AKAA: A DECADE SHOWING ART FROM AFRICA, DIASPORA

Paris hosts hundreds of art events each year, and it can be tough for participants to stand out on a crowded cultural calendar, or even to survive amid the competition. But one of the most interesting art and design fairs is celebrating its 10th anniversary this autumn, presenting a remarkable range of works by artists from Africa and the African diaspora.

AKAA – Also Known As Africa – brings together some 44 galleries and more than 80 artists, exhibiting Oct. 24-to-26, “under the glass roof” of the Carreau du Temple, a striking 19^th-century building that once served as a covered market, in the (now trendy) 3rd arrondissement of the French capital.

The fair’s themes this year include inter-regional creative fusion and cooperation, according to new artistic director Sitor Senghor, a long-time collector, former investment banking expert, and current independent curator.

Calling AKAA 2025 a “journey”, Senghor said visitors would “walk in the footsteps of visionary artists, those who understood art as an act of freedom, a resistance through beauty, a celebration of life”.

The fair forms part of Paris Art Week, when galleries throw open their doors, street artists create murals, and collectors go hunting for valuable artwork – all taking place against the backdrop of the recent Louvre heist.

But the robbery at France’s world-famous museum earlier this month has not dampened the mood of art enthusiasts, who have been flocking to various exhibitions (Art Basel Paris is also taking place this week).

AKAA, however, attracts a special group of visitors, who include African art connoisseurs and fans of the cutting-edge work for which many of those featured are recognized. As the fair states, its objective since launching in 2015 has been to offer an “exceptional platform for the artists and galleries shaping the contemporary art landscape”.

This year, the aim is not only to celebrate the 10-year milestone, but also to “reaffirm its commitment to the future of African and Afro-descendant art scenes,” according to the organizers. As such, there is an expanded scope, comprising a wider programme of talks, screenings, and performances alongside the gallery exhibitions

(More on AKAA’s background:

https://southernworldartsnews.blogspot.com/2017/12/galleries-fairs-offer-african-art-feast.html)

The 2025 display of artwork begins outside the Carreau du Temple, with a sculpture by the illustrious Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow (1935 - 2016). Titled “Sitting Bull en prière”, the effect is to make visitors stop and wonder at this majestic personage, who paradoxically appears to be entreating the heavens. Represented in vibrant hues of umber and ochre, the figure has his face turned to the sky, with his hands held up in supplication. Its impact is one for which Sow is known, having created acclaimed (and sometimes controversial) “larger-than-life” public sculptures in France and other countries.

From this work, visitors head to a monumental installation inside the capacious building, right after the entrance.

Here, a dramatic series of sculptures by Cameroon-born Serge Mouangue demands an extended pause for observation and awe. At first glance, the work seems to be of Japanese origin because the artist “merges the formal elegance of the Japanese kimono with African textiles and visual rhythms”, as the curators put it.

In the first part of the installation (which overall is titled “The Third Aesthetic”), a meandering row of female figures appears to be heading out on a journey, dressed in traditional “kimonos”, their hair in buns with kanzashi, or “hair chopsticks”, as decoration. But even as their “faces” appear Japanese, one can see on closer inspection that these are African masks, and the clothing is made from African textiles that recall Japanese indigo dyeing.

“This is called Seven Sisters, and it’s a procession of fourteen women walking towards Mount Fuji,” explained Mouangue, who lived in Japan for five years and maintains close links with the country. He told SWAN during the exhibition preview that he acquired the masks from Gabon, used original kanzashi from Japan, and chose fabric for the intercultural resemblance – deliberately creating a fusion of elements with the structures.

“I want people to question what they’re seeing,” Mouangue said. “I want them to think about cultural reflections and links because living and working in Japan brought me closer to Africa.”

He added that as an artist, he wanted to “delve deeply” into topics such as identity and spirituality, and for this, he works with craftsmen and women who “embody excellence” and who “respect traditions”. 

He has collaborated with a group called Nawawaseya, for instance, to provide “sacred rope” (used at shrines) for a second sculpture in the installation. In this, kendo masks are decorated with African beads from the west Cameroon region where Mouangue grew up, again combining African and Asian aesthetics.

A third section of the installation features fertility figures, constructed from a transparent resin in varying shades of scarlet, with Japanese Noh masks as the foetuses. The statues are mounted on a stand containing water that reflects their colour. 

“This is about fertility and giving birth,” Mouangue told SWAN. “It took me seven years all together to make this because there is lots of complexity in the material, which is a specific resin, and in the shaping for the mould.”

In addition to Mouangue’s spectacular sculptures (represented by “space Un” gallery of Tokyo), the fair offers a wide array of memorable works through the participation of European galleries as well as those based across the Atlantic.

For the first time, a gallery from Puerto Rico (REM Project) is present this year, showcasing the work of artist Gadiel Rivera Herrera from the island, as well as that of Victo’ Nyakauru from Zimbabwe.

Rivera Herrera creates surrealist ceramic forms, while Nyakaura produces bold pieces using leather. The latter told SWAN that his aim with the AKAA exhibition was to recall and highlight Négritude, the movement formed by black intellectuals and artists during the 1930s to raise black consciousness.

