African culture: events in March 2023

“Shadows of Re-Memory”, Film Still 1, 2021, image from the exhibition “Haufi nyana?

I've come to take you home” by South African artist and photographer Lebohang Kganye at the FOAM Photography Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

© Lebohang Kganye

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

8 mins

In Kigali, Rabat, Amsterdam, Paris, Montpellier, Cergy, Ouagadougou, Saint-Denis, Créteil, Hamburg, Lagos, Limoges, Bordeaux, indoors or outdoors, here are 22 appointments of Afro or African culture not to be miss in this month of March.

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From March 1 to 4, the International Francophone Book Meetings of Rwanda will take place.

Among the guests in Kigali are Fanta Dramé, a Frenchwoman with Mauritanian and Senegalese origins, the Algerian writer Mohamed Kacimi or the Rwandan actor and playwright Dorcy Ingeli Rugamba.

The Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Prix Goncourt 2021, and the Congolese Wilfried N'Sondé will raise the question: how to "Give birth to mystery in literature"?

Before opening the largest museum of Arab art in the West at the end of 2015, the Arab World Institute in Paris has been showing its museum's collection in Africa for the first time since March 1.

Until June 15, the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat is hosting 116 works by artists from 16 Arab countries.

Haufnyana?

I've come to take you home

.

South African artist and photographer Lebohang Kganye is a guest until May 21 at the FOAM Photography Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Born in 1990 in Katlehong, she lives and works in Johannesburg and recently won the prestigious Foam Paul Huf Award 2022 and the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2021/22.

Her work, characterized by the use of photographic montages, spatial installations and cinematographic animation, endeavors to explore the personal and collective “micro-stories” of her family.

His work is part of the larger history of South Africa, before, during and after apartheid and colonialism.

The second edition of

will take place from March 3 to 26 in the heart of the Goutte d'Or, in Paris.

A program marked by “diasporic and transcultural dynamics”.

explores and exhibits, in collaboration with Rwanda Arts Initiative, the contemporary Rwandan scene: theater, dance, concerts, screenings, exhibitions, readings, debates...

What access to archives concerning the colonial past?

A meeting-debate dedicated to this sensitive subject is organized on March 4 by the Colonial and Postcolonial History Association in Paris.

Among the historical events discussed where researchers are confronted with "Secret defense" are "The Curiel case", "The Ben Barka case", "The case of Judge Borrel" or "France during the genocide in Rwanda". .

On March 4, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, will be awarded the Gold Stallion, the supreme award for African cinema.

15 films are in competition at the biggest pan-African film festival, Fespaco, whose 28th edition was dedicated to “African cinema and the culture of peace”.

Until July 2, the Picasso Museum is hosting

, the first major exhibition in France by African-American artist Faith Ringgold, born in 1930 in Harlem.

A major figure in committed and feminist American art, she makes the link between historical struggles for civil rights and current Black Lives Matter actions, between the Harlem Renaissance movement and the contemporary art of young black American artists.

“ 

 ”.

Until March 8, the auction house Christie's is organizing its first auction of African and Oceanic art.

Estimates of the works included in the sale range from 300 to 60,000 euros, including a Bembe figure from the Congo, a Fang reliquary figure from Gabon or a Kpeli Sénufo mask from the Ivory Coast.

On March 9, at 6:30 p.m., there will be a round table entitled

.

The Christophe Person gallery in Paris invites Maureen Murphy and Anaïs Auger-Mathurin, specialists in the artistic ecosystem in Senegal, to speak on the theme of the formal and informal markets of classical, modern and contemporary Senegalese and West African art.

The discussion is part of the exhibition by Philippe Sène and Amadou Seck of the École de Dakar which runs until March 11.

On March 10, the Burkinabè choreographer Sali Sanou will present

, a creation for young audiences, offered as part of the prestigious Montpellier Danse festival.

A poem written by the Cameroonian poet and slammer Capitaine Alexandre, danced and sung to pass messages between children.

From March 10 to 18,

, in partnership with the National School of Art of Paris-Cergy, offers "an atypical, committed, feminine, international festival".

