dialogue
Zimbabwe Mobilizes
ICAC’s Shift from Coup de Grâce to Cultural Coup
Ruth Simbao, Raphael Chikukwa, Jimmy Ogonga, Berry Bickle, Marie Hélène Pereira,
Dulcie Abrahams Altass, Mhoze Chikowero, and N’Goné Fall
Ruth Simbao is a Professor of Art History and Visual Culture and
the National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Tech-
nology SARChI Chair in the Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa in the
Fine Art Department at Rhodes University, South Africa. r.simbao@
ru.ac.za
Raphael Chikukwa is the Chief Curator at the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe in Harare, and has been instrumental in establishing the
Zimbabwe Platform at the Venice Biennale.
Jimmy Ogonga is an artist and producer based in Malindi, Kenya.
His work interweaves between artistic practice and curatorial strate-
gies, and his curatorial projects include The Mombasa Billboard Proj-
etc. (2002, Mombasa), and Amnesia (2006-2009, Nairobi). En 2001,
he founded Nairobi Arts Trust/Centre of Contemporary Art, Nairobi
(CCAEA), an organization that works as a catalyst for the visual arts
and the creation of significant art projects.
Berry Bickle is an artist who works between Zimbabwe and Mozambique,
addressing the region’s long history of colonialism that has been, en parte, docu-
mented, regulated, and perpetuated through the written word of the coloniz-
ers. She is most fascinated by the fragments of history that remain from both
official scripts as well as personal, everyday notes, cookbooks, scrapbooks, y
almanacs of the generations of Africans living under colonial rule.
Marie Hélène Pereira is a program officer at the Raw Material
Company in Dakar, Senegal. She has a strong interest in developing
curatorial projects at the intersection of art, knowledge and society.
Dulcie Abrahams Altass is an international fellow at the RAW
Academy in Dakar. Her research focuses on the intersection of perfor-
mance, social issues and narrative.
Mhoze Chikowero is Associate Professor of African History at the Univer-
sity of California in Santa Barbara and ACLS Visiting Research Fellow at the
University of the Witwatersrand. He is the author of African Music, Fuerza
and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe (2015).
N’Goné Fall is a curator and a consultant in cultural strategies. ella era
the editorial director of Revue Noire from 1994 a 2001, and an associate
professor at the Senghor University in Alexandria, Egypt from 2007 a 2011.
She is the co-founder of the Dakar-based collective GawLab, a platform for
research and production on art in public spaces and technology applied to
artistic creativity.
4 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
To whom does Africa belong? Whose Africa are we talking about? …
It’s time we control our narrative, and contemporary art is a medium
that can lead us to do this.
National Gallery of Zimbabwe (2017)1
Especially after having taken Zimbabwe to Venice, we needed to bring
the world to Zimbabwe to understand the context we are working in.
Raphael Chikukwa (Zvomuya 2017b)
(ICAC) was held at the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe in Harare from September 11–13,
2017. Eight delegates write their reflections on
the importance of this Africa-based event.
The International Conference on African Cultures
Ruth Simbao: Significant events took place in the study of the
arts of Africa in 2017, registering a valuable geopolitical shift of
the center of gravity in terms of knowledge creation. The Arts
Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), a US-based
organization in the discipline, held its seventeenth triennial at the
University of Ghana in Accra—the first to be held on the African
continent. Opening the conference, Professor Kwesi Yankah2
highlighted the significance of this meeting “on African soil” in
a year that marks the sixtieth anniversary of Ghana’s indepen-
dencia, which was a moment in history that “had a ripple effect on
the … liberation of the entire continent” (2017: 2).
In the same year another important international confer-
ence on the arts of Africa took place on the African continent,
this time at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare (Figs.
1–2), which celebrated its own sixtieth anniversary—that of the
national gallery known during the colonial era as the Rhodes
National Gallery. El 2017 International Conference on African
Cultures (ICAC) engaged with processes of decolonization and
questioned why most conferences on the arts of Africa take place
in the north and why the dominant market for African art still
remains outside of the African continent.3 The conference was
organized by the director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe,
Doreen Sibanda, who stated in her opening speech that “there is
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1 Delegates at the 2nd International Conference
on African Cultures (ICAC), which was hosted by the
National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare, Zimbabwe,
11–13 September 2017.
Photo: courtesy of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe
2 El 2017 International Conference on African
Cultures was held at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe,
and included the exhibition African Voices, curated by
Raphael Chikukwa.
Photo: courtesy of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe
an urgent need for Africans to create the future we want,”4 and
the chief curator, Raphael Chikukwa (Higo. 3), who asked: “How
do we harness Africa’s contribution to the global world?”5
This long-awaited second ICAC revived and reimagined the
first ICAC (known as the International Congress of African
Cultura), which consisted of a congress, an exhibition, y un
music festival at the then Rhodes National Gallery in Salisbury
from August 1–11, 1962 (Higo. 4). This congress drew delegates
from the African continent, the United States, Europa, los unidos
Kingdom, and the Caribbean6 and was meant to be a biannual
event that would take place in different African cities. The direc-
tor of the Rhodes National Gallery, Frank McEwen, stated in his
opening ICAC address that it was crucial for an exhibition of
African art to be “staged in Africa.”7 As Nzewi (2013: 98) argues,
The exhibition of visual art at ICAC marked the first time anywhere
that a comprehensive collection of African art was displayed. El
more than 350 works drawn from collections in Africa, Europa,
and the USA, and from artists’ studios, occupied two floors of the
Rhodes National Gallery.
Más, he highlights the importance of ICAC ’62 as the progen-
itor of the 1960s and 1970s festivals that espoused pan-Africanist
VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts | 5
congress, sin embargo, remained a consid-
eration of the impact of African culture
on the rest of the world,8 rather than on
African culture by and for Africans.
A number of participants of the 2017
ICAC questioned the impetus of this
“northward-looking gaze.” Harare-based
artists Chikonzero Chazunguza and
Misheck Masamvu asked respectively,
“You can join the global, but as who?”9
and “When do we participate like us?
Why do we always leak outwards?”10
There was a sense of urgency in many of
el 2017 ICAC discussions. As curator
N’Goné Fall urged,
We can’t wait for state-level or top-down ini-
tiatives. We need to be relevant to our own
contexts and to have platforms where we can
make mistakes…There’s an urgency to make
things happen and not to wait.11
internationalism and “assembled and celebrated African and
black expressive cultures in a global context” (Nzewi 2013: 67).
These included the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Senegal
en 1966, the First Pan African Cultural Festival in Algeria in
1969, and the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts in
Nigeria in 1977 (FESTAC ’77).