He said he wanted to relaunch this philosophy through his work – a fitting aim perhaps for the 10^th anniversary of an innovative fair in Paris, a city that played such a key role in the movement. - SWAN

Photos (by AM / SWAN, top to bottom): AKAA's artistic director Sitor Senghor; Sitting Bull en prière by Ousmane Sow;  Seven Sisters (The Third Aesthetic) by Serge Mouangue; the artist Serge Mouangue with his work; Victo' Nyakaura at the REM Project stand. 

GERMAN TOWN HOSTS ‘MUSICAL’ EXPO OF JAMAICAN ART

As music fans groove to the sounds of reggae in summer festivals around the world, a small town in Germany is focusing on Jamaican visual art, alongside the famous rhythms.

Bersenbrück (Lower Saxony) is known for its annual Reggae Jam Festival, one of the most popular music events in Europe, but this year the town is also hosting a special Jamaican art exhibition, highlighting modern and contemporary art from the island, while paying homage to its musical genres.

Running until Aug. 24 at the Museum im Kloster - housed in a picturesque pastel-coloured building - the show comprises artwork by revered pioneers such as Osmond Watson and Edna Manley as well as by acclaimed contemporary artists including Gavin Jordan, Joshua Solas and Barbara Walker.

The official exhibition poster features reggae singer Koffee, from a painting by Richard Gayle, while other works, for example, depict the iconic music producer Lee Scratch Perry, or honour the ground-breaking film The Harder They Come - with its venerated soundtrack by Jimmy Cliff and other reggae legends. Those attending the Reggae Jam Festival (Aug. 1-to- 3) will be able to view the artworks freely.

The exhibition is the brainchild of Karl Olaf Kaiser, a German engineer, deejay, and art lover who has forged close ties with Jamaica and artists over the years. As a first-time curator, he worked with museum director Katharina Pfaff to bring the show to fruition, overcoming a range of challenges such as shipping artwork from the Caribbean and obtaining relevant loans of paintings. Along the way, he received assistance from artists, art collectors, and from the German art historian Claudia Hucke, who has lived and taught in Jamaica.

In the following edited interview, Kaiser discusses the road to Bersenbrück with SWAN.

SWAN: What was the inspiration for the exhibition?

Karl Olaf Kaiser: The inspiration was to highlight to Germans that Jamaican culture "not only" consists of reggae music (with its entirely different genre), but that it is very rich in many other fields, e.g. literature, performing arts, and fine arts. Often, and all over the world, cultural reception is influenced by clichés: "German music culture is the Oktoberfestmusic and Lederhosen", "the typical Frenchman wears a beret, a red scarf and a sailor shirt”, etc.

Since my first journey to Jamaica in 1992, I have always visited the National Gallery - although I didn't dip deep into the fine arts scene of Jamaica. But in the last 8-to-10 years, the interest in Jamaican art has increased tremendously.

Besides the NGJ, I started to visit other galleries in Kingston, MoBay, Ocho Rios, and also attended “underground” pop-up exhibitions, etc. That led to the publishing of several articles about the arts scene of Kingston in a German Reggae magazine (RIDDIM).

Then the final inspiration was the wonderful exhibition Jamaica Making: The Theresa Roberts Art Collection, which was curated by Dr Emma Roberts, in Liverpool at the Victoria Gallery & Museum in 2022. There I thought: “Oh it would be wonderful to present Jamaican art in such a setting in Germany”.

At that point in time the idea was more a dream, and quite vague. From there to the opening event on 27 June 2025, several other lucky coincidences were necessary, namely the request of music writer Helmut Philips in 2023 for me to be the MC at the opening of his DUB-Music exhibition in the Museum im Kloster in Bersenbrück. Afterwards Helmut and myself discussed the possible interest of the Museum im Kloster in a “Jamaican art” exhibition.

Later that year we had a first meeting with Katharina Pfaff, the director of the Museum. Several potential exhibition contents / concepts were introduced and discussed. It was obvious that - since the special exhibition would also be during the Reggae Jam - it should have attractions for music fans. Different concepts were presented, for example to bring the exhibition of “50 Years: The Harder They Come” [celebrating the iconic 1972 film] to Germany, an exhibition I visited in June 2022.

Another idea was to show a selection of an exhibition, which was held at the Übersee-Museum in Bremen years ago, but which would be limited again to, let’s say, so-called “Rasta art”. However, from the beginning my intention was always to give the visitor a broad overview and idea of “classic” and contemporary Jamaican art and not to limit it to a specific art genre, which - in the case with “Rasta art” - would be again to feed a German/European cliché. Katharina was on the same page.

In early 2024, it was finally agreed to organize an exhibition about and with a wide range of Jamaican art in the summer of 2025 and at the Museum im Kloster.

SWAN: What were some of the challenges in acquiring the artwork?

KOK: The preliminary concept of 2023 / early 2024 became more specific as we found a lender who had some contemporary Jamaican artwork and was willing to lend it - free of charge. Moreover, I was in contact with several persons in Germany whom I knew owned Jamaican art. Many telephone calls and visits followed, and in late summer 2024, we had a decent potential small collection with which we could proceed. Still my - in hindsight - naïve idea was to borrow art in Jamaica to bring it over to Germany.

Some background: that summer I spotted five Jamaican art pieces at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin at the 2024 Quilomboso exhibition, which they’d got from the National Gallery of Jamaica. If they could manage it, it’s generally possible, I thought. And where there’s a will, there’s a way – if makka nah jook you … and you have a budget, team and background like the HKW.