A concert by the Amazons of Africa and the show

of the Collectif La Fleur, inviting young people from the African continent in particular to testify to their emigration to France, open the fifth edition.

From March 10 to 21, the Panorama of Maghreb and Middle Eastern Cinemas (PCMMO) celebrates its 18th edition by celebrating the vitality of cinematography from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Israel , Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran… and diasporas around the world.

The ambitious cinematographic fresco

(Algeria, France), by Adila Bendimerad and Damnien Ounouri, opens the festival which takes place in Seine-Saint-Denis and Paris, offering 13 previews and unreleased films.

The Nardal sisters, the forgotten of negritude

, the new film by Léa Mormin-Chauvac and Marie-Christine Gambart will be broadcast on March 12 at 10:35 p.m. on France 5. The documentary tells the story of three pioneers of "black consciousness", three Martinican women, central and yet forgotten figures of the black intelligentsia of Paris in the 1920s.

From March 20 to 26, Les Zébrures du Printemps du Festival des Francophonies – from writing to the stage, in Limoges, France, features eleven texts by seven female authors and four French-speaking authors, including Reine Or de

' Ivorian Fatou Sy,

by Rwandan Claudia Shimwa and 

by Angolan Ondjaki.

A round table will address the issue of the translation of dramatic texts from the African continent and their circulation.

And the Sony Labou Tansi prize for high school students will celebrate its 20th anniversary.  

From March 24 to April 2, the major documentary festival Cinéma du réel opens its doors at the Center Pompidou-Paris.

Among the 1,600 films entered, 41 documentaries were selected in competition, including the world premiere of

(France-Nigeria), by Alain Kassanda.

The 45th International Women's Film Festival of Créteil will present from March 24 to April 2 a selection of 25 films in competition to " 

 ".

The only work from the African continent,

, by Egyptian director Kawthar Younis, is short in the Short Film Competition section.

On March 26, the Cité de la Musique in Paris presents

.

The piece by South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma retraces the epic of the first African choir.

Leaving by boat from South Africa, he toured the United Kingdom and North America at the end of the 19th century.

The musical direction of this show, between dance, theater and music, is provided by Thuthuka Sibisi.

From March 30 to April 2,

celebrates its 25th anniversary.

134 galleries from 25 countries have been selected for this anniversary edition at the Grand Palais Éphémère.

40% of exhibitors will come from abroad this year.

Among the new galleries of this fair, endowed with a regional, national and cosmopolitan ambition, is the Ugandan gallery Afriart Gallery (Kampala), without forgetting the presence of the Comptoir des Mines Galerie (Marrakech), the Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Abidjan) and This Is Not A White Cube art gallery (Lisbon, Luanda).

Until March 31, Galerie Melbye-Konan in Hamburg will present new works by Ivorian artist Sess Essoh in his first solo exhibition in Germany.

The very colorful works of

are devoted to the great forgotten of Africa's past.

Among the personalities represented are kings and queens of Africa, artists and politicians.

There is also South African freedom fighter and singer Myriam Makeba and Afrobeat founder and political activist, Nigerian Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

The Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art in Lagos presents until May 31 the exhibition Water Under the Bridge: An Exploration of Migration and Memory.

This exploration of migration and memory sets the tone for lives that have been forced into a modern exodus, but also Nigerian dreams and the massive brain drain.

French-speaking African literature and French publishers: the end of a monopoly?

Today, African houses are seeking their place in national and international book economies.

Is this the end of the exclusive rights kept by French publishing houses on French-speaking African authors?

This round table organized on March 31 in Bordeaux, as part of the Africa Institute Season, brings together Hemley Boum, writer, Anne-Sophie Stefanini, novelist and publisher, Jean-Luc Raharimanana, writer and publisher.

The Mobile Film Festival Africa has launched its call for applications for the 2023 edition. The rules remain the same: "1 Minute, 1 Mobile, 1 Film".

To participate, you must live on the African continent.

You have until April 4 to submit your films.

The Grand Prix Africa is endowed with 10,000 dollars.

Among the members of the jury are Gad Elmaleh (president), Sofia Alaoui and Rafiki Fariala.

Don't hesitate to send us your next “must-see” cultural events at rfipageculture@yahoo.fr.

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