ICAC ’62 was lauded as “the first international cultural event
on African soil … [representing] a bold shift from the diaspora
as the physical site of pan-African internationalism to Africa”
(Nzewi 2013: 95). According to Saburi Oladeni Biobaku (1962:
12), pro-vice chancellor and director of the Institute of African
Studies at the University of Ife, Nigeria, the congress aimed to
correct the ways that Africa had been misconstrued and deni-
grated and to “refute past misinterpretations and place African
Culture in its true perspective.” The overall focus of the 1962
Speakers articulated this urgency as a pressing need to “break
open epistemologies [so that we] go beyond only receiving
other people’s imaginaries” (Mpho Matsipa),12 and as a need to
ask “What is the language we use here on the continent [cuando]
encima 90% of writing comes from outside the continent?" (Bisi
silva).13 Strategies to counter waiting were articulated as “mis-
chief-making” that embraces the “messiness of things” through a
south-to-south lens (George Shire),14 and as “kicking out with the
heels”—that is, being recalcitrant in terms of posture and attitude
(Paul Goodwin) (Higo. 5).15
This accumulative sentiment that “time has now run out,"
expressed by a number of participants in Harare, just two months
before the coup d’état that ended Robert Mugabe’s thirty-seven-
year-long rule in Zimbabwe,16 reflects the broader sociopolitical
climate in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, and elsewhere. El 1962
3 Marie Hélène Pereira, Dulcie Abrahams
Altass, and Raphael Chikukwa (left to right)
speaking on the ICAC panel Exploring Curating in
África: Métodos, Processes and Education.
Photo: courtesy of the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe
4 Participants at the International Congress of
African Cultures at the Rhodes National Gallery
(now the National Gallery of Zimbabwe) en
Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, en 1962. The photo-
graph includes delegates Frank McEwen (director
of the Rhodes National Gallery, Zimbabwe),
Vincent Akwete Kofi (Winneba Teacher Training
College, Ghana), Tristan Tzara (Romanian/French
performance artist and founder of Dadaism),
Pearl Primus (dancer and choreographer,
EE.UU), William Bascom (director of the Lowie
Museum of Anthropology, EE.UU), William Fagg
(Department of Anthropology, British Museum),
Roland Penrose (cofounder of the Institute of
Contemporary Arts, Londres), Selby Mvusi (South
African artist and educator based in Kumasi,
Ghana), and Alfred Barr (director of the Museum
of Modern Art, EE.UU).
Photo: courtesy of the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe
6 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
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claim ownership of African artistic talent and to shape a domi-
nant discourse from its own perspective. In light of a geography
of reason (gordon 2006: 37) that critiques the fallacy that some
people theorize and other people experience—that some people
write about art and others “merely” create it (Simbao 2017: 5)—
the strong emphasis on using an African lens and African script
to “see and talk about our story”19 through dialogue, writing, y
theorizing constitutes a cultural coup. Although the “preferred
formats for art events on the continent and elsewhere seem to
be the biennale and the art fair” (Zvomuya 2017b), the orga-
nizers emphasized the need for an international conference so
that strong dialogue and theorizing would be driven by Africans
based on the continent.
While the conference was the core of ICAC 2017, these dia-
logs were supported by an exhibition at the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe, as well as an inaugural art week in Harare that included
visits to Gareth Nyandoro’s studio, Admire Kamudzengere’s stu-
dio, Chinembiri Studios (Higo. 6), Village Unhu,20 Dzimbanhete
Arts and Culture Interactions (Figs. 7, 16–17),21 Njelele Art Station
(Higo. 8),22 the National Gallery School of Visual Art and Design,
First Floor Gallery, Gallery Delta (Higo. 9), and Tsoko Gallery.23
The ICAC exhibition at the National Gallery was titled African
Voices and was curated by Chikukwa. It included the works of
ten Zimbabwe-based artists24 (ver, Por ejemplo, Figs. 10–11, 14)
and other artists from Southern and East Africa25 (Por ejemplo,
Figs. 12–13 and front cover). “The contemporary artist in Africa,"
says Sibanda, “is engaged in a fight for a meaningful place in this
urban space with its galleries, agents, curators, and collectors,
most of whom encapsulate and largely represent Western and
European values.”26
A number of works in the exhibition also presented a sense
of urgency in terms of the need for political, psychological, y
personal change. Nyadzombe Nyampenza’s triptych Double
Life, Mediterranean Blues, For Emidio (2017; Higo. 14) engages
with ongoing Afrophobia within and beyond the continent.
Nyampenza writes:
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VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts | 7
ICAC also took place in a climate of political change in terms of
“a new chapter in the liberation of Southern Rhodesia” (Nzewi
2013: 95).17 It was a time of “toxic” politics, and “a few months
before the conference, the conservative Rhodesian Front had
been formed. This was the party which under Ian Smith would
veer towards the extreme right” resulting in a “unilateral declara-
tion of independence (UDI) from Britain, which then prompted
an armed nationalist war which only ended in 1979” (Zvomuya
2017a). On the National Gallery website, organizers of the second
ICAC positioned this urgency felt in 2017 as a need to challenge
the ownership of artistic talent and the beneficiaries thereof,
arguing that the brain drain—the loss of thinkers and artists to
the West—was the coup de grâce that struck the final blow to con-
tinental cultural practice.18 This coup de grâce enabled the West to
5 Paul Goodwin, UAL chair of Contemporary
Art and Urbanism and director of TrAIN
(Transnational Art, Identity and Nation Research
Centre), presented the paper “(Y)curating
and Recalcitrance: Notes on Opacity and the
Undercommons of the Museum” at ICAC 2017.
Photo: courtesy of the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe
6 Takunda Regis Billiat at Chinembiri Studios in
Mbare, Harare.
Photo: Ruth Simbao
7 Virginia Chihota
I had to smile (2009)
Screen print on archival paper; 45 cm x 60 cm
Collection of Dzimbanhete Arts and Culture
Interactions Trust
Courtesy the artist and Tiwani Contemporary,
© the artist
Photo: Dzimbanhete Arts and Culture Interactions
resident performance crew 2017
The question “Where are you from?” can have a shattering impact
on the psyche. Prompted by a “strange” name, an “unusual” accent,
or the color of one’s skin. It can easily escalate to “Where are you
really from?” To be the other brings judgment and a heavy price
to pay. For Emidio Josias Marcia, a Mozambiquen taxi driver, él
was being dragged handcuffed to a police vehicle and later die in
police custody in Johannesburg, South Africa. Erased on Humanity
scores drown in the Mediterranean Sea time after time—coming
from another place.27
In her 2016 painting Strategy (front cover) in the African Voices
exhibition,28 Chemu Ng’ok relates personal psychological riot
to acts of protest that attempt to reclaim power. While blue or
green represent army or police officers and red is employed to
“show a vulnerable flesh-like appearance of being easily hurt or
immobilised as a group” (Ng’ok 2016: 51), splashes of red on these
blue/green figures indicate that bloodshed in a protest effects
everyone. “Systemic violence spills over from the oppressed to
the oppressor” (Ng’ok 2016: 51) and when the two parties “meet
at the boundary, bullets and stones will exchange sides. Both will
sustain injuries as shown through the overall red flow of blood
on the canvas.”29
A number of works in the exhibition pushed for deeper pro-
cesses of decolonization at this political juncture characterized
by dissatisfaction and a sense of urgency. In Spot Fine (2017; Higo.