In October 2024 I introduced the idea of a Jamaican art exhibition at the annual conference of the Deutsch-Jamaikanische Gesellschaft [a friendship organization] in Königswinter. There I asked the audience about the idea and whether attendees knew potential - honorary pro bono - lenders of Jamaican art, located in the EU.

It was striking that most people I spoke to loved the idea and concept of the planned exhibition and encouraged us/me to continue; but many also were hesitant to lend their art, for individual reasons.

During my regular “snow bird” time in Jamaica during winter 2024, and while researching and doing the conceptional preparation for the exhibition, I became aware of a Jamaican art exhibition, held in 2017 in Stuttgart. Through the list of artists, who were showcased at that time, I realized that many of them would fit into the concept of our exhibition. The curator of that exhibition was Miss Petra Schmidt [an art collector and former diplomat].

From Jamaica, I contacted her, and after I explained the concept and told her about the many challenges (a very, very small budget, no fees for lenders, the relatively short exhibition period and that it wasn’t the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn but the lovely “Museum im Kloster in Bersenbrück”… “Where??”), she immediately said she loved the idea.

She agreed to lend pieces from her art collection. This, and also the generous support by the painter Judy Ann MacMillan, the art historian Dr. Claudia Hucke from Germany, the Jamaican author and painter Alecia McKenzie, who is based in France, and sculptor Barbara Walker, who’s based in Berlin - all helped to shape the possible collection more and more.

Moreover, in Jamaica I contacted the estates of several artists, for example Barrington Watson, Osmond Watson, Edna Manley, John Dunkley, Mallica Kapo Reynolds. Everybody was willing to give support - but at the end, it was also a matter of time and budget. Then the cost for transport, insurance, custom fees and on top of that, the “cherry on the pie”: the whole bureaucratic process in Jamaica to export the art for an exhibition and to import it into Germany.

Please keep in mind that the mission of the small Museum im Kloster is to focus on local heritage and history. The special exhibition during the two months around Reggae Jam is a heavy, heavy burden for the small staff, namely Katharina Pfaff, who has also many other important duties in the county of Osnabrück. So, it was always a levelling of my expectations regarding this exhibition - not only for me but also for many artists, who might have liked to be included with their art.

That was one of the main sad experiences: The disappointment of some artists who couldn’t be integrated, because there are so many exceptional artists in Jamaica, and the space we had was quite small, about 160 square metres. And we are just speaking about the artists in Jamaica and not touching on the broad field of Jamaican artists living in the European Diaspora. Furthermore, I did this whole project in my “leisure time”. It needed already a whole heap of passion, was time-consuming and, from the beginning of 2025, more or less a full time job - pro bono.

SWAN: That’s a massive undertaking. Will the show now travel elsewhere?

KOK: Personally, I would be happy if the show could travel and be exhibited in other museums - either in Germany and / or elsewhere in the EU. We definitely need adequate security and safety measures as well as proper conservation conditions. Moreover, it would require the continued generosity of the lenders, since all pieces are from private collections.

Or, we would need financial support from cultural funds, public foundations, etc. I can proudly state that we could exhibit much more Jamaican artists and pieces, and that it could also be showcased in a larger museum. So, any museum, institution and or foundation, which is interested in Jamaican art, the Jamaican art scene, background of Jamaican art history, etc. and have a passion for Jamaica and a project like this: please don’t hesitate to contact me.

SWAN: What has the reception been in Bersenbrück?

KOK: This question really has to be answered by the visitors to the Jamaican Art exhibition. From my prospective, the reception on the opening weekend was very good. I have to acknowledge that Bersenbrück and its people are very nice but - fair enough - it’s not located around the corner for many people. 

However, on a year-to-year basis, many thousands of reggae-music lovers pilgrim to Bersenbrück for a reason: That’s the Reggae Jam Festival. And likewise, I hope, at least hundreds of Jamaican art connoisseurs and those who want to see Jamaican art will be motivated to travel to this wonderful part of Germany. Definitely it’s worth it. The feedback from people I’ve spoken to, who visited the show, is that they love it.

Photos by AM / SWAN (top to bottom): The exhibition poster at the Museum im Kloster; Karl Olaf Kaiser speaks at the official opening of the exhibition; a view of the exhibition hall; Karl Olaf Kaiser moderates a panel with artists, art collectors and art historians; museum director Katharina Pfaff with art historian Claudia Hucke; a section of the exhibition featuring literature. 

FILM: FANON’S ARC FROM THERAPIST TO REVOLUTIONARY

By Dimitri Keramitas 

Franz Fanon, Chroniques fidèles survenues au siècle dernier à l’hôpital de Blida-Joinville au temps où le Docteur Franz Fanon était Chef de la cinquième division, entre l’an 1953 et 1956 (Franz Fanon, Faithful Chronicles from the Last Century at the Blida-Joinville Hospital when Dr. Franz Fanon was Chief of the Fifth Division, between 1953 and 1956) - a film by Abdenour Zahzah

Sixty-four years after his death - and during the centenary of his birth - the great psychiatrist, polemicist and revolutionary Frantz Fanon seems to have fully returned to the public consciousness, with his ideas being used to address current societal divisions.

Fanon has been the subject of bios, studies, graphic novels, and several films (documentaries and features). Now, a new biopic, directed by Abdenour Zahzah, focuses on his professional experiences at the Blida-Joinville hospital in French Algeria in the 1950s, when l’Algérie Française was giving way to decolonization. (Algeria was divided into fifteen French departments until it won independence following a brutal war.)

