{"id":15555,"date":"2015-11-12T13:56:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T13:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/?post_type=magazines&#038;p=15555"},"modified":"2023-04-13T12:27:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T11:27:34","slug":"complicating-pan-africanism","status":"publish","type":"magazines","link":"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/fr\/magazines\/complicating-pan-africanism\/","title":{"rendered":"Complicating Pan-Africanism\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>When an art space hosts an \u201coutfit\u201d that is intended to \u201cinfiltrate\u201d its existing structures, it is clearly taking an unusual approach to art and art making.\u00a0 Liese van der Watt looked in on<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/the-chimurenga-library\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0<i>Chimurenga<\/i>, the Cape Town\u2013based \u201cproject-based mutable object,\u201d at The Showroom in London.\u00a0<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Over the last thirty-odd years, The Showroom has established a reputation for championing collaborative and process-driven work.\u00a0 As such, they hosted\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/magazines\/of-states-and-stamps-the-otolith-group-at-the-delfina-foundation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Otolith Collective<\/a>\u00a0in 2009, a two-person art group that was nominated for the Turner Prize a year later.\u00a0 Elaborating on this connection,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theshowroom.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Showroom<\/a>\u00a0and The Otolith group have now worked with Chimurenga to curate the latter\u2019s first UK appearance.<\/p>\n<p>Chimurenga, a Shona word that roughly translates as \u201cstruggle for freedom,\u201d was established by Cameroonian Ntone Edjabe in Cape Town in 2002 to publish, broadcast, showcase, articulate, make, write, research, and archive art and culture relating to Africa. It is a many-faceted vehicle, a multi-pronged platform, a mobile think-tank, an elastic object, and a collaborative initiative for thinking about and across Africa.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19462\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19462\" class=\"wp-image-19462\" src=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Uploaded image Exhibition photo\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-768x512.jpg 768w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-320x213.jpg 320w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-480x320.jpg 480w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-640x427.jpg 640w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-960x640.jpg 960w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1280x853.jpg 1280w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-375x250.jpg 375w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-260x173.jpg 260w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-191x127.jpg 191w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-236x157.jpg 236w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-673x449.jpg 673w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-329x220.jpg 329w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-157x105.jpg 157w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-122x81.jpg 122w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-165x110.jpg 165w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1000x667.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-900x600.jpg 900w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-750x500.jpg 750w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1350x900.jpg 1350w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1125x750.jpg 1125w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-240x160.jpg 240w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-140x93.jpg 140w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-450x300.jpg 450w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-360x240.jpg 360w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-210x140.jpg 210w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-19462\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But it doesn\u2019t just think Africa, it also \u201cdoes\u201d Africa. Installed at The Showroom for one week was the pop-up studio of their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/panafricanspacestation.org.za\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pan-African Space Station (PASS)<\/a>\u00a0where Edjabe and fellow Chimurenga members Graeme Arendse and Ben Verghese broadcasted music, events, and interviews with various compelling collaborators in London, ranging from artists to writers, musicians, journalists, and filmmakers. Recordings and images of these exchanges will become part of Chimurenga\u2019s archive and will be available in\/as the ongoing installation at The Showroom.<\/p>\n<p>While these interviews were taking place, gallery visitors were free to hang around, listen in, and spend time looking at the text on the walls around the studio or to follow one of various \u201cmapped\u201d routes upstairs in the gallery. These wonderfully imaginative maps, also reproduced in the latest issue of their magazine\u00a0<i><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/publication\/the-chronic-presents-a-new-cartography-for-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Chronic<\/a><\/i>, essentially visualize Africa through various spatial routes which have little to do with physical or geopolitical borders. There is the African War Machines map, a complicated flowchart visualizing a galaxy of interconnected and dependent transactions across Africa and external partners; there is the story of Africa as told through its search for and conflicts over water; and there is Africa mapped by its drug ports, by its soccer cities, and by the routes of corrupt \u201cneopats\u201d (new migrants from Asia and Europe) and returning \u201crepats\u201d (Africans who had previously migrated elsewhere).