11), which comprises a series of repurposed sculptural heads on
Plexiglas boxes, Masimba Hwati engages with the transgener-
ational impact of colonial trauma on the psyche and the body.
The see-through boxes contain different currencies, such as
Zimbabwean dollars, Euros, Ghanaian cedi, and Chinese ren-
minbi, and the work grapples with issues of guilt and complicity
in terms of shaping the colonial project.
In small but important ways the National Gallery and the
ICAC participants created interventions in order to shift dom-
inant discourses and museum practices. The evening before the
conference opened to the public, a musumo ceremony was per-
formed in the gallery and, led by Raphael Chikukwa with the
8 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
assistance of Papa Ndasuunje Shikongeni and Dineo Bopape,
traditional beer was offered to the ancestors to ask them to bless
the conference (Higo. 15). As part of the sixtieth anniversary of the
gallery, certain gallery spaces were renamed to “honor a number
of the early artists who contributed to the growth of the gallery and the
Zimbabwean art scene such as Bernard Matemera, Lazarus Takawira,
Nicolas Mukomberanwa, and Thomas Mukarobgwa.”30 The walkabout
of the ICAC exhibition was conducted by Chikukwa in collabora-
tion with word artists who engaged directly with the visual artworks
with poetry and word art. The conference ended with a tour to Great
Zimbabwe that aimed to “reinforce Africa’s own narrative” (Higo. 16–17).
Raphael Chikukwa: The significance of ICAC was being able
to host it again as the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, fifty-five
years after the inaugural conference in 1962. El 1962 conference
saw the coming of museum professionals from all over the world,
mostly from Europe and America. Furthermore we wanted this
one to be different and reflect the current situation and the recent
developments that have taken place in Africa in the past twenty
years or so. The idea of bringing a new crop of curators, artists,
museum managers, and cultural gurus from around Africa and
the world over to deliberate on concerns that affect our institu-
tions and us as cultural practitioners was also momentous. Alguno
of these voices that came from around Africa and the diaspora
included N’Goné Fall (Senegal), Gabi Ncgobo (SA), Bonaventure
Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Cameroon/Germany), Papa Shikongeni
(Namibia), Ruth Simbao (SA), John Gibling (Reino Unido), Lupwishi
Mbuyamba (Mozambique), Azubuike Nwagbogu (Nigeria), Bisi
silva (Nigeria), Chikonzero Chazunguza (Zimbabwe), Mhoze
Chikowero (Zimbabwe/USA), Jimmy Ogonga (Kenya), Pablo
Goodwin (Reino Unido), Dana Whabira (Zimbabwe), Doreen Sibanda
(Zimbabwe), George Shire (Zimbabwe/UK), Andrew Mulenga
(Zambia/SA), Jorge Gumbe (Angola), George Kyeyune (Uganda),
and Molefi Asante (EE.UU), to mention but a few. The theme of
the conference, “Mapping the Future,” stressed the fact that we as
Africans wanted to plot this new roadmap of Africa’s future, y
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there could be no better way to do this than hosting this interna-
tional conference on African soil.
Most of the times we are invited to the West (beyond African
soil) to discuss issues to do with Africa. As I have regularly
asserted, “We should not remain passengers in our own ship,” and
the idea of taking ownership of our narrative is key to the cultural
development in the continent and beyond. Why Harare? It was the
host of the first ICAC in 1962, during the colonial era, and for us
at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe this was the right time as it
coincided with our celebration of the National Gallery’s sixtieth
anniversary. What better moment to host the second ICAC?
Delegates encouraged us to consider hosting such a conference
annually or biannually, as the audience was keen to further discuss
issues of maintaining culture, identity in relation to culture and
religión, the effects of globalization on culture, and the importance
of language to culture. Other important issues that came out of the
second ICAC were the need to build audiences for museums and
other cultural institutions, the need for regular publications of art
discourse, further collaboration between African art institutions,
the need to address the contested issues of repatriation of African
art artifacts that are housed in Western museums, the curatorship
of human remains, and capacity building for museum profession-
als on the continent, such as the training of curators, art restorers,
museum managers, and conservators as well as professional devel-
opment for artists and art critics.
After the second ICAC at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in
2017, we have realized that it’s not business as usual and it is not
the time to wait for others to do things on our behalf. As African
gente, we need to take ownership for our narratives. Tenemos
also realized the possibilities of organizing such a huge confer-
ence to network and share ideas as Africans. It remains our hope
that we will continue to do this conference in Zimbabwe or any
other African country, because these are the platforms needed to
exchange and dialogue as African museum professionals, artists,
and scholars.
Jimmy Ogonga: I think it is important to note that this con-
ference comes as sequel to the first ICAC conference that took
place in 1962. A staggering fifty-five years stands between these
dos eventos. In marking the sixtieth anniversary of the National
Gallery of Zimbabwe, and considering the fifty-five years between
1962 y 2017, I am concerned with both agency and urgency,
and the question of how institutions manage to decolonize and
realize their sovereignty and independence.
From the outset, ICAC 2017 set the theme as “Mapping the
Future,” stating that the conference “will be a platform to reimag-
ine the future of art, art and cultural institutions, and heritage
industries in the face of the current socioeconomic and politi-
cal challenges on the continent …” further adding that “… ICAC
comes at a time when art institutions around the world need
urgent attention from both the local authorities, corporations
and their governments …”.31
I see the conference as an act of commemoration. The urge to
record, recordar, and even reenact the past remains an important
process in contemporary cultural practice. Memorial narratives
(politicized as they may be) also provide intellectual and emo-
tional gravity. These narratives provide references and fodder for
collective memory, affecting the manner which we remember the
pasado, think about the future, while providing stimulus with which
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8 Founded in 2013, Njelele Art Station is an
urban laboratory for critical dialogue and con-
temporary experimental and public art practice in
downtown Harare. The mural was produced by
Breeze Yoko, graffiti writer and filmmaker from
South Africa who visited Njelele in 2013.
Photo: Ruth Simbao
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more vibrant forms of discourse can be articulated. I think that
in the process of commemoration, the opportunity to problema-
tize, politicize, and employ a range of criticalities while replaying
these narratives could be key elements in writing histories and
mapping futures afresh.
