Culture Africa

The Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne published this year his autobiography, "Le fagot de ma mémoire". He develops his favorite themes, which range from postcolonial to critical thinking in Islam, including African philosophies. Since 2008, the author has taught at Columbia University in New York, where he heads the Institute of African Studies. Here is the second part of the column that Tirthankar Chanda dedicates to this…

In the Central African Republic, the theater group Perroquets de Bangui returned yesterday, Wednesday 25 August, from the Monaco World Amateur Theater Festival. The theater group Bangui Parrots participated in Monaco, as part of World Theateramateur, with his play entitled The Veterans, which questions the situation on the…

What is left at the end of a festival? Award-winning films, Palme d'Or and then love. "Neptune Frost", directed by the American Saul Williams and the French woman of Rwandan origin Anisia Uzeyman, was the most curious, generous and innovative proposal for this film festival in Cannes 2021. It is the story of a war that does not say without name and a love between an African hacker and a coltan miner on…

The most feminist film to date in competition at the Cannes Film Festival has been directed by an African man. In Lingui, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun questions the links and values ​​that are considered sacred in a patriarchal society like Chad: the absolute ban on abortion, the excision of girls and the submission of women. The Chadian filmmaker manages to turn a tragic story into an optimistic utopia thanks…

The Cannes Film Festival, the largest film festival in the world, opened its doors on Tuesday night. The world of the 7th art is breathing again, after a canceled 2020 edition and the 2021 edition moved from May to July. We turn our spotlight on Africa's ambassadors. And this year, the continent is better represented than usual.…

Beninese visual artist Romuald Hazoumè is exhibiting his famous masks made of plastic jars until July 11 at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. And his new installation "No Return" is the core of the exhibition "Ex Africa - African presences in art today". Interview with this self-taught Yoruba native who grew up in Porto-Novo in a Catholic family before conquering the art market with his voodoo-inspired…

After Lagos, the "Great West African Cities" initiative in Wathi Square takes us to Abidjan, the economic and cultural capital of Côte d'Ivoire. We have launched a series on major West African cities, in order to show their diversity, their complexity, their beauty, but also the environmental, security and socio-economic threats that weigh on them.Along with population growth, one of the other major trends in the coming…

How do I manage and distribute authors' rights for artists in Africa in an increasingly digital world? This is one of the debates that excited the participants in the sixth edition of Moca, the African creativity movement, which was held last week in Paris. Platforms and telephone operators are increasingly using the work of artists and artists need to take greater advantage of it. This is particularly…

It was by publishing in 1971, 50 years ago, his first fiction, Tribaliques, that the Congolese Henri Lopes made himself known. Awarded the following year the main literary prize in Black Africa, this collection of short stories enabled the author to establish his reputation as an attentive witness to the wealth and misfortune of independent Africa. Lopes leads a dual political and literary career and has established himself as an essential writer, author of an important work, located between social criticism and…

Since his participation in Documenta 14, Sammy Baloji has become an important figure in contemporary art. AuxBeaux-Arts de Paris, his exhibition, "K (C) in progress, fragments of intertwined dialogues", ping-pong between personal experiences and official archives often forgotten or hidden to tell us otherwise the relationship between K (C) Ongolese and Westerners . With this 42-year-old plastic artist, born in Lubumbashi, who now swings…