On navigating the complexities of identity and creating art ecosystems – Ngaire Blankenberg

“How can we contribute as an Afro-global Art institution to a regenerative art ecosystem? How can we not be extractive of collection, capital, people, how do we navigate the paradigm of ownership, how can we create a more equitable and regenerative ecosystem?” asks Ngaire Blankenberg, director of the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. Through her vision of the complexities of identity, she reflects on her position in one of the biggest cultural institutions in the world for African Art to create an accessible and durable Art ecosystem for the generations to come.

Keywords: Institutional – Global Africa – Regeneration

Bio: gaire Blankenberg is the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Previously, she has worked as a museum consultant, advising more than 55 cultural projects in 35 cities on 5 continents on all aspects of museological practice.
She has worked with all types of museums- from national to local, with collections ranging from history,art, science, football, rice, space, ideas. In addition to museums, she has advised on integrating cultural spaces in cities and parks, developing art residencies,making archives accessible, engaging communities and decolonizing knowledge production.
She is co-editor, with Gail Lord, of Cities, Museums and Soft Power (AAM Press 2015) which urges museums to play a more vital role in creating equitable, inclusive and empowering cities; and co-editor, with Ali Hossaini, of the Manual of Digital Museum Planning, (Rowman and Littlefield 2017) which provides practical guidance for cultural institutes to transform to reflect new digital realities.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant in 2018, Ngaire was Head of Content and Strategy at multiple award-winning exhibition design company Kossmann.deJong where she worked with diverse clients to create narrative experiences with lasting impact. From 2008- 2016 she was a Senior Consultant, Principal Consultant and finally European Director at notable global cultural planning firm Lord Cultural Resources.
Ngaire speaks, lectures and teaches frequently on the changing role of museums- most frequently on themes such as Decolonization and Diversity, Museums and Soft Power; and Museums and Placemaking.

Website: www.si.edu/about/bios/ngaire-blankenberg

The power of the modern storyteller – Eliza Anyangwe

Episode description:
“There is this ongoing need to identify and challenge where power rests.” says Eliza Anyangwe, editor for the CNN “As Equals” project and Founder of The Nzinga Effect. After years of experience in the journalism world, Eliza takes on her role as a modern storyteller to challenge ideas of power hierarchies and how to make a place in the world for yourself, and for others.

Keywords: Curiosity – Love – Language

@ElizaTalks on Twitter

Bio: Eliza Anyangwe joined CNN in February 2021 as editor of the award-winning global gender inequality project As Equals.
She began her career working for international development and environmental NGOs but has spent over a decade in media, working at The Guardian, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and, most recently, member-funded journalism platform The Correspondent where she was managing editor.
In 2016, Eliza founded The Nzinga Effect, a media project focused on telling the stories of African and Afro-descendant women. She’s a seasoned media commentator for TV and radio (appearing on BBC Newsnight, PRI’s The World, Our Body Politic among others); a moderator, hosting events and panels for organisations including Dell, Southbank Centre, Stockholm International Water Institute, ITC, Ecosoc and Government of Belgium; and is contributing author to ‘Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century’, published by Routledge.
Eliza lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Website: edition.cnn.com/interactive/asequals/

Everything is possible when you practice your creativity power – Adepero Oduye

“You can do many things with what is available to us, and there are a lot of things that are available to us. We have to find a way to exercise our power and create what we want to create, and not just have a small group of people decide what our stories are going to look like” – said Adepero Oduye, producer, actress, director, and writer – “There’s something I want to tell them this way, in my way, in our way, and I’m going to find a way to do it.”
Everything is possible is her mantra, being creative her power: she is sharing with us – with kindness, vulnerability, and humbleness – her vision and reflection about her life and the role of creativity and art in both her personal growth and society.