I also think it is important for the arts, and especially on the
continent, to stage situations where professionals can share their
experiences and in-depth knowledge about ideas, practicas, y
contextos. In addition to education initiatives, biennales, art fairs,
photo festivals, workshops, and so on, I think there are many
other nuances that get lost and are therefore out of scope when
discourses and historiography of contemporary art takes shape.
The conference provided an important place to deliberate and
advocate the need for government and institutional support in
the arts and to discuss strategies for the articulation and engage-
ment of progressive cultural policies. On a personal note, el
conference came as the fifty-seventh Venice Biennale took place,
with Kenya celebrating its first legitimate national pavilion, para
which there was critical need for government and institutional
apoyo. Desafortunadamente, the Kenya pavilion was not provided the
necessary support. Maybe such conferences are an additional
VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts | 9
an understanding of her curatorial practice and collaborative
impulse, such as Xenoglossia, a research project that “… employs
historical references that foregrounded questions around lan-
guage and its central role in shaping some of our recent history,
contradictions and misunderstandings.”32
In Ngcobo’s presentation,33 certain phrases and positions
highlighted the complexity and paradoxical nature of contem-
porary art. En particular, I noted down provocative phrases such
como, “whom do you believe, your eyes or my words,” “knowledge
is a position, not a collection,” “gentrification of memory," y
“inanimate objects have a life of their own,” which are interesting
starting points for complex conversations. I was also struck by a
proposal by Mpho Matsipa34 that the city is a site of refuge, y
later on at Njelele Station, I posed the question whether we, como
city dwellers, are all refugees.
It is important that practitioners tap into each other’s resources,
especially in terms of knowledge, capacity, and networks. El
role of the academy is a particularly important one, especially
considering projects such as Asiko and Xenoglossia. Sobre el
continent, there is a catastrophic deficit in terms of resource
allocation and expertise in both education and the arts, incluso
in seemingly progressive societies. The quality of education is
sometimes unremarkable and inconsistent. The conversations
that took place at the ICAC conference go a long way in ensuring
a kind of stock-taking, and the role of peer review is critical. El
synergy and dialogue between academics, artists, escritores, think-
ers, curators, bureaucrats, and students works in important ways
to further articulate and strengthen the collective efforts.
Berry Bickle: ICAC 2017 was framed within the celebrations
of the National Galley of Zimbabwe’s sixtieth anniversary. El
direct reference to the first ICAC, hosted by the Rhodes National
Gallery in 1962, is useful as a historic timeline as one assesses the
confluence of contributions that the ICAC 2017 platform opened
to presentations, discusiones, and exchanges at the time of the
gallery’s sixtieth anniversary.
In his preface to the exhibition catalogue The Influence of
África, Frank McEwen (1962) made this statement:
There have been many in recent years, almost too many, great exhi-
bitions of African art both in Europe and America. comenzando en
the 1910s and early ‘20s, they have now become frequent necessities
especially in America. It is therefore high time that African art were
shown more often in Africa and reclaimed culturally by its creators.
From the depths of the colonial era, McEwen seems to have artic-
ulated what has been a pertinent element to the staging of ICAC
2017 in Harare by the institution that he helped establish. The ICAC
platform of 2017 focused essentially on the contemporary mobil-
ity of the arts practitioners whose identity is framed as “African”.
This constitutes a paradigm shift, in which among many influences
and postcolonial geopolitical changes are diaspora experiences,
mobility and a global presence of contemporary African artists
across media. Contemporary timelines are fluid with initiatives
that exchange and intertwine African cities such as Harare, Addis
Ababa, Lagos, Dakar, Bamako, Lubumbashi and Johannesburg,
as some of the power pins in a remapping alluded to by ICAC’17.
This is no longer a national agenda, for it is African cities that have
become the identifying entities of exchange. This offers artists a
9 Wallen Mapondera
Identity II (2016), on display at Gallery Delta
during the ICAC 2017
Cardboard and plastic on board; 42 cm x 55 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Ruth Simbao
ingredient in expanding the circle and inviting more policy-level
actors to the conversation.
It is important to consider the fact that the beginnings of some
important initiatives on the continent are inspired and provoked
by other initiatives taking place elsewhere. The Dak’Art biennale
references the Festival of Black Arts and African Culture–FESTAC
’77 (Lagos), and the Addis Foto festival was greatly influenced by
Bamako encounters. Something always happens out of these fel-
lowships. It is like a wave formation, where one wave gives thrust
and urges the next. Just like the seed for this text is, in a way,
watered by the conference.
I am particularly impressed by individuals’ visions and prac-
tices. In some cases, it is important to note how these are able
to shape an institution’s vision. Por ejemplo, Bisi Silva’s curato-
rial practice and her work with CCA Lagos and Asiko exemplify
her vision. I find the idea of Asiko, a roving curatorial program,
to be a revolutionary one that is capable of massive transfor-
mation in terms of education and action. I also find it to be an
uncharacteristically adaptable model, which could be replicated
and disbursed efficiently across multiple settings. Similarmente,
Gabi Ngcobo’s presentation on the CHR (Centre for Historical
Reenactment) and NGO (Nothing Gets Organized) lends us
10 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
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10a–b Moffat Takadiwa
The Urinari/Chinjausi (2017)
Found computer keys and medical bottle
tops; 700 cm x 500 cm
10a Photo: © Moffat Takadiwa, courtesy
Tyburn Gallery
10b (detail, bien) Photo: Ruth Simbao
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variety of centers within Africa that reverberate with historical sig-
nificance they can form strong linkages to. They do not have to
leave the continent to be validated.
The Asiko program, initiated by Bisi Silva, is a curatorial inter-
vention that in its trans-African collaborations has hosted artists
and curators in various African cities for intensive exchanges
that disseminate and collect the contemporary experience.
Participants evaluate, critique, and share histories that become
a rich pool of thought for and by African artists. Asiko as an
intuitive has established a latticework of exchange that was not
institutionalized and burdened with historic or national identi-
corbatas, but rather flowed from city to city as a pop-up laboratory,
leaving the intensive experience for the artists to continue to
explorar. The reclamation of cultural ground has, as a necessity,
been stimulated by a trans-African flow of contemporary artistic
practicas. The smudging of borders and language barriers that
have divided the African experience have been eclipsed by the
drive to share and exchange critical thought. ICAC 2017 was an
important platform to highlight the commitment of curators,
artists, and intellectuals whose arts programs are a remapping of
Africa and to open the future to artistic practices that claim an
African identity as one enmeshed in trans-African experiences.