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19463\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19463\" class=\"wp-image-19463\" src=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34.jpg\" alt=\"Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34.jpg 696w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-320x213.jpg 320w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-480x320.jpg 480w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-640x427.jpg 640w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-375x250.jpg 375w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-260x173.jpg 260w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-191x127.jpg 191w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-236x157.jpg 236w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-673x449.jpg 673w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-329x220.jpg 329w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-157x105.jpg 157w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-122x81.jpg 122w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-165x110.jpg 165w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-240x160.jpg 240w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-140x93.jpg 140w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-450x300.jpg 450w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-360x240.jpg 360w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34-210x140.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-19463\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Like any map, these fascinating charts and atlases are clearly artifacts, and they are often highly, and probably intentionally, contested. How else does one explain the description of the Royal Bafokeng Nation in South Africa as a \u201csecret country\u201d? But they make the point loud and clear that Africa is indeed not a country, but a networked continent of variety, difference, interdependences, and alliances. A recent issue of\u00a0<i>The Chronic<\/i>\u00a0was wholly published in Arabic, in an effort to problematize the crude distinctions made between so-called \u201cArab\u201d Africa and sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 a theme that was addressed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/154-forum-focus-north-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">at the recent 1:54 Art Fair, with its North African focus.<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19464\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19464\" class=\"wp-image-19464\" src=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18.jpg\" alt=\"Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18.jpg 696w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-320x213.jpg 320w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-480x320.jpg 480w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-640x427.jpg 640w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-375x250.jpg 375w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-260x173.jpg 260w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-191x127.jpg 191w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-236x157.jpg 236w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-673x449.jpg 673w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-329x220.jpg 329w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-157x105.jpg 157w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-122x81.jpg 122w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-165x110.jpg 165w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-240x160.jpg 240w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-140x93.jpg 140w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-450x300.jpg 450w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-360x240.jpg 360w, http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18-210x140.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-19464\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At The Showroom, one focus area is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/magazines\/a-call-to-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FESTAC \u201977<\/a>, the second Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture held in Lagos in 1977, in an effort to foreground and problematize the notion of pan-Africanism, a construct that has always stood central to Chimurenga\u2019s analytical gaze. In the latest\u00a0<i>The Chronic,<\/i>\u00a0writer and philosopher Achille Mbembe prefers what he terms \u201cAfropolitanism\u201d to pan-Africanism, a concept that Mbembe says \u201cmakes Africa the point of encounter for different migratory movements\u201d (p. 2). It is this expanded notion of pan-Africanism \u2013 as visualized in the imaginative maps and routes, as defined in the physical connections encouraged between cultural workers from different places, as embodied in the networks of exchange across continents \u2013 that informs Chimurenga\u2019s daily practice.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/the-chimurenga-library\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London until November 21, 2015<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/chimurenga-library\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">and at the Performa 15, New York, November 11-15, 2015.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Liese Van Der Watt<\/i><\/b><i>\u00a0 is a South African art writer based in London.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15587,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[635,599,651,650],"magazine-type":[25],"class_list":["post-15555","magazines","type-magazines","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chimurenga","tag-liese-van-der-watt","tag-ntone-edjabe","tag-the-showroom","magazine-type-rezension"],"core_raw":{"post_title":"[:en]Complicating Pan-Africanism[:fr]Complicating Pan-Africanism\u00a0[:]","post_content":"<b>When an art space hosts an \u201coutfit\u201d that is intended to \u201cinfiltrate\u201d its existing structures, it is clearly taking an unusual approach to art and art making.\u00a0 Liese van der Watt looked in on<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/the-chimurenga-library\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0<i>Chimurenga<\/i>, the Cape Town\u2013based \u201cproject-based mutable object,\u201d at The Showroom in London.\u00a0<\/a><\/b>\r\n\r\nOver the last thirty-odd years, The Showroom has established a reputation for championing collaborative and process-driven work.\u00a0 As such, they hosted\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/magazines\/of-states-and-stamps-the-otolith-group-at-the-delfina-foundation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Otolith Collective<\/a>\u00a0in 2009, a two-person art group that was nominated for the Turner Prize a year later.\u00a0 Elaborating on this connection,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theshowroom.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Showroom<\/a>\u00a0and The Otolith group have now worked with Chimurenga to curate the latter\u2019s first UK appearance.