Visual arts in the spotlight in Bordeaux - Africa2020 Season
In February, the Africa2020 Season will be marked by the launch of two exhibitions in Bordeaux, organised by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Contemporary Art Fund MÉCA and the arc en rêve architecture centre.
Updated on 15/03/2021
2 min
Memoria: récits d’une autre histoire, at the FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine – MÉCA, from 5 February to 29 May 2021
Memoria: récits d’une autre histoire is the idea of collective memory composed of the myriad stories, tales, explorations and experiences scattered throughout our individual, personal, intimate memory. Here it is revealed through pieces by artists whose work evokes the (re)construction of a shared whole, a universal whole, which gives us a new perspective on contemporary creation from Africa and its diasporas.
The Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Contemporary Art Fund MÉCA has been providing long-term support to artists since 1982, by amassing a collection of artworks that it enlarges every year and shows to as many people as possible, on a daily basis. The Frac works on both dissemination and mediation, collection and production, and in close partnership with artists. Located at the MÉCA (architect: Bjarke Ingels) since 2019, it works with a range of partners throughout the Nouvelle-Aquitaine area and beyond to develop an artistic programme that blends creative and societal issues, through inventive actions and shared experiences around the artworks.
Curators: Nadine Hounkpatin (Benin/France) and Céline Seror (France)
The works will be presented through filmed interviews broadcast on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Her(e), otherwise, arc en rêve architecture centre from 5 February to 30 June 2021
Her(e), otherwise - architecture.s en plusieurs actes is a unique and collaborative curatorial proposition that invites women architects from Africa and the African diaspora to question (or question themselves on) the notion of the “brief” within the discipline, as both a site and stage for the exercise of power.
SAAY/YAAS, a collective of four co-curators and women architects, confront the wider framework of the Africa2020 Season, creating a mise en abyme of its initial “brief” that explores both their own stance and responsibility in writing, in turn, a call to put together and manage a “brief” differently.
With the creation of a digital platform designed as a place of change and exchange, they invite a series of African women practitioners to contribute, through a series of actions, their knowledge, approaches, memories, values and methodologies – be they spatial, architectural, artistic or curatorial, and more widely urban and domestic, transnational and liquid, poetic and fugitive, etc.
These exchanges will be an opportunity to take stock and, together, compose a series of instruments, approaches and productions, at that delicate intersection of architectural practice and politics.
Since 1981, arc en rêve architecture centre has been running a project of to raise cultural awareness around contemporary architectural creation covering inhabited cities, design, landscape and territories, with a view to broadening our perspectives on the changing world. Its internationally-leading yet locally-engaged programme is centred around the organisation of exhibitions, lectures, debates, publications, workshops for children, seminars for adults, building tours, urban circuits and experiments in the field of planning and construction.
Curators: Anna Abengowe (Nigeria/England), Patti Anahory (Cape Verde/São Tomé/United States), Tuliza Sindi (Burundi/Democratic Republic of Congo/South Africa), Mawena Yehouessi (Benin/Togo/Senegal/France)
A platform will soon be accessible to discover the project. Find out more about the platform
The exhibitions Memoria : récits d’une autre Histoire and Her(e), otherwise are presented as part of the Africa2020 Season.