On
African Culture Fund (ACF) procuring its first call winners
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| The river niger and it's inhabitants with the fresh vegetables grown by the locals on its banks as seen in Segou, Mali |
It was mud coloured walls with jutting arrow like
edges at the centre culturel Kôrè, it was home baked scones for breakfast, it
was French sentences waking from a comma of my o’ level classes finding sound
on my tongue. It was meeting the Kora, djembe sounds at every corner. It was my
first time in Mali.
After landing in Bamako in the late afternoon, we
passed a bit of wilderness before meeting the bustling city of Bamako. Inside
the minivan I soaked in this new landscape, looking out into the semi desert
expanse, I noticed its sparse human population. The lorry like minivans acting
as public transport; the open table stalls by the road with green leafy
vegetables that looked to defy the encroaching caramel dust. There was the
regal stride of men and women clad in the fabrics of boulan, vitenge, western
batik or the occasional expensive ‘bazee’. We were heading to the smaller city
Segou, about 3 hours away by car from Bamako.
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| Centre Culture Kore, where ACF offices are in Segou is located and where we did our work inside the fund. |
In late January this year till earlier this month,
I was invited by the African Culture Fund-ACF http://africanculturefund.net
as a member of its jury for their first call of admissions. ACF was launched in
June 2017 in Seychelles by African visual artists, it’s a pan-African
organisation officially registered in the Republic of Mali. The particularity
of the Fund is that African artists, all disciplines combined are its first
contributors, guaranteeing the necessary autonomy to professionalise and
develop the cultural and creative African sector. Last year ACF launched its
first call admitting culture projects within the visual arts, offering no more
than 10,000USD per project with around 100,000USD in its basket for the same.
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| During the day 'Light Art installation part of the exhibit by Wadi Mhiri, Houda Ghorbel, Bettina Pelz & Aymen Gharbi inside Segou'Art 19' |
Arriving in Segou I also met Joseph Gaylard
(South Africa) and Vitshous Mwilambwe Bondo (Democratic Republic of Congo) both
notable culture stakeholders from the continent. Together we were handed the
proposals from applicants who had passed the guidelines. Based on the criteria
of innovation, creativity, financial accuracy, technical consistency and
relevance we were tasked to grade the same. Afterwards with meaty debates we
ended up giving our independent recommendations on those projects we thought
deserved the available funds from this call.
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| At Night 'Light Art installation part of the exhbit by Wadi Mhiri, Houda Ghorbel, Bettina Pelz & Aymen Gharbi inside Segou'Art 19' |
It was riveting to read the varied entrenched
efforts of various creatives on the continent hailing from Ethiopia, South
Africa, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Morrocco, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya,
Congo, and various other countries. This garnered from the proposals which
included animation film making, teaching of fine art and other disciplines to
youths, textile workshops, artist collaborations and moving exhibitions all exploring
such relevant topics like insular post colonial perspectives, support of
mentally disabled persons, aquatic pollution and so much more.
“Indeed, the absence of adapted mechanisms with
adequate resources to fund projects of African artists and cultural
entrepreneurs. Is one of the major challenges undermining the development of
the cultural sector across the continent?” Mamou Daffe chairman of ACF,
highlights on the core inspiration of this fund, which has its core
contributors being successful African artists working within and outside the
continent.
ACF has now
announced its winners from their first call. You can find the list here http://africanculturefund.net/the-results-of-first-call-for-proposals-visual-arts/. I am happy to
report that the fund ensured that gender equity and diversity in terms of
geographical location was central in its decision making.
Inspring diverse artworks inside Segou’Art 2019
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| Part of the installation by Cheick Diallo inside Segou'Art 2019 festival notice the circles by the white walls. |
This trip as well allowed me to bump into a
visual arts festival going on at the same time (the 31st of Jan till
the 9th of Feb), namely Segou’Art. Art does have a way of allowing
the imagination to soar and give voice to natural emotions in a healthy facet.
I was so honored to see this translation by fresh artworks. The bulk of the
artworks in this festival were held at this art center, which used to be a
cotton factory that Mamou Daffe and other stakeholders transformed into an arts
center. It’s located near the river banks of the Niger River that runs
alongside the city of Segou.
Inside the festival this installation by Cheick
Diallo had my mouth agape. Cheick Diallo who now lives in Mali but has worked
most of his career in France and Europe, is a design visual artist. An
architect by training, he is the president of the Association of African
Designers (ADA). For this festival he was giving a master class as well
showcasing.