As a historical document, the film is fascinating, and even important. Fanon’s hugely influential thought and writings about the effects of colonialism on the psyche of the colonized germinated in the Blida hospital. He would later apply his ideas in political action.

Originally from Martinique, Fanon was educated in elite schools and joined the French Resistance when WWII broke out. (He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, by Colonel Raoul Salan, who as a general would lead a right-wing terrorist group that tried to keep Algeria French.) After completing his medical studies in Lyon, he was sent to the colonial hinterlands of the Maghreb to work with mentally ill patients. At the Blida-Joinville hospital he found wretched conditions and patronizing doctors (one ascribed the mental dysfunctions of Arab patients to racial differences in the brain).

Fanon immediately began trying to reform and humanize the hospital environment with early versions of group encounter sessions. He realized that racism and colonial oppression played a strong part in mental illness. Eventually he became an opponent not only of the imperialism victimizing his patients but of that found in Algerian society in general. He joined the revolutionary FLN (National Liberation Front) and after independence served in the Algerian government.

Fanon would later become associated with the Third World and Black Power movements with his ideas of the “false consciousness” imposed on the oppressed, an idea taken up by many others, including famous writers and academics. He attracted controversy by stating that violence could be a legitimate way for victims of racism and imperialism to break out of their psychic straitjackets. In some "Western" countries, he was accused of championing terrorism. It’s difficult to ascertain how literal this was, how much the overheated product of the times (as with the theories of Wilhelm Reich and J.D. Laing). So perhaps it was a good idea to take a look back at Fanon’s clinical work with mentally ill people.

Zahzah himself is from Blida, and he gives us an assured sense of place, mostly of the hospital grounds (which included staff housing), also of a bucolic mountain where orderlies take patients on an outing. He has chosen to film in low-contrast black-and-white, which is pleasant but feels too sedate for the setting, and the context. The hospital is, after all, a “madhouse” as the patients themselves say, with some very extreme cases. This becomes even more the case when the independence war begins. The Algerian War was a violent, often gruesome conflict, and the soft grayish tones somehow seem evasive. We feel that a more extreme style, on the order of Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor, would be more appropriate.

Alexandre Desane as Fanon is brilliant, and he has Fanon’s physical presence (at least as expressed in photos). 

He possesses just the right balance of humane empathy, outrage at the conditions patients are subject to, and assertiveness. Unfortunately, we don’t get a convincing character arc – of his transformation from hospital psychiatrist to revolutionary. The transition seems too smooth, as if Fanon had simply gravitated to a social movement, as opposed to political revolt. This may not be completely inaccurate: To Fanon, joining the Algerianh independence struggle wasn’t all that different from joining the French Resistance. (The Resistance too was a proscribed, violent movement opposing what had been termed Free France until it became known as Vichy.)

The supporting actors do serviceable work, but not much more than that, and some secondary characters seem to be played by non-actors. Fanon’s own son plays a small part (as an old friend of Fanon). This adds to the distancing effect of Zahzah’s mode of filming. Perhaps Fanon himself would have wanted his story to be told in an “objective” fashion, except that there’s a contradiction between his portrayal (as well as that of the French characters), and that of the Arab-Algerian patients and staff. This is ironic given that one of the themes is French Algeria’s segregation of French and Arab citizens.

The director trenchantly shows how mental illness was induced by cultural and social forces. This was exacerbated by the war, as we observe both victims of the French army and traumatized perpetrators of torture. The policies applied by the hospital itself become oppressive. In a way reminiscent of the theories of Michel Foucault, Fanon’s notions about colonialism’s damaging impact on the psyche could be extended to other institutions: school, workplace, government bureaucracy, culture.

Regrettably, in delineating this theme, the narrative structure breaks down. While multiplying case studies, the film is desultory and diffuse. Zahzah doesn’t develop and dramatize his cases sufficiently, and then overcompensates with set-pieces in which characters present overwrought monologues about past trauma.

There’s something telling about the film’s long, rather curious, official title. It sounds like self-parody, or something Brechtian, or like Peter Weiss’s play (adapted to film by Peter Brook), The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade - it implies taking literal fact into surreal territory.

Before making this film, Zahzah had made a documentary about Fanon (Frantz Fanon, Mémoire d’Asile, 2002, also about his experiences at the hospital). The director obviously felt a need to get beyond a discursive approach, but he doesn’t quite manage the leap from documentary to dramatic fiction.

In addition, the director misses opportunities to explore his subject’s contradictions. Fanon’s own personality had an authoritarian streak, reinforced by the discipline of serving in a military capacity and by the French education system. His marriage with a Frenchwoman is portrayed as conventional and dominated by his vocation. Fanon tries to “liberate” the patients by imposing Beethoven (shades of Clockwork Orange) and having them put out a newspaper. Another of his methods is to establish that most French of institutions, a café, in the hospital. A couple of times he takes patients into his own household in what might seem a patronizing manner. If all this was for the benefit of the patients, it perhaps indicates that his views on imperialist influence were sometimes tempered with pragmatism.

