For the last 10 months Africa and the Africans have been the subject of an unprecedented initiative in France.
“Saison Africa2020” provided a platform for Africans to talk about their views on the state of the world.
The season involved projects and partners both in Africa and in France.
“We did more than 1,500 projects with about 911 partner structures in France and on the African continent. So I would say mission accomplished, at least in relation to this season, which was an invitation to look at and understand the world from an African perspective. So we were able to see, listen to and hear what Africans had to say about the state of the world today”, says N’Goné Fall, general curator of “Saison Africa2020”.
The project stems from a proposal by French president, Emmanuel Macron, during his speech to African youth in Ouagadougou in 2017.
The projects included topics such as citizen engagement, economic independence, movement of people and ideas, even French colonial policy.
“It encourages us to question ourselves or to think about ideas and concepts from another angle. And that was the whole point of the season: to think from an African point of view. But along the way, it’s also about how Africans think and are we all capable of having a 360° vision and accepting this introspection?”, questions senegalese curator N’Goné Fall.
The project ends this Thursday at the Paul Eluard Museum in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. The project was also a way to provide a voice to women artists and discuss topics relevant to the African diaspora.
Farah Clémentine Dramani-Issifou, Co-curator of the exhibition “Un.e Air.e de famille” in Saint-Denis added “I would say that our political discourse is also to decolonise the imaginary, to decolonise the history of art by proposing other narratives, by giving a voice to women artists who are rarely heard, and bodies that are rarely seen”.
The pandemic and confinements in 2020 forced many events to take place online but, according to the organisation, paradoxically this attracted over four million spectators.