Marie Hélenè Pereira and Dulcie Abrahams Altass: To pro-
vide some background to our participation in ICAC Mapping
the Future: RAW Material Company is an art center that creates
programs that reinforce the intersections among art, conocimiento,
and society. RAW was established in 2011 by independent curator
Koyo Kouoh, who is also its artistic director. Kouoh has, desde
the center’s genesis, placed great importance on developing the
appreciation of artistic and curatorial practice on the African
continent, with discussion and exchange being cornerstones of
RAW’s programs. One of the most pertinent examples in the
context of this discussion is our biannual symposium Condition
Informe, a platform for exchange among practitioners from the
continent to reflect on the now and after of contemporary art in
África. The first edition of Condition Report took place in 2012
and focused on the building of art institutions in Africa. Fue
a three-day conference that served as a laboratory for thinking
about how small-scale art institutions contribute to shaping the
landscape of contemporary art in Africa.
Numerous initiatives like this have taken place on the conti-
próximo, and the ICAC is one such platform that fosters moments of
exchange, contributing to building a better future for the arts in
África. They are opportunities, in the midst of often-sensitive pro-
gramming and perpetual project development, for practitioners
to take stock and gain perspective through formal presenta-
tions and discussions and informal, more intimate moments of
exchange. One of the successes of ICAC was the way its format
shifted from lectures to smaller panel discussions and more con-
vivial trips around the city, allowing participants to zoom in and
afuera, to both speak and listen, on current and future art practice.
Welcoming artists, curators, academics, independent and pub-
lic institutions, alongside other art professionals, the conference
gave a voice to every field of art, allowing for a general sense of
how to build the future. Dialogue and diversity came up in most
of the panels, taking into account our histories in relation to
colonialism and the West’s influence on the arts, while actively
engaging with the variety of local contexts represented. This was
one of the highlights of the conference, and to be in Harare, todo
the way on the other side of the continent to Dakar, gave us the
opportunity to experience this diversity in real time.
We often say that “nothing is new, everything is recreated.” It
is important that such events be archived in order to be useful
VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts | 11
11a–b Masimba Hwati
Spot Fine (details) (2017)
Found materials (repurposed wooden sculptures,
Plexiglas, multinational currency, synthetic hair,
warthog task and nuts and bolts); 50 cm x 15 cm
X 15 cm
Photo: Wallen Mapondera, courtesy of the artist
for the next generation. Our elders continue to shape our under-
standing of the world through their writings, speeches, y
comportamiento, and this must be a cycle that continues. Drawing on
the fact that the first ICAC took place fifty-five years ago while
Zimbabwe was still a British colony, it was also deeply moving
and interesting to see how Doreen Sibanda and her team realized
the importance of us telling our own stories and the role that was
accorded to a younger generation.
Continuing to reflect on the legacy of ICAC, a danger that
such gatherings face is the possibility that the knowledge gener-
ated during their existence loses traction with the last remarks at
the closing ceremony and becomes restricted in its potential by
remaining beholden to only those present. This conversation is one
excellent way to archive and activate that knowledge, alongside the
publication project we understand the organizers have in mind.
Mhoze Chikowero: To me, this conference was important for
several reasons. As I remarked in my keynote and closing com-
mentos, this conference, following the first one held in 1962, en
the least gestured towards—and at some level demonstrated—
the obvious demographic shift in knowledge production in/on
África. Going through the 1962 published proceedings, I got
the overwhelming feeling of what it must have been like to sit
there—as a lone African (there must have been no more than a
handful of Africans there)—and to listen to oneself being theo-
rized. This is what all those Africanists were doing in their papers
and conversations: theorizing Africans. As I listened to proceed-
ings at ICAC 2017, I was hoping to hear some commentary on
that heritage of colonial knowledge production, and I didn’t get
mucho. This left me wondering about our sense of the meaning of
historia, and particularly whether we consciously chose to ignore
those ideas that must have been foundational at that conference
en 1962, or if we didn’t see ICAC 2017 as having learned much
from those ideas, cual, in my own remarks, I called “moldy.”
So, as we as Africans have now taken command in thinking and
12 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
defining ourselves as philosophers, artists, and scholars, this is
one interesting disjuncture that I thought deserves further think-
En g. This is important at various levels.
As I asked during the closing session, what does the demo-
graphic shift signify, beyond itself? The ICAC was composed of
a good mix of makers and interpreters, and as a historian who
reads art and culture as archives, I felt there was greater need for
interpretation—to read meaning in what all those mostly young
African artists are producing. This brings me back to 1962. Mayoría
of those presenters called themselves anthropologists, ethno-
musicologists, and art historians, and they presented papers on
such subjects as what it means to talk about African aesthetics,
the origins of African art, the influence of African art on the
Oeste, etc.; others presented their work on the “preservation” of
African culture which, in their interpretation, was threatened
by “civilization.” Others presented their activities in this regard
with such projects as the construction of “African cultural vil-
lages” in such places as Livingstone. That was in 1962. Listening
to the ICAC 2017, I was happy to see that the tenor had decid-
edly shifted, because Africans were not solely preoccupied with
defining who or what “the African” is, but were making their own
art without too much regard to self-legitimization. At one level,
there was insufficient articulation of the meaning of artistic and
cultural production. At another, many in the ICAC 2017 crowd
also called themselves ethnomusicologists and anthropologists
even as all they were studying is African cultures—that is, a ellos-
selves. To me, this brought to the fore two further issues.
Primero, there is the need to rethink the disciplines and defini-
tions that we have inherited from the colonial register. What I
mean is that we, as Africans, cannot seriously study ourselves
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12 Dineo Seshe
Bopape, Mavhu, Ivhu, Pasi (2017)
Soil, clay, herbs and seeds; dimensions variable
Main photo: courtesy of the artist and the National
Gallery of Zimbabwe
Detail photos: Ruth Simbao
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as an “other,” because that is what these disciplines mean.
Ethnomusicology came as the study of “primitive music,” and this
is how it was practiced by such people as Hugh Tracey and others,
whose weight loomed heavy at the 1962 conference and whose
legacy—institutionalized at the International Library of African
Music at Rhodes University—heavily shapes the study of African
music and cultures today. While there has been effort to do so,
these disciplines have not succeeded in cleansing themselves
of their historical legacy in terms of the accumulated, prob-
lematic archive, self-definition, and method, all of which were
deeply implicated with the colonial agenda. When Westerners,
who imposed these disciplines on us, study their own music, para
instancia, they are musicologists, not ethno- or anthro-scientists,
categories they reserve for their study of “others.” Now, as the
arbitrarily othered, when we call ourselves ethnomusicologists or
anthropologists when all we study are our own musics and cul-
turas, are we agreeing with this Western colonial gaze that views
our musics and cultures as primitive? What is the value of our
thought when we look at ourselves through the eyes of the white
hombre? Why do we have whole departments of anthropology, eth-
nomusicology, etc., at our universities and colleges? This means
we are still intellectually colonized; the demographic shift does
not matter too much.
