salon [noun]: a social gathering, especially of writers or artists, at the home of a prominent woman, focused on pleasurable and intellectual discourse
AFRICA SALON presents Vivid Escapisms for an Interior — a live salon. A virtual experience of the contemporary African arts festival, Vivid Escapisms gathers collaborators and friends of AFRICA SALON to share and discuss their recent work and the current moment. Participants reflect on shared interests in movement, home, and environment, discuss the politics of representation, and conduct interdisciplinary experiments. The salon flows from talks to studio visits to readings and screenings, crescendoing in a DJ set.
Vivid Escapisms for an Interior will be streamed via Facebook Live, aiming to dissolve the space between audience and artist and inviting all to be present to the transportive potential of art and connection. The livestream will be co-hosted on this page on July 25th, 2020 from 4pm BST / 4pm WAT / 11am EST.
Please scroll down for the programme.
Programme
Soft Power — 4pm BST
A conversation with Ifeanyi Awachie, Chief Curator of AFRICA SALON, and curator and cultural producer Yewande YoYo Odunubi to open the salon and introduce the vision behind AFRICA SALON.
In This Dream, Every Boy Is In Attendance — 5pm BST
A series of readings by poet and educator Sumia Jaama. Jaama crafts a meditative space filled with precise and quiet poems that “revolve around the process of leaving,” touching on themes from migration to murder, by writers she has been reading as of late and that she has written in response.
“In Praise of Still Boys” — 5:30pm
A screening of “In Praise of Still Boys,” a visual poem by poet and artist Julianknxx. The narrative tells the story of Julianknxx's life through the figure of a collective of young boys in Sierra Leone. Expressing local worldviews, the work meditates on change and fate with references to spirituality. Visually anchored by the image of the Atlantic Ocean, the poem explores the relationship between Freetown, the Middle Passage, and the diaspora. A talk by Julianknxx follows the screening.
“SOUTH X SOUTH EAST” — 6:00pm
A work of poetry, music, vocalization, and field recordings by writer, sound artist, and educator Belinda Zhawi. Zhawi offers an exploration of migration, interrogating what it means to forge identities based on geography, the state of having more than one home, and the meaning of home itself.
“This Is How You Walk Through Water” — 6:30pm
A reading by writer and poet Vanessa Onwuemezi of her poem, “This Is How You Walk Through Water,” written in response to artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s painting “Prospect West of a Necromancer” (2019). Onwuemezi’s piece was commissioned by Frieze Magazine and published in the May/June 2020 issue.
Notions of Return — 6:45pm
A studio visit with L. Adjoa Armah, initiator of Saman Archive, where Armah discusses her creative practice, ghosts, mapping, the origins of, her care for, and future plans for Saman Archive, and her daily routines during quarantine.
“Rivers in Stone” — 7:30pm
A screening of “Rivers in Stone,” an experimental medicinal film by Olaniyi Studio, the multidisciplinary artistic practice of architect, composer, artist, and poet Yussef Agbo-Ola. The film relates to and questions themes of environmental selfhood, acoustic medicine, shamanistic art, and poetry as a means to communicate with weather systems and unseen natural elements, and entities.
“ALL1” — 8:00pm
A visit to the virtual exhibition by progressive R&B artist Azekel. “ALL1” features footage from Azekel’s personal archive and music from his EP, “Azekel Unreleased,” released in May 2020. The exhibition explores sound, light, and texture through a digital viewing experience.
Wahalaa — 8:30pm
A live set by DJ and producer Tshaka Ballantyne of Wahalaa, a joyful Black dance party and DJ duo.