Keywords: Remember – Baba – Joy
@adeperoOduye on Twitter

Bio: Adepero Oduye, who gave a breakout performance as the star of Dee Rees’ “Pariah”, hails from Brooklyn, New York by way of Nigeria and is a Cornell University graduate.
Her film credits include “The Big Short” and “Twelve years a slave”. Theater credits include Mfoniso Udofia’s “Her Portmanteau” at The New York Theater Workshop, and “The Trip to Bountiful” on Broadway.
Most recently: Ava Duvernay’s “When they see us” for Netflix and Hulu’s “Monsterland”.
Currently: Marvel’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” for Disney+.
“To be free”, her second short film as director and writer, has recently been added into the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s permanent collection. The short stars Ms Oduye as Nina Simone.

Website: adeperooduye.com

Practice of de-canonization of the art system to build common spaces of unlearning and sharing – Bonaventure S. B. Ndikung

“It’s about creating spaces of thought, spaces of reflection, spaces of deliberation, spaces in which we can disagree, in which you can dismantle things, in which you can build things, spaces in which we can commune, in which we can just look at each other, listen to each other and acknowledge each other’s presence” said Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, independent curator, author, and biotechnologist, founder and artistic director – among many cultural institutions – of SAVVY Contemporary, an independent project space in Berlin that situates itself on the threshold between concepts of the West and non-West, to understand and deconstruct them.
Enjoy his provocative journey through the contemporary art system, dismantling the art curator’s traditional aura and moving towards a sense of communion and exchange with the people he worked with, with a strong vision of directing like an orchestra conductor.

Keywords: Communion – De-canonization – Creative process

Bio: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (born in 1977 in Yaoundé, Cameroon) is an independent curator, author and biotechnologist. He is founder and artistic director of SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin and is the artistic director of Sonsbeek20–24, a quadrennial contemporary art exhibition in Arnhem, the Netherlands. He is artistic director of the 13thBamako Encounters 2021, a biennale for African photography in Mali. Ndikung was the curator-at-large for Adam Szymczyk’s Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany in 2017; a guest curator of the Dak’Art biennale in Dakar, Senegal in 2018; as well as artistic director of the 12th Bamako Encounters in 2019.Together with the Miracle Workers Collective, he curated the Finland Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019. He was a recipient of the first OCAD University International Curators Residency fellowship in Toronto in 2020 and is currently a professor in the Spatial Strategies MA program at the Weissensee Academy of Art in Berlin. From 2023 he will take on the role of Director at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin.

Website: savvy-contemporary.com

Creativity shapes the world: pushing your boundaries out of your comfort zone – Giorgia Lupi

“I define myself as a designer… It’s not necessarily only a problem to solve, but really figuring out frameworks and rules for myself, which some artists do as well, especially in procedural art – said Giorgia Lupi explaining the relation between her big data design and the creative artistic process.
This episode moves from Giorgia Lupi’s creative concept in her authorial role for our Collection notebook to reflections about the connections between data design, creativity, and social impact.
“It’s really important for everybody to become a bit more data literate in a way… Really always trying to re-connect numbers to what they stand for – which are our life – it might lead to more impact, more social changes and really even just more aware of how we should use this, apparently cold, material called data.”

@giorgialupi on Instagram and Twitter
Website: http://giorgialupi.com/

Bio: Lupi is an information designer. She is a Partner at Pentagram in New York.
After receiving her master’s degree in Architecture, she earned her PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano.
In 2011, she co-founded Accurat, an internationally acclaimed data-driven design firm with offices in Milan and New York.
She is co-author of Dear Data and of the new interactive book Observe, Collect, Draw – A Visual Journal.
Giorgia is also a public speaker, her TED TALK on her humanistic approach to data has over one million views.
She has been named One of “Fast Company’s” 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2018, when she also joined MIT Media Lab as a Director’s Fellow. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on New Metrics and recently became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art.
Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where in 2017 she also was commissioned to create an original site-specific piece, and of the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Website: http://giorgialupi.com/

Observe, deepen things and elaborate: the sources of creative inspiration – Carlo Stanga

“Creativity is a kind of transcendent energy, very connected with positive thinking. And it’s a powerful element that allows us to make positive, great things – said Carlo Stanga, architect, award-winning illustrator, cities traveller and observer – We have to give creativity the right direction, the positive direction to a change that is in the best way: the main aim of creativity is to change the world, even small changes, but altogether, these changes are making great change.”
Enjoy Carlo Stanga’s provocative talk about the urgent needs of new perspectives on ourselves and the world around us, based on self-awareness and knowledge: only investing more time and energy into observation, deepening things and elaborating, we can access new sources of inspiration enabling our creative process.