Segundo, as creators of our own knowledge, we need to think
clearly about our methods to make sure that we do not reproduce
colonial frameworks. I was fascinated by the works of Amagugu
International Cultural Heritage Centre and Dzimbanhete
Interactive Arts, and I recall questions were posed about whether
or not projects that seek to preserve or showcase our sociocultural
environments in these ways might not unconsciously reproduce
colonial categories. In my book African Music, Fuerza, and Being
in Colonial Zimbabwe (2015), I write about the “African Village”
that was erected during the Rhodes Centennial Exhibition in 1953
in Bulawayo, and I argue that this was a colonial simulacrum of
African communities that the colonial state had destroyed in the
process of constructing the city and asserting colonial power. Ahora
defeated and destroyed, African culture could be re-presented
(and misrepresented) for touristic pleasure, as some kind of cul-
tural zoo. That is the legacy of anthropology. This is not a critique
of the particular models that I mention here. Bastante, it is a chal-
lenge that I hope they share.
Here is the challenge. Do these projects represent efforts to
reconstruct different modes of African life and self-develop-
ment that might become viable alternatives to the exhausted
colonial models of development that pit the African community
versus so-called Western modernity as represented by the self-
same city? This is important because, to think with a colleague,
Professor Mandivamba Rukuni (2012), if one looks closely at the
idea of development as given us by the West, we have in every
manner conceded to the notion that the further Africans move
away from their Africanness the more successful they are. Esto es
true in terms of national development (metal roads, shiny glass
buildings, factory farming, etc.) and in individual definitions of
success (leaving the village for the boarding school, boarding
VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts | 13
school to the city, leaving the country for overseas, and helping
relatives “left behind” to “achieve” the same). To come back to
the question in a different way: Why do we not have Amagugu
influencing or rivaling Bulawayo, and Dzimbanhete influencing
or rivaling Harare, both architecturally and culturally? Why do
we build one type of house in the rural areas and a completely
different type in the city? What is the power of art and culture
in redefining African ideas in terms of recentering the self? Por qué
do we continue to build cities modeled after London and New
york, and not after Madzimbabwe or the African village? Are our
cultural philosophers content with tiny, strange cultural cocoons
built in strange places for strange people to look at in strange
maneras? Are we happy to remain curiosities and spectacles in the
eyes of the same world that violently redefined us? Can we decol-
onize development, education, cultura, and tourism? I listened to
Butholezwe Kgosi Nyathi eloquently articulating the work and
vision of Amagugu, and I felt our artists are broadening the scope
of possibility. But what is our power to reshape policy? Qué es
the value of celebrating the inclusion of art in the new school cur-
riculum and being indifferent to the exclusion of history (cual
is now an elective in the newly passed Zimbabwean school cur-
riculum)? It is a cataract removed from one eye and placed in the
otro. Art needs history, y viceversa; the tons of work of art
displayed at the NGZ, Por ejemplo, require historically informed
interpretation for meaning.
On a related point, I was fascinated to participate in the
musumo ceremony that opened the ICAC, and I was sore to miss
the tour to Dzimbabwe Guru that closed the conference. I think
this properly framed the conference. I was a little concerned,
sin embargo, that we did not have live ngoma or mbira performances,
the epitomes of Madzimbabwe cultural and artistic creativity
and performativity. This created a disjuncture that militated
against wider participation, particularly given that these cultures
were the prime targets of the colonial disarmament of Africans
(Chikowero 2015). I kept imagining that if we had lunch and eve-
ning sessions with Mbira DzeNharira, Mawungira eNharira, el
various Zimbabwean or other African dancers, we could have
managed to make a more significant statement about recentering
the self by bridging “thinkers” from “doers” and destigmatizing
13 Cyrus Kabiru
Mali Ya Mfalme, Macho Nne/Caribbean Lango (Caribbean
Gate) (2016)
Pigment ink on HP premium satin photographic paper; 150
cm x 120 cm, ed. de 5 + 2 AP
Photo: courtesy of SMAC Gallery, © the artist
14 Nyandzombe Nyampenza
Double Life, Mediterranean Blues, For Emidio (triptych) (2017)
Photographic print, dimensions of triptych variable
Photo: Ruth Simbao
14 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
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(clockwise from top left)
15a–b The events of ICAC 2017 were framed by a musumo ceremony performed
at the National Gallery by Raphael Chikukwa, Papa Ndasuunje Shikongeni,
and Dineo Bopape before the public opening (above left); and a visit to Great
Zimbabwe, where the director, Zvakanyorwa Sadomba, presented a paper on
African epistemology and material culture (above right).
Photos: Ruth Simbao
16 Kenya-based artist and producer, Jimmy Ogonga (izquierda) and Namibia-
based artist Papa Ndasuunje Shikongeni (bien) at Dzimbanhete Arts and
Culture Interactions.
Photo: courtesy of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe
17 This performance that took place at Dzimbanhete Arts and Culture
Interactions is in the Chidzimba genre of the Karanga performances. It is as-
sociated with praises and appeasement for the Guardian Spirits who are also
known to be the hunters or warriors, the givers of talent, skills for survival,
and well-being.
Photo: Ruth Simbao
African cultures. I say this because I know
that Zimbabwe (and Harare itself) era
largely unaware that something called
ICAC was happening right in the city.
Sin embargo, the fact that the conference
did happen in an economically challeng-
ing environment, drawing participants
from around the world and representing
the African continent fairly well, is some-
thing to be emulated and celebrated.
N’Goné Fall: In July 2015, I was giv-
ing a presentation about my practice as
a curator and art writer at the Circle Art
Gallery in Nairobi. The audience com-
prised a combination of mainly local
visual artists and a few art lovers. I could
see that the crowd in front of me was a
bit confused, so I stopped and asked if
they wanted me to reduce the speed of
my talking. One about forty-plus Kenyan
man answered: "No, the point is that we
don’t know what you are talking about.
Can you please spell the names of those two guys and tell us who
ellos son?” I raised an eyebrow and asked: “No one knows whom
I am talking about?” No reaction from the audience. It was my
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turn to be confused, and actually I felt very, very lonely. In my
presentation I was quoting Cheikh Anta Diop and Aimé Césaire.
I might expect someone from Central America or Asia to ask
VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts | 15
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such a question, but never in my life did I think that this question
would come from an African born in Africa, raised in Africa, y
living in Africa. I grew up reading all the Black writers and writ-
ing dissertations about their work in secondary school in Dakar.
African and Black literatures were part of the curriculum. I grew
up learning, from my parents and at school, all the stories related
to the Black struggles and what Black intellectuals stand for. El
nation-building strategy of Senegal, my country, was to use cul-
ture as the avenue to bind people and to empower citizens. El
generation of Senegalese leaders involved in the independence of
the country were all intellectuals who strongly believed that the
only way to reclaim Black African consciousness and pride was
to use culture and knowledge as powerful weapons to turn down
the heavy loaded clichés related to the Myth of the Good Savage.
