FAVT: FUTURE AFRICA VISIONS IN TIME

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An Exhibition project on show at Iwalewahaus Bayreuth,

curated and organized by Research Staff and Fellows of the Bayreuth Academy

For further information visit the exhibition's Blog

Please find the overall programme as part of the FAVT exhibition (as PDF) here

Film about the exhibition

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Trailer of the exhibition

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Exhibition-Activations

Thursday 28.01.16 / 14-15h
Dr. Katharina Fink

Venue: Iwalewahaus/Neues Schloss
Transatlantic Reconnections, perhaps: “We are back”.

This 'touring talk' takes an image out of the video work “Oceans Apart” by Emeka Alams/Simon Rittmeier/Kae Sun as the starting point to dive into the imagined futures within the history of Bayreuth as a transnational place. The figure of the ‘ghost’ serves as the guiding idea of the tour. In it, conventionally practiced logics of temporal linearity, implode. Ghost are past, present and future enmeshed.
 
We start off in the first floor of Iwalewahaus, take a look at one video work in particular and move, via a room dealing with histories from the First World War (Rui Assubuji/Achim von Oppen) to the New Castle, Bayreuth, where we the video installation “Alzire of Bayreuth” by Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies-fellow Kitso Lynn Lelliott allows for a closer discussion of how performance, future and past are intrinsically linked.
 
After that, there's the opportunity to have a Glühwein or other hot drink together to discuss future ways of thinking about ‘futures’ together.
 
A warm invite to everyone! Language will be either English or German, depending on the composition of the group.

Thursday., 11.02.16, 17-18h
by Florian Stoll

Venue: Iwalewahaus
Middle classes in Africa - From the social scientists and from the artists´ perspective

This tour consists of two parts which examine the topic of African middle classes from different angles:
In the first part I will briefly introduce the debate about African middle classes. Here, we will discuss the conceptual background of the middle class notion in Europe/North America and some difficulties in the application in Africa. In the second part we will discuss selected parts of the FAVT exhibition from the perspective of middle classes in Africa, with a special focus on the work of some Kenyan artists who refer to middle classes in their work (Syowia Kiambi, James Muriuki, Sam Hopkins): Which aesthetic expressions of middle classes can we find? Is there middleclassness hidden in the art works and what does it mean? Can we speak about shared characteristics of “African middle classes” or do middle classes fully depend from specific contexts? Is there one middle class or do we have to consider a variety of lifestyles?
The walk through the exhibition will be interactive by integrating participants´ experiences and should be rather a walking discussion than a guided tour.
 
 
Thursday. 11.02..16, 18-19h
by Mariam Popal

Venue: Iwalewahaus
How You See: Invading questionaries ’n the Image, its music and text.
 
Re-inscribing the concept and idea of ‘invading’ in the sense of queering, questioning what you think is right (and situate what is wrong), I suggest that this act is not only the task or characteristic of the arts, but the untouched invisible site of thought as well as of utterance in any given context.
In this sense invading is formulated here as a process of critique and resistance. Going through the photo-graphy exhibition we will strive through some sounds and some textual elaborations around the queerness of photo-graphy, also in the virtual image(-inary) of memory haunting us through a sense for the future,  and come back to an interactive exchange of what this may mean.
Everyone who feels called upon is welcome. It would be great if you bring with you an image, in its widest sense that ‘speaks to you’ along these lines and that you would like to present here as well.

More about the Project:

The exhibition “FAVT: Future Africa Visions in Time“ explores diverse areas of research and debates generated by the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies since its inception in 2013. The exhibition content derives from discursive collaborations between invited international artists and resident researchers within the Academy, resulting in innovative conceptual research that traverses aesthetic and scientific approaches. Positions generated through this collaborative process also question the results and processes of academic research by aesthetically complicating them.

Through intensive conversations, artworks and conceptual positions were developed that critically engage with, reflect on, interpret, imagine, intervene into, disturb, translate or anticipate the concepts of the Academy’s current general theme “Future Africa: Visions in Time”, cutting across its five sub-projects: “Beyond Europe: Narratives of the Future in Modern African History”, “Visions of Nature Concepts of Appropriating and Conserving Nature”, “Middle Classes on the Rise: Concepts of the future among freedom, consumption, tradition and moral”, “Concepts of Future in Mediaspaces” and “Revolution 3.0 – Iconographies of social utopia”. For a concise overview of the work of the Academy please read here.

Since its inception, various artists and cultural producers have participated in and contributed to the work at the Bayreuth Academy as Fellows and guests. Together with the Bayreuth-based researchers, case studies and empirical results as well as conceptual insights were generated relating to thematics such as “hope”, “utopia”, “dystopia” and “prognosis” amongst others. Intersecting processual devices, such as “intervening”, “imagining” and “anticipating” have been developed through consultation and curation since 2014. These notions which are entries from a collective glossary developed by members of the Academy, form the structure of the show and function as bridges connecting the artworks and positions in the exhibition.

The exhibition “FAVT: Future Africa Visions in Time” provides a discursive platform for the research output of the Bayreuth Academy, mutually engaging researchers, artists, the University of Bayreuth, and the general public. The exhibition includes photography, installations, soundscapes, projections, text and performance and will be accompanied by a series of publications and activations, such as guided tours and thematic talks.

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Guided Tours:
19th of November 2015, 15h
5th of December 2015, 13h
17th of December 2015, 15h
23rd of January 2016, 13h

Artists:
Emeka Alams, Rui Assubuji, Sam Hopkins, Cédric Ido, Délio Jasse, John Kamisha, Philipp Khabo Koepsell, Syowia Kyambi, Ingrid La Fleur, Kitso Lynn Lelliott, kara lynch, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Ato Malinda, Tumi Mogorosi, James Muriuki, Zohra Opoku, Abdi Osman, Storm Janse van Rensburg, Simon Rittmeier, Ruth Sacks, Moses Serubiri, Paul D Miller aka DJ Spooky, Kae Sun, Fabio Vanin.

Researcher:
Erdmute Alber, Susan Arndt, Sybille Bauriedl, Ute Fendler, Katharina Fink, Michael Hauhs, Constantin Katsakioris, Kupakwashe Mtata, Dieter Neubert,  Achim von Oppen, Peggy Piesche, Mariam Popal, Nadine Siegert, Florian Stoll, Annalisa Urbano, Ulf Vierke.

Curatorial Team:
Concept & Project Management:
Katharina Fink, Storm Janse Van Rensburg, Nadine Siegert

Curatorial Assistants:
Susanne Gerhard, Lena Naumann, Anisha Soff

Team:
Lara Buchmann, Elisa Herrmann

Administration:
Doris Löhr, Renate Crowe

Press Contact:
Natalie Patterer

Please find the press release as PDF here.

More information:
www.bayreuthacademyexhibition.wordpress.com
www.iwalewa.uni-bayreuth.de
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(c) Iwalewahaus