The film ends with Fanon, now an FLN member, leaving his post to “await instructions” elsewhere. He doesn’t seem much concerned about his wife, young son, or the patient who’d become a member of the household. It’s a sort of grim foreshadowing: The FLN had the structure, and the ruthless methods, of a clandestine liberation movement fighting a more powerful enemy; the structure and methods were later used to remain in power undemocratically. Likewise, the film depicts the importance of the Muslim religion for the Algerian fellah, and this foreshadows the civil war in the 1980s pitting the authoritarian FLN government against Islamists.

At the Paris screening of the film, among the attendees was a woman who had worked with Fanon at the Blida hospital, and who has also written about him. Now nearing 90, she was then a young intern. Whatever her sympathies at the time, like many other Algerian Jews she left the country for France. She declined to speak of that period except to say that while the film was “good” it contained “historical inaccuracies”. She refused to say what they were.

One possible example: Fanon’s tenure at the hospital apparently ended when he was deported, not because of a James Bond-like escape. A life lived semi-underground would seem to guarantee murky historiography, and it’s clear that the life and legacy of Frantz Fanon will continue to provoke debate and controversy. But continuing the discussion is necessary. For that reason alone, Fanon is worth seeing.

Dimitri Keramitas is a Paris-based writer and legal expert.

Photos are courtesy of the film distributors. Fanon will be in cinemas in July.

AT UN, ARTISTS CALL FOR ACTION ON SAVING OCEAN

While government leaders, scientists and civil organizations gather in Nice, southern France, for the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) from June 9 to 13, artists across the Atlantic are equally sounding the alarm about the calamitous situation facing the world’s seas.

HOMO SARGASSUM is a contemporary art exhibition taking place at UN headquarters in New York to raise awareness about ocean pollution and other ills, through “the lens of the sargassum seaweed”. The show runs throughout World Ocean Month (June), until July 11, and admission is free upon online registration.

“It’s really about understanding our human responsibility in environmental disasters,” said the exhibition's curator Vanessa Selk. “If there’s a proliferation of sargassum seaweed, it’s because we contributed to it through the use of chemical fertilizers, through climate change, global warming… and we have to take full responsibility of this.”

Selk, a former diplomat who now directs the US-based non-profit TOUT-MONDE Art FOUNDATION (TMAF), told SWAN in a telephone interview that the exhibition aims to highlight the voices and work of contemporary Caribbean artists in a wide-reaching way, alongside the subject of the show.

She said that presenting the exhibition at the UN rather than in a museum is “not merely symbolic”, as the aim is to use art to “speak up on certain issues”, in addition to words and diplomacy.

“Museum audiences are great, but that is still a niche,” she added. “By showing the exhibition here at the UN, we’re totally targeting a different public, including international tourists that come to visit the headquarters. The artworks are right at the entrance, and it’s fabulous to see how everyone stops and engages with the show and the information.”   

First presented at the Museum of Fine Arts of Florida State University in Tallahassee from September 2024 to March this year, HOMO SARGASSUM brings together more than 20 artists in an immersive “multisensorial” exhibition – representing countries and territories in the Caribbean and elsewhere, including the French overseas departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Through their work, the artists express concern and invite viewers to “reflect on what can be done individually and collectively to change our relation to the Ocean”, the exhibition states.

The public also learns about the history of the sargassum seaweed scourge, through scientific information showing how the “proliferation of the algae across the Atlantic and on Caribbean coasts since 2011 has wide-ranging environmental, economic, social and health-related impacts for coastal communities and ecosystems.”

Beyond this, the works address wider global problems of marine pollution and degradation, which is the focus of the Nice conference (co-chaired by France and Costa Rica). According to UN figures, some 12 million metric tons of plastic are put into the ocean each year, as images of floating “plastic islands” have graphically shown.

Li Junhua, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, and Secretary-General of the gathering, told UN News: “The ocean is facing an unprecedented crisis due to climate change, plastic pollution, ecosystem loss, and the overuse of marine resources.”

The UN is hoping for decisive international action that will help to stem further deterioration, and representatives of small island developing states (SIDS) attending the conference are adding their voices to this call.

Jamaica’s Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, for instance, is highlighting the need for “innovative approaches to financing… that considers the special circumstances of SIDS” and these nations’ vulnerability.

Against the backdrop of the Nice conference, the HOMO SARGASSUM exhibition has included artist talks and curatorial tours to “engage with the public”, as Selk told SWAN.

But the striking works on their own are perhaps enough to spark reflection; included are a large-scale installation by Alejandro Duran, made of “recycled plastic found on Mexican coasts” over the years, as well as a dress by eco-designer duo Felder Felder using “alternative leather” made of Sargassum seaweed.

The overall HOMO SARGASSUM project, which was initiated five years ago, includes a short film launched in 2020; an artist residency curated by Matilde dos Santos in Martinique in 2021 (including virtual exchanges because of the Covid-19 pandemic); a comic book edited by Jessica Oublié, Marion Lecardonnel & Ulises Jauregu, published by Collection Alliance Française in 2022; and an experimental documentary film, according to the organizers.

The exhibition is “endorsed” by the Permanent Missions of France and Barbados to the United Nations, and supported by the Winthrop-King Institute for French and Francophone Studies. – SWAN

Photos courtesy of TMAF.

Further information: https://www.tout-monde-foundation.org/

Further reading: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164026

‘CARIBBEAN DAYS’ REACH PARIS, WITH FOOD, ART, BOOKS

The Paris arts scene grew hotter at the beginning of June, when the Caribbean Chamber of Commerce in Europe (CCCE) organized a five-day festival featuring the cuisine, contemporary visual art and literature of the Caribbean region.

