As part of the Africa2020 season, the Festival d’Automne is hosting shows and an exhibition by artists from Algeria, the Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, and Senegal. Eight shows in which the poetical will be battling it out with the political, and in which all codes and ready-made modes of thought will be overturned, deftly deconstructed, and relentlessly brought into question, forcing us to leave our comfort zone. And to ask questions about ourselves.
Who are we really? What future do we aspire to? What do we hand down to future generations? What is our view of ourselves, of those around us, and of the world? These are questions that humanity has always been confronted with. Certainly. But their resonances are felt all the more strongly at a time when there is a call for a renewal of relationships between Africa and the West. In which the stigma and remains of a past scarred by slavery and colonialism continues to disfigure the face of Europe and of Africa. In which women refuse to be silent and for their views to go unheard. In which a new generation, from whichever shores it may be, North or South, is crying out for more equality. And for respect of differences.
These eight programmes are the continuation, through multiple means, of the various forms of collaboration with African artists that the Festival has been putting in place in since 1977. Together, they bear witness to the evolution of a continent in a process of perpetual motion and self-reinvention.