@carlo_stanga on Instagram
Website: https://www.carlostanga.com/

Bio: Born in Italy, Carlo Stanga has been always deeply passionate about drawing.
After graduating in Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, he chose to further his education attending art and design studies. He collaborated with the premier Italian designer Bruno Munari, an amazing experience that influenced his way to see the world.
As an editorial and advertising illustrator, Carlo works with major Italian magazines and newspapers and with international clients in Europe and in the U.S.
His distinctive style continually wins Italian Illustration awards and the work has been selected by The American Illustration Annual and won the Gold Medal Award in Creative Quarterly’s #15 contest and Awards of Excellence from Communication Arts.
In 2015 he wrote and illustrated I am Milan, followed by I am London and I am New York the first title of a new book collection, published by Moleskine, dedicated to the main cities of the world.
In 2021 he created his first children illustrations for the book ” Zaha Hadid”, written by Eloisa Guarracino, published by Raum Italic, Berlin and Maxxi, Rome.
Carlo lives and works in Berlin.

Website: https://www.carlostanga.com/

How important is for black Africans, to change Africa’s narrative – Moky Makura

”If you want to change the world, first, you have to change the narrative of the world”, and this is especially relevant for Africa, where it is crucial to stop perpetuating the false narratives that for too long have been mutilating the Continent, and free its full potential. “Storytelling is the way we form opinions about each other, and we feel better in telling stories but we need to be sure that these stories are in the right places” says Moky Makura, Executive Director of African No Filter, a donor collaborative organization focused on shifting the African narrative – “when you start challenging people on a story, people react”.

Keywords: African – Agency – Stories
@MokyMakura on Twitter

Read the conversation on Medium platform

Bio: Moky Makura was born in Nigeria, educated in England and has lived in London, Johannesburg and Lagos.
She is the Executive Director of Africa No Filter, a donor collaborative focused on shifting the African narrative. Prior to that she was the Deputy Director for Communications Africa at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where she was responsible for building and managing the foundation’s reputation on the continent. In 2017 she took on interim role as the foundation’s Country Representative to South Africa responsible for government relations and internal program coordination. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Moky worked as Communications Director for the Tony Elumelu Foundation in Nigeria. Prior to that she was a well-known TV presenter, producer, author, publisher and a successful entrepreneur in her own right. Moky holds an Honours degree in Politics, Economics and Law from Buckingham University in the UK. As part of her passion to present a positive image of Africa and showcase its heroes and achievements, she created one of the first websites to serve as a repository of positive facts about the continent… Moky started and runs the first storytelling networking event for women called Herstory Joburg. She serves on the advisory boards of three non-profits including Junior Achievement Africa and the Houtbay Partnership. Moky was recently appointed to the board of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.

Website: africanofilter.org

Building inclusive cultural institutions – Uzodinma Iweala

“When you have people generating or creating in silos, you get a lot of the foolishness that we see happening right now. You get policy prescriptions that are completely lacking in their creativity because they can’t imagine the future of the continent, and Africa suffers from this a lot” said Uzodinma Iweala, eclectic creative, award-winning writer, filmmaker, medical doctor, and – above all – CEO of The Africa Center in New York, where he created an inclusive and diverse cultural space that puts Africa and its diaspora on the cultural map in the heart of the city. Listen to the stories he shares with us through his three keywords.

