About artafrica

The website artafrica.gulbenkian.pt is the first public outcome of the many-faceted, innovative ArtAfrica Project, which began in 2001. It was launched by the Fine Arts Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation within the framework of the Foundation's policy of development aid.

The website has now joined the project Dislocating Europe run by the Center for Comparative Studies of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon. This novel basis for developing the website - renamed artafrica.info - is the result of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s aim to ensure the continuity and development of the initiative through its association with a project with a kindred project.

Both initiatives have been thought with a twofold goal. On the one hand, ArtAfrica was set up in order to promote the work of African artists or artists of African descent residing in African Portuguese-speaking countries. The work done by similar diasporic communities based in Portugal, Europe and elsewhere was also included. On the other hand, another of its intentions was to provide a platform from which to launch widespread debates on the post-colonial in local contexts. A similar aim lay behind setting up Dislocating Europe. Here, the goal was to encourage the diffusion of different approaches to the post colonial as developed by anthropological, artistic, historical and literary studies, and translate them into precise local contexts.

ArtAfrica’s migration to the Center for Comparative Studies and its articulation with Dislocating Europe therefore, not only opens a new stage for both projects, but also provides an opportunity for a more multifaceted framing. At the same time, it allows for the translational element at the basis of both projects.

By using this new framework, we hope to build upon and expand the important work which ArtAfrica has done to date. We will be taking advantage of the unique possibilities offered by the Internet to foster institutional and personal links through the mediating role of the website. In doing so, we hope to promote contemporary plastic artists working in the Portuguese-speaking African countries or in the Diaspora. In this way, our aim is to bring together the threads of the debate going on about them and place them at the fore of dominant cultural affairs. The www.artafrica.info website relies on the effort of everyone, both individuals and institutions, for its survival.

Our goals are to:

• stimulate knowledge and understanding of these artistic practices
• promote and diffuse the work of artists, curators and scholars
• broaden the intellectual, social and geographical boundaries of debate on contemporary art by both African artists and Lusophone African descendents
• provide opportunities for dialogue, collaboration, and for the exchange of information and ideas among our countries
• integrate the current artistic activities of Lusophone Africans into the international circuit

The contents, to be updated every trimester, will consist of:

• a database, with biographical information, images and addresses of plastic artists from African countries whose official language is Portuguese and respective Diaspora artists found in Portugal, as well as in other countries
• general information and contacts regarding the major cultural institutions related to the visual arts in each of these five countries
• a programme of events related to contemporary African art and other Diaspora art practices
• publication of relevant texts concerning the same topic
• a “virtual exhibit” showcasing an artist chosen by different renowned curators in the area of contemporary African art
• links to other sites dealing with the same topics
• the ArtAfrica contact

The project

The ArtAfrica project was born of a two-pronged observation. On the one hand, in the 90s the presence of contemporary artists of African descent in international exhibits multiplied; so did the number of very ambitious exhibits dedicated to them; so did the number of publications, some temporary or not, dedicated to the history, critique and art theory of contemporary African art, with the number of African authors continuing to grow. On the other hand, we also observed that the contemporary African artistic activities in the international art world were restricted, for the most part, to artists from Anglophone and Francophone countries. Events which occur in Lusophone countries remain unknown or hardly known, except for those pertaining to a handful of already renowned celebrities.

To overcome the situation, a process was initiated in 2001 to identify and map contemporary plastic art production in African countries whose official language is Portuguese and by their respective diasporic populations in Portugal and other countries. During these years, trips were made to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Field work was carried out among artists in these countries as well as among their descendents living in Portugal, with priority given to those in the Lisbon metropolitan area. In this manner, it was possible to gather information and data about artists and their work; and about schools and other training institutions, museums, cultural centers, galleries, points of sale, public and private collections, exhibits and publications.

The extensive and far-reaching inventory of artists is now included in the site, which must remain an on-going project, to be enlarged, corrected and updated. The criteria employed for inclusion in the inventory is reflexive; that is to say, those who consider themselves “artists” were included. Those who use the database will take care of evaluation and selection; as will the renowned curators who will select an artist every trimester to showcase in what we call the “virtual exhibit”.