Titled Caribbean Days / Journées des Caraibes, the inaugural Paris event took place June 2 to 6 during the annual Semaines de l’Amérique latine et des Caraibes (SALC), a French government initiative that celebrates the diplomatic and cultural links that France shares with Latin America and the Caribbean. 

SALC marked its 12th edition this year, and the festival was among the range of events that included concerts, exhibitions, dance performances and literary meet-ups.

Held at the imposing Maison de l’Amérique Latine (MAL), which occupies two “mansions” dating from the 18^th century, Caribbean Days comprised inventive multi-course lunches and dinners, created by three well-known young chefs and served in MAL’s acclaimed restaurant. It also featured an art exhibition with vivid works by rising Dominican artist Yermine Richardson, and an exposition of books by award-winning Caribbean writers, in Spanish, Portuguese and French translations.

The festival in the French capital followed successful editions in Brussels, Belgium. To learn more about the goals of the venture, SWAN spoke with Jo Spalburg, executive director of the CCCE. An edited version of the interview follows.

SWAN:  What is the aim of Caribbean Days?

Jo Spalburg: Caribbean Days is a vibrant series of business and cultural events designed to raise the profile of the Caribbean and to promote “The Best of the Caribbean”, featuring premium regional products such as cocoa, coffee, rum and spirits, and cigars. The program also celebrates the creative industries — including art, fashion, film, literature, music and dance — along with other cultural showcases. After a successful first edition in Brussels in 2022, the initiative is now expanding to other European cities.

SWAN:  And the main focus of the Paris event?

J.S.: The main focus of our first Caribbean Days in Paris is the arts; firstly culinary arts by means of our Caribbean Culinary Week at the renowned restaurant of La Maison de l'Amérique Latine, for which a special three-course Caribbean Gourmet Menu has been created by a group of Caribbean chefs of the famous French culinary association les Toques français; secondly a special art exhibition featuring works from Dominican painter Yermine Richardson (also known as @Popcaribe); and lastly a special Caribbean books exhibition by the Caribbean Translation Project [an initiative founded by Alecia McKenzie to highlight the translation of writing from and about the Caribbean and to profile pioneering translators].

SWAN: You also organized an event in Brussels last year - what were the principal features?

J.S.: At the Caribbean Days in Brussels in June 2024, we had the same kind of events, with the Belgian National Bartender competition, in conjunction with UBB (Belgian Union of Bartenders) and the Belgian national Latin Dance competition, in conjunction with BeSalsa, as well as our first Caribbean Gala Dinner.

SWAN: What else is on the 2025 calendar for the Caribbean Chamber of Commerce in Europe?

J.S.: The next edition of our Caribbean Days in Brussels will be held in November at the Steigenberger Wiltcher Hotel (with details to be confirmed).

Photos (top to bottom): Dominican artist Yermine Richardson, aka @Popcaribe, stands in front of one of his works; CCCE executive director Jo Spalburg, speaks at Caribbean Days on June 5; an exposition of books by Caribbean writers; chefs Jerome Bertin, Mathilde Durizot and Leila Albert address diners.

MARLEY, MUSIC, MORRIS, LIFE: A PHOTO VOYAGE IN PARIS

Reggae fans may be initially drawn just by the iconic image of Bob Marley on the Music + Life poster, but once inside this exhibition, they will find themselves immersed in a world of extraordinary photographs. 

Music + Life is the first retrospective of work by Jamaican-born British photographer Dennis Morris, and it has been pulling in visitors at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris, where it runs until May 18th.

A banner on the wall of the museum - located in the bustling, historic Marais area of Paris - shows reggae legend Marley in a relaxed pose, his locks streaming out from under his tam and a playful smile directed at someone the viewer cannot see.

Inside, a vast space is devoted to Marley, with a range of depictions: playing football, performing on stage, laughing in his tour bus, posing with accompanying singers the I-Threes (including wife Rita), sitting solemnly alone with his guitar shortly before his death from cancer in 1981.

But this is only one segment of the exhibition. Music + Life is a look at Morris’ overall career photographing ordinary people in London communities, as well as later portraying Marley, the controversial punk group the Sex Pistols and a gamut of other artists - exploring the “intersection of punk and reggae,” as the curators put it. It’s also about the arc of his own life.

Morris arrived in London from Jamaica at age four in the early 1960s, part of the post-World War II “Windrush generation” of Caribbean immigrants to Britain. He says he developed an interest in photography early, as a choirboy at a church in London’s East End, which had a photo club. 

“The director of the club was a man called Donald Patterson, and he saw my enthusiasm and my potential, and he took me under his wing and basically taught me more or less everything I know,” Morris told SWAN. “He took me to museums, he took me to galleries, and that’s how things started.”

Morris says he began taking pictures in his teens, documenting life in Hackney in the 1970s. Then, one day, he heard that Marley would be performing nearby, and he headed to the venue with his camera, waiting for hours before getting to meet the Jamaican singer, who subsequently invited him to tour with the band. That crucial meeting would lead Morris into the music world, where his photographs would be published by magazines such as Time Out and NME, providing up-close portrayals of Marley, and many others over time.

