Africa is not a country
Africa is not a country
An Open Letter to the Federal Republic of Germany
by Safia Dickersbach
The cultural
foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany, the “Kulturstiftung des Bundes” decided to initiate a new thematic focus
in its sponsorship work. The programme is called “TURN” and – as explained in
the introductory statement – it is supposed to deal with “Africa”. Although
there are certainly good intentions behind this new initiative, the information
published about this programme on the website of the “Kulturstiftung” and the funding guidelines which were recently
released raise more questions than answers. I want to share some of my anger
and disappointment with you as follows:
1. “TURN” is supposedly
dedicated to foster “German-African cultural relations”. Without a doubt a
cultural exchange is necessary to develop mutual understanding and
communication. As opposed to Germany, Africa is not one country, but rather a whole
continent consisting of more than 50 individual countries. The Kulturstiftung apparently considers all those
countries to be culturally homogenous enough to be able to entertain coherent
“cultural relations” with Germany. Could it be that the people at the Kulturstiftung are talking about 50
different relationships between Germany and the individual African countries?
But then wouldn’t it seem a bit ambitious to have a jury of three people make
decisions involving an entire continent, 50 countries and more than 2000
languages together with the cultures and customs connected to them? Are the
three jury members familiar enough with all these countries to fully comprehend
their different cultures and languages? And what do these three jury members
know about the currently developing new arts and culture scenes on the huge
African continent?
2. The budget the
Kulturstiftung considers to be
sufficient enough to achieve all those goals (see No. 1 above) is a modest 2
million EUR. This is not a joke. The exhibition “Who knows tomorrow” alone
which took place in Berlin and showed the works of solely five (!) African
artists had a budget of 900,000 EUR. It is ironic to call the provision of 2
million EUR for projects that are supposed to last until 2015 and cover a whole
continent a “thematic focus”. Especially so if it is a focus of a foundation of
the German federal government. Compared with the overall budget of the Federal
Republic's state secretary for culture of over 1 billion EUR per year which
includes the budget of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the money which
is designated for the TURN – Africa project is nothing more than small change
money. With such a tiny budget would it then not be more honest and realistic to
focus the activities on a few African countries or a specific region of the continent?
3. The Kulturstiftung claims to support the new
African initiatives in the area of contemporary and innovative art. But on the
other hand:
a. Africans are
not allowed to apply for the funds directly.
b. The African
partners are only allowed to apply together with an institutional partner in Germany.
The funding guidelines reveal the reason to this: “The German partner, as the project coordinator, has to assume
responsibility for ensuring that all funds are expended as contractually agreed
upon with the Federal Cultural Foundation.” In other, simpler, words: The
Africans are not trustworthy. Basically the funding guidelines tell the other
side of a prospective cultural exchange in a roundabout way what in blunt words
would be: Sorry, but we cannot trust you, the German art and culture institutions
have to first discover you, choose you and then they have to be the lead
partner in the exchange, because with bookkeeping we have to rely on the German
side.
c. There is no
mechanism that guarantees an adequate representation of the different African points
of view.
d. No information
about the sponsorship scheme has been published in African countries. At least
the funding guidelines have been recently made available in English. But French,
Portuguese and Arabic translations have yet to appear and it is not that we are
asking for Kiswahili, Yoruba, Chichewa, Ovambo, Hausa, Kinyarwanda and Shona,
just to mention a few.
e. How exactly does
the Kulturstiftung want to prevent the
fact that essentially it yet again reflects the German point of view of what is
artistically relevant in Africa? Because this is what happens when only German
institutions are allowed to apply for funding and no African artist or art
collective nor any creative community from Africa has been informed and enabled
to apply for funds themselves? If only the German viewpoint counts, why does Kulturstiftung even mention the
so-called “cultural exchange”? This approach reminds me very much of the
paternalistic attitude which characterized the way Europeans dealt with
Africans in former centuries. Do the African countries still want to be treated
like this? The attitude transmitted by the funding guidelines and the structure
of the TURN programme seems to be the consequence of profound prejudices and
can only be considered by the African side as completely disrespectful.
f. What is the
role and position of the “new developments and initiatives” in Africa which Kulturstiftung emphasizes, if solely the
German institutions are allowed to decide whom they choose as their African
cooperation partner? Basically, with this strategy Kulturstiftung cements the current dominance of Western/European art
professionals being the decision-makers in regards to what is accepted as significant
or important African art. If this is not an expression of a hegemonial approach
in cultural affairs than what is?
g. When Kulturstiftung writes on its website
that “the programme will primarily
provide German institutions and artists incentives to enhance their profiles
with new themes, working methods and perspectives”, it sounds as if fresh
African ideas and innovations are exploited as new inspirations to rejuvenate
the cultural scene in Germany instead of promoting equitable cultural cooperation
between Germany and the different African countries. Why do those German
institutions not just exhibit or present the best of what Africa has to offer
in the same way as they would do it in their regular programmes in case of an
artist from France or the U.S. without talking about profile-enhancement with
new working methods?