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| Part of the installation by Chieck Diallo, inside Segou'Art festival 2019 in Mali this month |
I better understood his installation after
speaking to his brother (Cheick speaks French and mine is rusty) who speaks
English. “These circles are an indication of our globalised context today, how
we scramble to belong to clicks no matter we rank on the social ladder. Though
the clicks get smaller as you’re higher up or at the bottom of the ladder; this
desire to belong it seems is a unifying human factor.” Cheick’s brother was
pointing me to a 3d artwork on the wall, understanding now that it was a
representation of globalization. I could read more into it, the homogenous
circles depicted the characteristic of globalization that have us drumming to
the same beat.
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| One of the women photographs inside the exhbition 'creations for women' she is from Mali and is public bus driver |
The installation also took on heavier topics
relating to home, the chair like dress hats were representative of the local
tribal conflicts between the Dogon and the Fulani currently afflicting the
country. Here Cheick showcased the tribes differences, depicting the hats of
the Fulani tribe and the Dogon ‘stools/chairs’ in sculptures as embodied
characters. He shows their individual beauty in parallel then in one artwork
with wings he merged the symbols to signify peace.
I was also lucky to bump into an East African
artist in this festival by the name Pamela Enyonu from Uganda. Her work was
part of a mini exhibition ‘creations for women’ with other female artists. “In
this festival through Arts Collaboratory and Centre du soleil d’Afrique, I was
invited here from Kampala to lead a workshop of female creators. The theme of
our workshop was Africa is a future and the future is the woman. So they were
three Malian artist one Ugandan artist and one Columbian artist, we tasked
ourselves to sort of interpret this from that point of departure as female
creatives’ of African descent. We have two photo exhbits and one video and then
I made an installation and we made a painting.” Pamela kindly explains to me.
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| Pamela Enyonu staring in an artwork inside the 'creations for women' exhibit inside Segou'Art festival 2019 |
The video she speaks of was playing a hauntingly
beautiful soundtrack in mouthed acoustics, showing an African woman washing
clothes, then picking rice pellets from one mound to another. Juxtaposed to the
video were photographs which I later learned are of Malian women except for one
with Pamela herself as the subject. The photographs show them doing jobs you
wouldn’t see women doing everyday from Taxi to ‘daladala/matatu’ drivers; to a
Balafon player (normally the instrument is allowed to be played by men
forbidden for women).
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| The Video installation inside the exhibit by Pamela Enyonu at the Segou'Art 2019 festival |
“We’re imagining a future where women are more in
charge, obviously we’re more empathetic, we’re more socialistic. So I’m
imagining what world problems would look like. If they were solved from a
female perspective.” Pamela goes to share more of what their exhibit means
highlighting to me that though females on the continent find themselves doing
chores that aren’t valued monetarily by society they still are the bedrock of
their community.
I as well met art collector Ekiko Ita Nyang from
Nigeria I asked him on what he thought of the festival “Yes uhmn I think Segou
Art is getting to be one of the emerging market platforms for artists to
showcase their work, coming from West Africa. We have a culture of the biennale
spring up in West African cities, these are meeting points are not only for
collectors to engage with the artists. But it’s also very important transaction
points for collector enthusiasts.” Ekiko shared, on asking him whether his
industry is growing and what role it had in raising African visual art to the
international market he had this to say.
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| Sculpture by Siriki Ky from Burkina Faso inside Segou'Art Festival 2019 |
First of all it doesn’t matter how the world sees
African art, what matters is how Africa sees African art because how we want
the global community to view African art. Is the way we present African art,
the way we preserve the way we try to disseminate its information which is very
key. I think we’re moving towards the right direction a lot still has to be
done, it’s important that we have these initiatives.”
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| Light Art installation part of the exhibit by Wadi Mhiri, \ Houda Ghorbel, Bettina Pelz & Aymen Gharbi inside Segou'Art 19 |
Meeting Barthelemy Toguo’s artwork from Cameroon
at the festival was also a treat to see, the man is another great visual artist
from the region. Working between Bandjoun and Paris he is a Knight of Arts and
Letters in the French republic and is founder of Bandjoun Station a place of
residence and artistic exchange located in western Cameroon. He like Cheick gave
master classes to participating artists; he also presented artworks in this
festival. Using water colors, ink and acrylic his series of paintings went to
highlight the integration of man and nature, her equality not supremacy to the
environment. You can follow more of this festival and its works http://www.koresegou.com/segou-art/
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| Artwork by Amaliguere Doho from Mali inside Segou'Art festival 2019 |
