Update: Culture Connects x Africa Day 2023
On Thursday 25 May, four of the delegates – Azola Krweqe, Cat Dunn, Martha Galavu and Martin Senkubuge – will be convening a panel as part of the British Council’s Culture Connects x Africa Day online event.
The one hour panel 'Uncovering Hidden Narratives: Decolonizing Art and Amplifying Underrepresented Voices' will be hosted on Facebook @eastafricaarts and @southernafricaarts and Instagram pages at 10.00 (UK), 12.00 (EAT) and 13.00 (SAST).
In November 2022, the British Council hosted a delegation of ten curators, five from the UK and five from Africa at the Venice Biennale di Arte as part of the Visual Arts Biennials Connect programme.
The Biennials Connect programme promotes cross-cultural and cross-border exchange and collaboration by providing opportunities for curators to connect, collaborate and build meaningful partnerships with colleagues across the globe and to nurture future engagement with British Council arts programmes and partners.
The theme of the 2022 delegation had a strong focus on Black womxn artists, Black feminist thought and their contribution to the arts and culture sector today.
The delegation brought together curators from Africa and the UK made up of: Mifta Zeleke Berga – a curator based in Addis Ababa; Hollie Douglas – a writer and curator from London; Cat Dunn – a black curator specializing in social justice and an international fellow of the AAMC’s 2022 Professional Alliance for Curators of Color (PACC); Martha Galavu – the founder and creative director of Tuzi Consultancy Limited, a creative design company based in Nairobi, Kenya; Azola Krweqe – a South African based curator, researcher and writer; Anna Liesching – Curator of Art at the Ulster Museum, National Museums Northern Ireland; Umulkhayr Mohamed – a Welsh Somali artist, writer, curator, and consultant; Martin Senkubuge – Arts Curator whose practice focuses on Arts for social change in Uganda; and Akya Sy (Ken Aicha Sy) who created a cultural platform called Wakh'Art to participate in the valorization of Senegalese cultural industries.
The delegation was curated by Cindy Sissokho – a curator, cultural producer, art consultant and writer with a specific focus on anticolonial social and political practices within the arts and culture.
As part of this delegation, storyteller Silvia Tonui documented the experiences of the delegates at the Venice Biennale.
> Read more of Silvia’s reflections
Each curator received a follow-on grant to support activity inspired by the delegation and to build on the connections developed on this programme. We will keep you updated with the delegates’ projects.