A major theme of Music + Life is “story-telling”, according to Laurie Hurwitz, who curated the show with MEP’s director Simon Baker (a huge reggae fan and the force behind developing the retrospective in Paris). The aim, Hurwitz said, was to recount Morris’s journey as a young photographer, moving on to his wide-ranging music portrayals, and then his later activity as an art director in the recording industry. 

The exhibition begins with three series Morris photographed as a teenager: Growing up Black, which depicts life in Hackney and its rich Caribbean culture; Southall - documenting London’s Sikh community through an intimate lens; and This Happy Breed - a “blend of humour and resilience that illustrates the spirit of the British working class”.

Morris told SWAN that despite some of the hardships shown in the series, he wanted to focus on the dignity of the communities portrayed, and to give insight into people’s daily lives. 

“What I’m trying to show is that with all the hardships, we had dignity and we had pride,” Morris said. “That’s how we made our way through. It’s like in some ways Nelson Mandela. Despite all the things he went through, he was never bitter and he showed people that no matter what they do to you, you have to hold yourself together, you have to keep your dignity, you have to keep believing in yourself, keep moving forward.” 

Leaving this section, visitors can progress to the portrayals of Marley, with both recognizable images and unfamiliar shots, in black and white as well as vibrant colour. The museum has covered two walls with massive enlargements of portraits of the singer, but equally striking are the smaller framed portraits, where Marley’s aura shines through.

“Bob Marley didn’t need artificial lighting to be photographed,” Morris says. “He had an inner light and you can see that.”

Asked whether he thinks Marley’s legacy is currently being diluted with rampant marketing of his image and work, Morris said he would agree but explained that he tries to ensure his photographs are used in a way that respects the singer’s art.

After the Marley rooms, the exhibition continues with Morris’ photographs of the Sex Pistols, documenting their “turbulent rise to fame”, and their “anarchic image”, to use the show’s description.

Over the course of a year, Morris covered “their chaotic performances as well as their life behind the scenes,” according to the curators. This includes “seminal moments” such as the controversial release of the album Never Mind The Bollocks in 1977 and their cruise down the Thames for the single God Save the Queen during the royal Silver Jubilee that year.

The “in-your-face” atmosphere of this section was intentional because that was the band’s persona, Morris told SWAN. Viewers will find themselves immersed in the stormy energy of the group through the photographs of Syd Vicious and Johnny Rotten, and of their concerts and "energised" fans.

“Bob represented the new youth of Jamaica, and the Sex Pistols represented the new young white generation of Britain,” Morris says. “It’s the ying and the yang. From Bob, I learned spirituality, how to hold my head high, and from the Sex Pistols, I learned how to kick the door down in the face of obstacles.”

The exhibition ends with a section showing the “breadth” of Morris’ career, with photographs of artists such as Patti Smith, Marianne Faithful, Oasis, Grace Jones, French group Les Rita Mitsouko, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, and many others. His work designing album covers and his stint in a band called Basement 5 are also featured.

Before leaving the show, visitors can enjoy a diverse playlist including Marley songs, booming from a huge sound system that the MEP’s own engineers have constructed. The temptation to dance will be hard to resist. - AM / SWAN  

Photos (from top to bottom): a poster on the outside wall of the MEP; Bob Marley by Dennis Morris in Music + Life; a photo from the exhibition; Syd Vicious and Johnny Rotten by Dennis Morris; inside the exhibition. 

BRUSSELS SHOW OFFERS DIVERSE VIEW OF ART HISTORY

It’s like walking through several psychedelic halls of history, where bold colours, electrifying compositions and contagious rhythms hit the senses all at once.

This is When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting – a momentous exhibition running at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium, until Aug. 10, 2025. 

The show places African diasporic art firmly within the global sphere of art history, bringing together some 150 luminous artworks from the past 120 years, by Black artists worldwide who explore daily life and other topics.

“One of the most enduring features of the human condition is the inexhaustible desire to see oneself through visual culture and storytelling,” said Koyo Kouoh, co-curator of the exhibition with Tandazani Dhlakama, and executive director and chief curator of Cape Town’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) – which conceived and organized the exhibition.

“Whether living on the continent or within the vast, impressive African diaspora, Black artists have invested in a spectrum of narratives that encompass the experience of blackness, intentionally rejecting limiting tropes of representation,” Kouoh told journalists as the exhibition opened this month.

According to Zoë Gray, Bozar’s director of exhibitions, When We See Us demonstrates how art history is “plural, diverse, and always intertwined”. She said that when she first saw the exhibition in South Africa, she immediately wanted Bozar to host it as well. (The show has now travelled from MOCAA to Basel, to Brussels. It will move on to Stockholm in October for a 10-month stint in the Swedish capital.)

The paintings – from a timely “insider” perspective – are grouped into sections titled “The Everyday”, “Repose”, “Triumph and Emancipation”, “Sensuality”, “Spirituality”, and “Joy and Revelry”. As visitors wander through these sections, they stroll to an accompaniment of global rhythms (arranged by musician and sound artist Neo Muyanga); and the overall effect is of a lively, panoptic world. 

A feature of the display is the “interconnectedness”, or “inter-generational similarities”, among artists and art styles across the African diaspora. The organizers highlight, for instance, the commonalities between an iconic African American artist such as Romare Bearden (1911-1988) and a South African artist like Katlego Tlabela (born in 1993), by placing their works in juxtaposition.

But this is just one noteworthy element. When We See Us can be viewed as an historic art journey, a parade of artistry, a different way of seeing, an explosion of joy.