Keywords: Political – Empathetic – Power-Conscious
theafricacenter.org

Read the conversation on Medium platform

Bio: Uzodinma Iweala is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and medical doctor. As the CEO of The Africa Center, he is dedicated to promoting a new narrative about Africa and is Diaspora. Uzodinma was the CEO, Editor-In-Chief, and co-Founder of Ventures Africa magazine, a publication that covers the evolving business, policy, culture, and innovation spaces in Africa. His books include Beasts of No Nation, a novel released in 2005 to critical acclaim and adapted into a major motion picture; Our Kind of People, a non-fiction account of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria released in 2012; and Speak No Evil(2018), a novel about a queer first-generation Nigerian-American teen living in Washington, D.C. His short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications like The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair and The Paris Review among others. Uzodinma was also the founding CEO of the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, an organization that promotes private sector investment in health services and health innovation in Nigeria. He sits on the boards of the Sundance Institute, The International Rescue Committee and the African Development Bank’s Presidential Youth Advisory Group. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Fellow of The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Website: wikipedia.org/Uzodinma_Iweala

Art as a tool for liberation – Raphael Chikakwa

How can creativity and art contribute to the history of a Country and shape local communities? Why Chimurenga as “revolution of the mind” lays the foundation for Zimbabwe’s new history?
Raphael Chikakwa, a Zimbabwean artist and activist, Executive Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, guides us through the history of his Country – economic struggles, political instability, and regional violence since the 1960s – through the lenses of creativity and activism. He quotes “every revolution starts from the revolution of the mind” and art can be a form of revolution.

Keywords: Chimurenga – Remix – Fertile ground
nationalgallery.co.zw

Read the conversation on Medium platform

Bio: Born in Zimbabwe, Chikukwa Raphael is the Executive Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. He joined the National Gallery mid 2010 as the Chief Curator of Contemporary Artand Deputy Director. Previously he had worked mainly as an independent curator. Chikukwa is the founding Curator of the Zimbabwe Pavilion curator at the 54th Venice Biennale 2011 and just curated After Shock: Re Imagining life after Cyclone Idai 2020…
His qualifications and international experience earned this position at the national institution, which he hopes to change the visual arts landscape of Zimbabwe.
The 2nd Johannesburg Biennale in1997 provided an impetus to Raphael’s curatorial career after working as a volunteer guide for the Biennale. He later moved to his home country Zimbabwe as a process of relocation to his motherland. Chikukwa is a founding stuff member of the PUMA funded Creative Africa Network as an editor and advisor of the project from 2008–2009. In 2008, Chikukwa represented Africa at the 2008 Art Basel Miami Conversations in the United States of America. The American Centre Foundation also awarded Raphael a curatorial research grant in 2006–2007 and he travelled in West Africa for his curatorial research.

Reality is the best fiction – Simon Njami

This episode is about the perception of words, and their light and shadows, we’ll talk about the challenge to rediscover their deeper meaning, their true light within. Words lose their meaning when deprived of their shadows, and become mere slogans.
Words are important because they are the building blocks of our thoughts, and now – during this pandemic – more than before, new words such as confinement or mask have become very common and familiar to everyone. Confinement seems to be THE word of the moment, but confinement could be something different than punishment. And the masks we need to wear could become a communication tool, an invitation to stay behind them and discover more…

Keywords: Confinement – Mask – The Other.

Simon_Njami on Wikipedia

Bio: Simon Njami is a Paris-based independent curator, lecturer, writer and art critic.
Njami was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Revue Noire, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art. He has served as artistic director of the Bamako photography biennale and as cultural advisor for the AFAA (today Institut Français) in their cultural cooperation policy.
He was member of numerous art and photography juries (10 years at Worldpress). He co-curated the first African pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007.
He has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and photography worldwide. As well as member of the scientific boards of numerous museums.
Njami has published seven books, including essays and novels.