Alioune Diop, a Senegalese professor of philosophy, founded
Présence Africaine (African Presence), a pan-African biannual
cultural magazine, en 1947 in Paris and a publishing house of
the same name in 1949. Focusing on Black writers, Présence
Africaine was the preeminent voice of the Négritude movement.
While being the first imprint to publish most of the best-known
Francophone African writers of the twentieth century, the mag-
azine always had English abstracts, occasional English articles,
and even an English edition between 1955 y 1961. Editions
Présence Africaine, the publishing house, was the first to pub-
lish French translations of writers such as Chinua Achebe, Wole
Soyinka, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julius Nyerere. The Black writers
are my intellectual reference and background. I grew up trying to
live up to the spirit and legacy of these great men. I grew up being
nourished and inspired by their writings and ideologies. I was
told that I have to cherish their memory and give the torch to the
next generation. I was told that the struggle was global and that
my weapon was to produce, to deliver, and to share knowledge. I
was told that Africans must contribute to the evolution of human
kind. I am Senegalese. I am a pan-African. I was told that African
thoughts matter and must impact the world.
The moment of solitude I felt in Nairobi still has a bitter taste
hoy. It is obvious that I took for granted that all African kids
grew up reading all the books of the great African intellectuals,
regardless the language they speak. It is obvious that I took for
granted that we all call ourselves Africans because we all know
what African intellectuals, escritores, and decision makers have
been producing and fighting for since the end of World War II.
When Raphael Chikukwa first told me about the ICAC project in
16 | african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2
18 Mhoze Chikowero (izquierda) and N’Goné Fall (bien) en
the International Conference on African Cultures 2017.
Photos: courtesy of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe
2016, it reminded me of another landmark event held sixty-one
years ago. Alioune Diop was one of the organizers of the first
International Congress of Black Writers and Artists held at La
Sorbonne University in 1956 in Paris. The congress included Aimé
Césaire, Franz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Richard Wright, Léopold
Sédar Senghor, Cheikh Anta Diop, Amadou Hampaté Bâ, jacques
Rabemananjara, Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, and Ben Enwonwu,
to name a few. W.E.B. Du Bois could not attend as the US admin-
istration refused to deliver him a passport. I always wished I was
born earlier to be able to attend that congress.
ICAC was, in my opinion, the opportunity to gather all the
African voices to reenact, on African soil at last, the spirit of the
Paris congress. I saw ICAC as the occasion to look at the journey
of my continent, to autopsy its failures, missed promises, successes,
and dreams. ICAC was my opportunity to listen, aprender, be inspired,
and exchange in Africa with the contemporary family of African
intellectuals and artists. ICAC was a family gathering, the oppor-
tunity to think collectively about smart strategies to move forward.
ICAC reminded me that too many of us operate in isolation, eso
we are not challenging language barriers, and that we are not always
aware of what others are producing on and off the continent. ICAC
is the proof that we cannot keep on quoting Western intellectuals
while not referring to and celebrating our fellow African creative
thinkers. ICAC gave me energy and optimism. I hope that all
the videos of all the presentations and panel discussions will be
uploaded on Internet, thus available to everyone.
I had a three-hour conversation with Ruth Simbao in the bus driv-
ing us to the mythic site of the Great Zimbabwe. That conversation
is still in my mind and I am not surprised that she took the initiative
to gather some of the voices of the conference in one African pub-
lication, so we can keep on talking to each other. The conversation
has just started. It should not stop. It cannot stop. We have to keep on
producing, disseminating, and sharing our knowledge. We owe it to
the generations of African intellectuals who preceded us and make
me state with an infinite sense of responsibility, belonging and pride:
I am African and I am not passive.
Notas
http://www.nationalgallery.co.zw/icac/
1
2 Professor Kwesi Yankah is the minister of state
for tertiary education in Ghana. Prior to taking up
this position he was the vice chancellor of Central
University of Ghana. He is the associate director of the
African Humanities Program of the American Council
of Learned Societies, which has played a significant
role in providing African scholars to pursue postdoc-
toral fellowship at African universities.
3
http://www.nationalgallery.co.zw/icac/
4 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during Doreen
Sibanda’s opening remarks (Septiembre 11, 2017).
5 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during Raphael
Chikukwa’s comments during the session “Exploring
Curating in Africa: Métodos, Processes and Education”
(Septiembre 11, 2017).
6 Thirty-five delegates are listed in the congress
proceedings. Other people also participated in the
other components of the congress, and according to
el 2017 ICAC press pack, there were “more than
seventy delegates, who included museum professionals
and directors, artists, poetas, escritores, critics and other
scholars from around the world.” As Nzewi (2013: 97)
points out, there were “leading cultural figures from
the Western world … [como] William Fagg, Alfred
barr, Tristan Tzara, Jean Rouch, Michel Leiris, Roberto
Goldwater, Roger Bastide, Udo Kulterman, and Roland
Penrose” as well as “black cultural figures from the
United States and the Caribbean such as dancers Pearl
Primus and Percy Border, and African modernist
artists including Ben Enwonwu (Nigeria), Vincent Kofi
(Ghana), Felix Idubor (Nigeria), Valentine Malanga-
tana (Mozambique), and Selby Mvusi (South Africa)."
Vincent Kofi was a member of the Ghanaian delegation
at the First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar, 1966.
7
ICAC 1962 proceedings (National Gallery of
Salisbury 1962: 11).
8
In his opening speech, McEwen (1962: 7) stated
that “Ideas for our congress were born in Paris,” refer-
ring to the Congress of Black Writers that took place
in Paris in 1956. The emphasis of the first ICAC was to
“explore the influence of art and culture from Africa on
the world” (ICAC website, 2017, http://www.national-
gallery.co.zw/icac/icac-the-business-end-of-art/ ).
9 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during Chikonzero
Chazunguza’s talk in the session “Rewriting, Revising,
and Remixing Narratives” (Septiembre 13, 2017).
10 Misheck Masamvu, interview with Ruth Simbao,
Village Unhu, Harare, Septiembre 14, 2017.
11 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during N’Goné Fall’s
talk in the session “Exploring Curating in Africa: Meth-
probabilidades, Processes and Education” (Septiembre 11, 2017).
12 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during Mpho
Matsipa’s talk on the panel “Space Inherited and Spaces
Created: Examining the Impact of Public, Private, y
Inherited Spaces” (Septiembre 12, 2017).
13 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during Bisi Silva’s
talk on the panel “Space Inherited and Spaces Created:
Examining the Impact of Public, Private, and Inherited
Spaces” (Septiembre 12, 2017).