\r\n\r\nChimurenga, a Shona word that roughly translates as \u201cstruggle for freedom,\u201d was established by Cameroonian Ntone Edjabe in Cape Town in 2002 to publish, broadcast, showcase, articulate, make, write, research, and archive art and culture relating to Africa. It is a many-faceted vehicle, a multi-pronged platform, a mobile think-tank, an elastic object, and a collaborative initiative for thinking about and across Africa.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_19462\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"550\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-19462\" src=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-39-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Uploaded image Exhibition photo\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" \/><\/a> Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBut it doesn\u2019t just think Africa, it also \u201cdoes\u201d Africa. Installed at The Showroom for one week was the pop-up studio of their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/panafricanspacestation.org.za\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pan-African Space Station (PASS)<\/a>\u00a0where Edjabe and fellow Chimurenga members Graeme Arendse and Ben Verghese broadcasted music, events, and interviews with various compelling collaborators in London, ranging from artists to writers, musicians, journalists, and filmmakers. Recordings and images of these exchanges will become part of Chimurenga\u2019s archive and will be available in\/as the ongoing installation at The Showroom.\r\n\r\nWhile these interviews were taking place, gallery visitors were free to hang around, listen in, and spend time looking at the text on the walls around the studio or to follow one of various \u201cmapped\u201d routes upstairs in the gallery. These wonderfully imaginative maps, also reproduced in the latest issue of their magazine\u00a0<i><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/publication\/the-chronic-presents-a-new-cartography-for-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Chronic<\/a><\/i>, essentially visualize Africa through various spatial routes which have little to do with physical or geopolitical borders. There is the African War Machines map, a complicated flowchart visualizing a galaxy of interconnected and dependent transactions across Africa and external partners; there is the story of Africa as told through its search for and conflicts over water; and there is Africa mapped by its drug ports, by its soccer cities, and by the routes of corrupt \u201cneopats\u201d (new migrants from Asia and Europe) and returning \u201crepats\u201d (Africans who had previously migrated elsewhere).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_19463\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"550\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-19463\" src=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-34.jpg\" alt=\"Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" \/><\/a> Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nLike any map, these fascinating charts and atlases are clearly artifacts, and they are often highly, and probably intentionally, contested. How else does one explain the description of the Royal Bafokeng Nation in South Africa as a \u201csecret country\u201d? But they make the point loud and clear that Africa is indeed not a country, but a networked continent of variety, difference, interdependences, and alliances. A recent issue of\u00a0<i>The Chronic<\/i>\u00a0was wholly published in Arabic, in an effort to problematize the crude distinctions made between so-called \u201cArab\u201d Africa and sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 a theme that was addressed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/154-forum-focus-north-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">at the recent 1:54 Art Fair, with its North African focus.<\/a>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_19464\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"550\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-19464\" src=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Chimurenga_Showroom_Dan_Weill_Photography-18.jpg\" alt=\"Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" \/><\/a> Preview of The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London 2015 Photo: Dan Weill. Courtesy Chimurenga, The Otolith Collective and The Showroom.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAt The Showroom, one focus area is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/magazines\/a-call-to-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FESTAC \u201977<\/a>, the second Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture held in Lagos in 1977, in an effort to foreground and problematize the notion of pan-Africanism, a construct that has always stood central to Chimurenga\u2019s analytical gaze. In the latest\u00a0<i>The Chronic,<\/i>\u00a0writer and philosopher Achille Mbembe prefers what he terms \u201cAfropolitanism\u201d to pan-Africanism, a concept that Mbembe says \u201cmakes Africa the point of encounter for different migratory movements\u201d (p. 2). It is this expanded notion of pan-Africanism \u2013 as visualized in the imaginative maps and routes, as defined in the physical connections encouraged between cultural workers from different places, as embodied in the networks of exchange across continents \u2013 that informs Chimurenga\u2019s daily practice.\r\n\r\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/the-chimurenga-library\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London until November 21, 2015<\/a><\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/3.230.254.106\/exhibition\/chimurenga-library\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">and at the Performa 15, New York, November 11-15, 2015.<\/a><\/strong>\r\n\r\n<b><i>Liese Van Der Watt<\/i><\/b><i>\u00a0 is a South African art writer based in London.<\/i>","post_excerpt":""},"acf":{"mag_author":"Liese Van der Watt","mag_abstract":"Chimurenga doesn\u2019t just think Africa, it also \u201cdoes\u201d Africa, finds Liese Van der Watt.","Dachzeile":"A Collaborative Spirit","smys":[],"image_only_slide":false,"video_url":"","mag_subtitle":"Chimurenga doesn\u2019t just think Africa, it also \u201cdoes\u201d Africa, finds Liese Van der Watt.","mag_pubdate":"","image_container":"","teaser":"Chimurenga doesn\u2019t just think Africa, it also \u201cdoes\u201d Africa, finds Liese Van der Watt.","modul_1":false,"modul_4":false,"modul_5":false,"modul_2":false,"modul_3":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - 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