzhou, China.Functioning as a triennial project. which started in 2008, its three-year thematic modules open ambits for exchange between participants and their audiences. The theme for the project is “Net / Works: Trans-Local Cultures in the Making of African Worlds.” This theme is about cities and the art of the deal. Its starting point is an observation: cities in Africa today are crucibles of change, movement, imagination and visions for the future. Despite immense difficulties, not least of which massive infrastructural collapse, urban spaces across the continent are put to use by a wide variety of actors as mechanisms for constructing and renovating economies, cultures and selves. Through complex intersections of migration, commerce and related diasporic practices, they are emerging with increasing strength as platforms for cosmopolitan, highly prolific engagement by Africans with, through and across the globe. SPARCK through the lens of various artistic projects explores, debates, and manifests new ways of understanding this theme. www.sparck.org
Spier Contemporary
The Spier Contemporary has been produced twice as both an exhibitionExhibition
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within museums, galleries and exhibition halls, and World's Fairs...
as well as a competition in 2008 and 2010. It was conceived to provide a platform for South African visual and performance artists n every kind of medium, from the more traditional, such as painting and sculpture, to performance art and new media installations, to show their work, uncompromised by the limitations of technology, space and access. Artists in South Africa often work under extremely varied conditions and see the world from radically different perspectives. These differences shape the countries collective identity and unique social and cultural landscape. The Spier Contemporary has provided a platform for exploring South Africa's diversity, giving audiences insights into its complexity and thus contributing to South Africa's understanding of difference.
The core objectives of the Spier Contemporary were to:
Create a large-scale national exhibition, which genuinely reflects the diversity of the visual and performance arts community living in South Africa;
Develop new audiences and markets for artists, which do not normally have access to 30,000+ potential buyers;
Access new audiences and develop their respective appreciation of a spectrum of artistic forms; and
Provide training and development for visual and performing artists and curators.
The inaugural 2008 exhibition received over 2,500 artists submissions from around the country, exhibited 95 artists in Cape Town and Johannesburg and hosted 25,000 visitors. The 2010 exhibition received over 2,700 artists submissions, exhibited 101 artists, attracted over 20.000 people in Cape Town. The winning artworks selected as part of the competition in 2010 toured four cities in South Africa and attracted 23,000 people.
Talking Heads
Talking HeadsTalking Heads Africa
Talking Heads was introduced in Cape Town in 2008 as part of the Infecting the City public art festival. Talking Heads has four core components that form the project...
is a multi–layered, knowledge-sharing platform that was conceived to identify, showcase and expose Africa’s thought leaders. It profiles the ideas, visions and manifestations of experts, mavericks and extraordinary people living in Africa. The project has multiple dimensions, but the two primary parts are Talking Heads Live and Media. The Live events are designed to provide participants with the opportunity to have an intimate 20- minute conversation (two audience members and one expert per table) with four different experts. Each event includes 40-50 experts ranging from cosmologists, economic forecasters, futurists, to sex worker activists and nuclear physicists, a real Wikipedia evening of Africa's thought leaders. The Media component takes the benefits of the Live events to a broader audience by creating mini-documentaries of compelling participants from the Talking Heads live events. These mini-documentaries are filmed and edited in such a way as to bring to life the information and expertise present from Africa's thought leaders to the broadest pool of people possible.
WikiAfrica
The WikiAfricaWikiAfrica
WikiAfrica focuses on getting external Africa-based, cultural organisations, museums and archives, as well as bloggers and journalists, to contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia. The project is an international collaboration that intends to Africanise Wikipedia by creating and expanding 30.000...
project was initiated by lettera27, a non-profit foundation based in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. The project is now a collaboration between the Africa Centre and lettera27. This project is designed to producing 30,000 Wikipedia articles about Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, expanding African content that is already available online, proving a catalyst for the online community
Online community
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...
and advocate an implementing a Copyleft
Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
approach. The project is designed to achieve these objectives in two years from 2011-12. Africa Centre starts with the WikiAfrica project by focusing on getting content related to literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and other cultural products online. It will not exclude anything that falls outside of these categories.