Bibliography:

• Soren Kierkegaard,Traité du désespoir
• Jean Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme
• Micheal Foucault, Surveiller et punir
• Emmanuel Levinas, L’autre comme visage
• François Jullien, L’écart et l’autre
• Roland Barthes, La chambre claire
• Jean Paul Sartre, Huis Clos
• Arthur Rimbaud, Poésies

South Africa: a model for resilience? – Lwando Xaso

In times of deep crisis, we often look at South Africa as a model for resilience, considering how much of it the country proved to have through its history. “What  happened in South Africa is that we are constantly dealing with a vanishing present, and we use history to eradicate that haziness, but history cannot survive without memory. One of the advantages of today is that we have social media which can hold people’s memories and archives” says Lwando Xaso, one of South Africa’s leading constitutional lawyers, writer and human rights activist.

Keywords: Memory – Sanitization – Transition

Bio: Lwando Xaso, one of South Africa’s leading constitutional lawyers, writer and human rights activist. A self-described “student of change”, Lwando currently works for Constitution Hill Trust, the main partner for the Moleskine Foundation’s WikiAfrica Education program. In 2011 she had the privilege of clerking at the Constitutional Court for Justice Edwin Cameron. She later worked as a senior researcher for the Public Service Remuneration Review Commission in 2013, and was also a researcher to former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo.

Lwando frequently writes on topics of constitutional and international law for the Daily Maverick, the Business Day and various other publications. She also a trustee of the Constitutional Court Trust, and the founder of Including Society – a forum established to explore issues around inclusion in the private sector.

Last book: “Made in South Africa: A Black Woman’s Stories of Rage, Resistance and Progress”, 2020.

Bibliography:
Sanitisation

• Edwin Cameron – Fidelity and Betrayal Under the Law- the Bram Fischer Lecture 2015

Memory

• Lauren Segal, Clive van den Berg and Churchill Madikida – Mapping Memory: Former Prisoners tell their Stories (Book)
• Prof Gabriel Motzkin – Memoirs, Memory and Historical Experience (Journal article)

Transition

• Tshepo Madlingozi – Taking Stock of the South African Truth and Reconciliation 20 Years Later – No Truth, No Reconciliation and No Justice
• Lwando Xaso – Truth in Jeopardy as Past Recedes

It’s not true that only when the door is locked nobody enters – Benjamin Clementine and Simon Njami

“I am alone in a box of stone. When all is said and done. As the wind blows to the east from the west. Unto this bed, my tears have their solemn rest… It wasn’t easy getting used to this I used to scream. It’s not true, that it’s only when the door is locked that nobody enters”.

This episode has been inspired by the lyrics of the song “Cornerstone” by Benjamin Clementine, English artist, poet, vocalist, composer – who invented his own dramatic and avant-guard musical dimention – here in conversation with Simon Njami, writer, art critic and, above all, our AtWork Educational Program advisor.

Keywords: Door – Cornerstone – Aftermath.

Benjamin Clementine on Wikipedia

Bio: Benjamin Sainte-Clémentine is an British artist, poet, vocalist, composer, and musician. Clementine’s debut album At Least for Now won the 2015 Mercury Prize. In February 2019 he was named a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, in recognition of his contribution to the arts.

Born and raised in London, England, Clementine later moved to Paris, France, becoming homeless as a teenager. There, his performances helped him to become a cult figure in the music and art scene. Moving back to London, he made his TV debut on the BBC programme Later With Jools Holland in 2013. A number of critics described him as becoming one of the great singer-songwriters of his generation and the future sound of London, whilst struggling to place his music in any one genre.

Considered by The New York Times as one of the 28 geniuses who defined culture in 2016, Clementine’s compositions are musically incisive and attuned to the issues of life but also poetic, mixing revolt with love and melancholy, sophisticated lyricism with slang and shouts, and rhyming verse with prose monologues. He moved to popular art music, breaking free from traditional song structure, inventing his own dramatic and innovative musical territory.

Bibliography:

• in Patagonia (Bruce Chatwin)
• Giovanni’s Room (James Baldwin)