Since Koyo Kouoh took over the reins of the Zeitz MOCAA, the Cape City Museum has been making waves within the modern artwork world by placing Africa entrance and centre.
Beneath the bold Cameroonian-born curator, the museum within the metropolis’s port district has constructed its id round Pan-Africanism, showcasing the work of artists from the continent and its diaspora.
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Kouoh
“Africa is for me an concept that goes past borders. It’s a historical past that goes past borders,” Kouoh instructed AFP, reducing a sublime determine in a white gown topped by lengthy inexperienced braids.
“People don’t like to listen to this however I all the time inform them that America is one other African nation.”
A rustic is an aggregation of cultural expressions and influences, she mentioned, including that utilizing these parameters Brazil, Cuba and Haiti is also thought-about a part of the African continent.
“That’s how I take a look at them,” she mentioned, with a critical smile.
Greater than 40 million individuals in the USA, or about 12 % of the inhabitants, are African American, whereas greater than half of Brazil’s about 200 million persons are of African descent.
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“The African diasporic affect within the US is plain. That’s why I like to speak about black geographies, greater than African diasporas. The place black tradition, black our bodies, black individuals have influenced society,” she mentioned.
Energetic and with shiny, full of life eyes, 56-year-old Kouoh grew up between Douala in her native Cameroon and Zurich in Switzerland.
After establishing a cutting-edge artwork centre in Dakar, Senegal, she took over the MOCAA — housed in an outdated grain silo that has been renovated with sq. home windows evoking a beehive of glass and concrete — 4 years in the past.
Having inherited a “damaged” and “dysfunctional” establishment, she got down to give it new that means.
‘Personal the house’
Specializing in Pan-Africanism was a “no brainer” and “essential” since, even a long time after the tip of colonialism, the narrative across the continent was largely nonetheless “outlined by others”, Kouoh mentioned.
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“SEEKERS, SEERS, SOOTHSAYERS,” an exhibition at the moment on present explores the religious and supernatural by way of picture and video projections on the partitions in addition to textile installations.
“There’s a sturdy have to deliver different tales to the desk and never as a way of correcting,” she mentioned.
“I’ve no real interest in correcting, I don’t personal and don’t internalise the flawed story. However personal the house.”
MOCAA is now recognised worldwide for its method and is wanted for collaborations by main New York and European establishments.
Its latest exhibition “When We See Us”, which presents a century of African figurative portray, is quickly as a result of depart Cape City to be proven within the Swiss metropolis of Basel.
Kouoh mentioned she initially targeted on group exhibitions, displaying the works of a number of artists on a particular topic however has since moved in direction of single artist exhibits.
“Whenever you conceptualise a bunch present, you hope that you just create a symphony however more often than not you create a cacophony as a result of there are too many voices,” she mentioned, talking from the constructing’s panoramic elevator which gives a hen’s-eye view of the imposing entrance corridor.
“With the solo present, you’ve an actual symphony. Of expertise and of universe.”
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Going ahead, Kouoh mentioned she desires to pursue three priorities: showcasing rising abilities, underrated practices and feminine artists.
“I’m not an activist about it. I’m simply decidedly and really forcefully selling African girls artists,” she mentioned.
© Agence France-Presse