The curators say the show’s title is “inspired and derived” from the 2019 miniseries directed by US filmmaker Ava DuVernay, When They See Us, which depicts systemic racial prejudice and violence.

“I like shifting things and flipping things … as a way to continue the conversation,” Kouoh said. “So, flipping ‘they' to ‘we’ allows for a dialectical shift that centres the conversation in a comparative perspective of self-writing, as theorized by Cameroonian political scientist, Professor Achille Mbembe.”

She said it was important for the organizers to show a plurality of experiences and to avoid “reductive” and “myopic” narratives. Pain and injustice are not at the forefront of this exhibition, as black experiences can also be seen “through the lens of joy”. 

As for the choice of figurative painting, this reflects the history of the genre throughout the world and especially amid Black artistic practice, she remarked. 

When We See Us naturally represents a range of countries and regions, with paintings from the African continent, Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The canvases include a gamut of large-scale paintings – work by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Cornelius Annor among them – as well as smaller creations such as the introspective “The Reader” by William H. Johnson. 

Many of the artists have lived in different places and reflect an array of influences or associations; Cuban-born Wifredo Lam, for example, was a long-term resident of Paris, and died there in 1982. He was friends with Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, associated with other European artists including Henri Matisse and Joan Miró, and knew Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. In the exhibition, visitors get to see Lam’s striking 1938 work “Femme Violette” up close.

Meanwhile, works by the “kings of Kinshasha” – Congolese artists Chéri Samba and Moké – stand out for their audacious, animated canvases, as well as their satirical themes. 

“They were both pivotal protagonists in the political provocative Zaire School of Popular Painting, a style that developed in Kiinshasha in the 1970s, a decade after Congo’s independence from Belgium in 1960,” state the curators. “The work of both artists was focused on the daily life in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

(For a profile of Chéri Samba: https://www.globalissues.org/news/2020/09/28/26874)

Emerging artists are shown with established painters too, and several young artists were present alongside their work at the exhibition’s opening.

In the section “Joy and Revelry”, Netherlands-based British-Nigerian artist Esiri Erherienne-Essi said she wanted to show a different side of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. Her painting “The Birthday Party” depicts a group posing for a photograph at a joyful event. Here, she centres a happy-looking Biko, celebrating his niece’s birthday.

In her work, Erherienne-Essi uses photographs from historical archives as a starting point to create her paintings, according to the curators. She brings to the fore “archives and moments from Black people’s lives with vibrant depth, colour and detail, countering the flatness of the Black figures in the Western art historical narratives,” they added.

This idea of reversing the gaze is central to When We See Us – especially in the section “Sensuality”, where artists explore “various levels of pleasure, leisure and desire” with works in a variety of media. Among these, the remarkable “Never Change Lovers in the Middle of the Night”, by American artist Mickalene Thomas, employs acrylic paint, enamel and rhinestones to depict sexuality.

All the artworks are arranged in such a way as to make visitors feel fully connected to the paintings, said Ilze Wolff, of Cape Town design firm Wolff Architects, responsible for the exhibition’s scenography. Visitors can sit in some sections and become immersed in a particular set of paintings.

Then, emerging from this universe, they are invited to explore further, as the exhibition also offers a timeline, a video archive, and a documentarian area, with a wide selection of books. (The timeline’s starting point is 1805, just after the Haitian Revolution, and it details other important events that have shaped black art history, including the Négritude movement and the Harlem Renaissance.) 

“MOCAA calls this the ‘brain’ of the exhibition,” said Maïté Smeyers, Bozar’s Curatorial Project Coordinator. “In association with the timeline, the curators wanted to have this documentation room, where they’ve put all the important writings on Black art and on the artists that are in the show. We’ve also included some literature, poetry, and other work by African diaspora writers because this has a role in the Black arts consciousness, and it contributes to the Black art movement, the history and the shaping of the fields.”

Visitors can freely browse some 80 books, loaned by Belgian institutions including the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), local library Muntpunt, and art galleries.

"The books on display give a glimpse of the history of research into Black art, as well as of Black literary writing, philosophy, and political thought," said Eva Ulrike Pirker, VUB professor of English and comparative literature. "While the exhibition is temporary, the books, including the beautiful catalogue, which offers reproductions of all the artworks, are in Brussels to stay and available at the partner libraries free of charge."

Pirker said she liked the idea that the exhibition will have a "concrete, lasting impact" on the collections of libraries that have partnered with the show, as it prompted librarians to look into their holdings and acquire new books to fill existing gaps.

Showing the richness of African diasporic art, the documentation section may even spur viewers to seek out more information, as well as related artwork.

“When We See Us is about a historical continuum of Black expression, Black consciousness and joy, and we hope (audiences) will enjoy it,” said co-curator Dhlakama. – AM/SWAN

Photos from top: An Evening in Mazowe by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami; paintings by Romare Bearden - Jazz Rhapsody - and Katlego Tlabela - Upper East Side, New York (Study); The Conversation by Cornelius Annor; Esiri Erheriene-Essi and her painting The Birthday Party; books in the documentation section of the exhibition; a composite picture of members of the curatorial and organization team: (top, L-R) Koyo Kouoh, Zoë Gray, and Tandazani Dhlakama; (bottom row): Maïté Smeyers and Ilze Wolff. Photos by AM/SWAN.