By Tajudeen Sowole
From two projects of Centre
for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos themed On Independence And The Ambivalence
of Promise (2010) and History/Materiality (2012), the initiatives took on an itinerant
format that engaged Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa.
Currently known as Asiko, the project
is now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, holding from June 27 to July 30 as it
continues its itinerancy, engaging with the history and culture of people of
Ethiopia. Earlier, West African cities Accra, Ghana and Dakar, Senegal had a
taste of the initiative in 2013; 2014
respectively. And last year, the event took a similar fashion, when Maputo,
Mozambique was the host.
CCA notes that the capital city Addis Ababa,
which serves as the seat of the African Union (AU), seems like an appropriate
setting to continue the deliberations for the 6th and final edition of Àsìkò
in its current format. Addis Ababa is one of the fastest developing cities
on the continent and issues around the changing urban landscape form an
important, local discussion point at the moment."
In retrospect on the project, the Bisi
Silva-led CCA group narrates how the other host city actualised the concept. The centre, for
example, looks at the History of
Contemporary Art in Ghana and asks: “Was this gesture an attempt to indicate
that the complex history of contemporary art practice in Ghana could be
broached within the temporal period allotted—five weeks?” it
argues firmly that “such an elaborate history condensed and absorbed in the
space of 35 days, or 840 hours, is subject to questioning.” CCA stresses: “Despite
its inevitable sentiments of reductiveness, the title nonetheless provided a
space of examination and reflexivity, a space in which to dwell on the effects
of time and its potential in tune with the central theme of The
Archive.”
The project extended to Dakar, in 2014
challenging accumulated ideas as well as “opening the parameters for
alternative as well as individual perspectives.”
A year after, in In Maputo in 2015 the 5th
edition of Àsìkò, moved away from a
definitive theme towards a more open discursive model that allows for ‘play
and chance’ where individual perspectives and research interests
of both the participants and the faculty can be highlighted.” The project, CCA
assures will continue to focus on and explore the themes and issues that have
been addressed over the past five years; colonial history and postcolonial
reality, decolonial theory, identity, ‘Africanness’
and pan-Africanism, materiality, the archival, locality vs. globalism, the body
and sexuality amongst others. The centre explains: “Our point of departure will
continue to be African and African Diaspora cultural production and thought, as
well as examining its shifts and developments in recent years and its place
within a global context.
"Curatorial Segment of the Programme
include a discussion begun in Dakar on the need to excavate exhibition histories
in Africa in order to complete what Art History exists today. This was
continued in Maputo. African exhibition histories and art history continues to
be an urgent necessity in view of the many elder artists and practitioners that
we continue to lose while their work goes undocumented. The two segments of
Àsìkò – the artistic and the curatorial –
attempt to take into consideration the various aesthetic and contextual
strategies deployed by artists working across a multiplicity of forms and to
engage with curators and writers on the strategies and formats as well as the
critical discourse that emanate from the local in its presentation.
“During Àsìkò 2016 we will launch the Asiko
Publication, which is a culmination of 5 years of the programme, featuring
commissioned essays, images, drawings, reflections etc. The Àsìkò Publication
will be designed by Àsìkò lead facilitator Maputo 2015, Zimbabwean visual and
graphic artist and educator Nontsikelelo Mutiti."
Recall that in 2010, CCA, took the window of
17 African countries’ independence anniversaries to launch On Independence and
The Ambivalence of Promise in celebrating 50 years of independence.
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