14 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during George
Shire’s comments on the panel “Evolution of Histories:
Reflection of New Narratives Around Art from Africa”
(Septiembre 11, 2017).
15 Notes taken by Ruth Simbao during Paul
Goodwin’s talk “(Y)curating and Recalcitrance: Notas
on Opacity and the Undercommons of the Museum”
on the panel “Art, Migración, and Radical Urbanism”
(Septiembre 11, 2017).
31 ICAC 2017 website, http://www.nationalgallery.
co.zw/icac/
32 http://historicalreenactments.org/blog_
16 Mugabe was prime minister from 1980 a 1987
27May2011.html
and president of Zimbabwe from 1987 a 2017.
33 Gabi Ngcobo, Gazebo 1 Panel Discussion:
17 “On the one hand, it was a political struggle
between the white minority government and Britain;
por otro lado, it was a fight between African
nationalists and the white minority government and
colonialist Britain. The Rhodesian Front, a white
minority part, emerged victorious in the 1962 elec-
tions” (Nzewi 2013: 95).
18 “ICAC, the Business End of Art,"
National Gallery of Zimbabwe ICAC web-
site, http://www.nationalgallery.co.zw/icac/
icac-the-business-end-of-art/
19 Doreen Sibanda, cited in “African Voices: Estafa-
fronting the Frontiers of Reality,” National Gallery of
Zimbabwe website www.nationalgallery.co.zw
20 This is an art studio that provides space for
residency programs, workshops and exhibitions.
21 Dzimbanhete Arts and Culture Interactions is a
resources center and meeting place for artists. Fue
established in 2008, 25 km outside Harare, Zimba-
bwe. The organization has grown to become a visual
center for re-learning, sharing, and archiving artistic
knowledge https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/
dzimbanhete-arts-interactions
22 “Njelele Art Station is a meeting place for critical
dialogue where ideas are generated and resonate out
into the city through projects that provoke discussion
and engage with the general public. Njelele is the name
of a sacred shrine in Zimbabwe, and is located on the
oldest street built in the city of Harare. It is a space
for creative ritual that exists between two points, el
historical and the future, that is in the contemporary,
which is key to understanding the city and ourselves”
(www.njelele.com).
23 Tsoko Gallery was founded in 2016 at Doon
Estate and aims to promote the work of emerging art-
istas, while critically engaging and educating a diverse
audience. During the ICAC, recent works by Shalom
Kufakwatenzi, Clive T. Mukuchu, and Terrence Musekiwa
were on display.
24 Evans Mutenga, Virginia Chihota, Moffat Takad-
iwa, Portia Zvavahera, Masimba Hwati, Lilian Mugodi,
Terrence Musekiwa, Gideon Gomo, Nyandzombe
Nyampenza, and Mukudzeishe Muzondo.
25 Mohau Modisakeng, Mario Macilau, Ogopoleng
Kgomoethata, Longinos Nagila, Aida Muluneh, Cirus
Kaburi, Peterson Kamwathi, Dineo Seshee Bopape,
Sikhumbuzo Makandula, Chemu Ng’ok, Mulenga J.
Mulenga, Yonamine, Sanele Omari Jali, Lhora Amira,
Thenjiwe Nkosi, and Ralph Borland.
26 Doreen Sibanda, cited in “African Voices: Estafa-
fronting the Frontiers of Reality,” National Gallery of
Zimbabwe website, http://www.nationalgallery.co.zw
27 Nyampenza, cited in “African Voices: Estafa-
fronting the Frontiers of Reality,” National Gallery of
Zimbabwe website, www.nationalgallery.co.zw
28 This painting was part of Ng’ok’s MFA exhibition
titled Riot at the Albany Museum in Grahamstown,
South Africa in 2016.
29 Personal correspondence with the artist, Decem-
ber 10, 2017.
30 Interview with Doreen Sibanda, National Gallery
of Zimbabwe website, http://www.nationalgallery.co.zw/
icac/reflections-at-60-with-doreen-sibanda/
“Cultural Institutions as Knowledge Hubs: Diversity,
Audience, and Relevance” (Septiembre 12, 2017).
34 Mpho Matsipa, Courtauld Gallery Plenary Ses-
sión: “Spaces Inherited and Spaces Created: Examining
the Impact of Public, Private, and Alternative Spaces”
(Septiembre 12, 2017).
References cited
Biobaku, S.O. 1962. Opening ceremony address. En
Proceedings of the First International Congress of Afri-
can Culture, páginas. 12–13. Salisbury: National Gallery of
Salisbury, Rhodesia.
Chikowero, Mhoze. 2015. African Music, Fuerza, y
Being in Colonial Zimbabwe. Bloomington: Indiana
Prensa universitaria.
gordon, Lewis R. 2006. “African-American Philos-
ophy, Carrera, and the Geography of Reason.” In Lewis
R. Gordon and Jane A. gordon (editores.), Not Only the
Master’s Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and
Practice, páginas. 3–50. Roca, CO: Paradigm.
McEwen, F. 1962. Opening ceremony speech. En el
Proceedings of the First International Congress of
African Culture, pag. 11. Salisbury: National Gallery of
Salisbury, Rhodesia.
National Gallery of Salisbury, Rhodesia. 1962. Pro-
ceedings of the First International Congress of African
Cultura. Salisbury: National Gallery of Salisbury,
Rhodesia.
Ng’ok, Chemutai. 2016. A Counter-narrative Analysis of
Psychological Riot in Contemporary Painting. Unpub-
lished MFA thesis, Rhodes University.
Nzewi, Ugochukwu. 2013. The Dak’Art Biennial in the
Making of Contemporary African Art, 1992–Present.
Unpublished PhD thesis, Emory University.
Rukuni, Mandivamba. 2012. Being Afrikan. Johannes-
burg: Penguin Random House.
Simbao, Ruth. 2017. “Situating Africa: An Alter-geopol-
itics of Knowledge, or Chapungu Rises.” African Arts
50 (2): 1–9.
Yankah, Kwesi. 2017. “Promoting Greater Under-
standing of African Material and Expressive Culture.”
Opening speech at the Arts Council of the African
Studies Association 17th Triennial Symposium, Uni-
versity of Ghana, Accra, Agosto.
Zvomuya, Percy. 2017a. “How the ICAC Highlighted
the Global influence of Artists from Africa in 1962.”
Contemporary&. www.contemporaryand.com/fr/
magazines/how-the-icac-highlighted-the-global-influ-
ence-of-artists-from-africa-in-1962
Zvomuya, Percy. 2017b. “A Groundbreaking
Congress in Zimbabwe: How a Historical Art
Conference in Africa Was Restaged” [enterrar-
view with Raphael Chikukwa]. Contemporary&.
www.contemporaryand.com/fr/magazines/
how-a-historical-art-conference-in-africa-was-restaged
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