h. It seems that the
theme "Africa" has been misused to cast a favourable light on the
work of the German Federal Cultural Foundation in its 10th anniversary year
2012 which was celebrated in June 2012 with Chancellor Angela Merkel joining
the festivities. The Kulturstiftung’s
TURN project – different from what they made it sound in their initial press
and media campaign – is not so much about strengthening the institutions for
artistic and cultural projects in African countries, but it is rather about
fostering the German art and culture scene. This truth has been revealed when a
TURN jury member conceded in a comment on Facebook: “They’ve also said that the fund is about the ‘German institutional
art-and-culture-scene’ and not about ‘supporting African contemporary art
institutions’, but I’ll leave them to clarify that.” What does this
statement mean in the end? It proves that the marketing campaign which was centred
upon a “new focus on Africa” was actually misleading to the German public, the
taxpayers whose money the Kulturstiftung
is using and the political decision-makers who decide about the Kulturstiftung's budget.
What is exactly
the misleading element? As a headline to the presentation the German Kulturstiftung
states that their goal is to promote German-African relations in arts and
culture. But from comments like the one above we now know that the intention of
the program is rather to invigorate and vitalize the German institutional
art-and-culture scene and less to strengthen African contemporary art
institutions. But then the program should have been better called something
like “Advancement of the
internationalization of the German art and culture scene through cooperation
with artists from African countries” instead of creating the impression of
a big new policy focus of "German-African cooperation" in cultural
affairs.
i. Out of the five
institutions which Kulturstiftung mentions
in its TURN concept as an example of new artistic developments in African
countries two are managed, founded or directed by curators who indeed have an
African origin, but were raised and/or professionally assimilated in the West. Of
course, there is nothing bad about being educated abroad and obtaining a
broader professional horizon. On the other hand, one has to be aware that these
so-called diaspora curators are often criticized by artists who are still based
and working on the African continent for exerting an undue influence on
defining what is internationally accepted as relevant contemporary African art
to the detriment of local art scenes and communities in Africa.
Local artists
complain that those art spaces are usually not exhibiting art which is accepted
and appreciated in their home countries and in the communities in the vicinity
of these institutions. Instead they select artists whom they consider to be in
line with the international trend in order to satisfy the expectations or requirements
of their Western backers and sponsors or to become critically acclaimed in the
West. Some artists claim that the activities of those art spaces and their
exhibitions often demonstrate experimental and almost compulsively pretentious
art which is not enrooted in the countries where those institutions are located.
While there might be some envy and competitive resentment in such remarks and
an objective judgment on the quality of art is an oxymoron, it is at least
questionable to present experimental art like installations and video art as
important African art in a cultural setting in which visually strong and historically
acknowledged art forms like painting and sculpturing still have to overcome
significant obstacles in order to be viable as a part of the cultural life. The
problem is not whether contemporary art forms like video art and installations
should or should not be part of an artistic programme, rather whether such art
should be presented as the currently (only) representative and significant kind
of contemporary African art in spite of the fact that in most of the African
countries there are sophisticated art works of the last 10 to 20 years which
are simply ignored by the international art establishment until now.
j. Whether the
“new African institutions” actually work “outside the public funding system” as
Kulturstiftung claims on its website
seems dubious. Those institutions will hardly get funding from their home
countries, but rather from Western and European sources, be it state-sponsored
development aid or money from private foundations. Does this statement yet again
highlight deficits in information about the state of art life and institutions in
Africa?
k. Another aspect
of this doubtful approach is the selection of the jury which seems to be
totally miscast. The only African on the jury, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, according
to information given by her, was born in Germany to Ghanaian parents, studied
in England and Russia and is currently based and works in Germany, the United
Kingdom and Ghana. Besides the fact that the internet reveals an awkward
variety of birth dates and places for her, jumping between Africa and Europe
back and forth according to project-related suitability (born in 1976 according
to information of the African Film Festival of Milan, born in 1977 according to
information of the Nigerian Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographic Initiative
and born in 1980 in Accra according to information of OCA / The Office for
Contemporary Art Norway, all in all a rather confusing and embarrassing biographical
hotchpotch which puts her credibility as the “African representative” into
question), she is at least due to her upbringing and education subconsciously
as “Western” in her attitudes and points of views as the theatre-director
Sandro Lunin from Switzerland and the Bavarian-based journalist and deejay Jay
Rutledge. Why didn’t the German Federal Cultural Foundation choose at least one
if not a handful of additional art and culture professionals who have spent
most of their life living and working in Africa as jury members? Somebody who
is not in one way or the other connected to the Western or (Eurocentric)
“international” art scene and its somewhat specific understanding and
particular taste of contemporary art? Why is there not at least one genuinely
African artist or art professional to complement the jury who makes sure that
the African perspective on art is taken into account and Africa’s artistic
vision is positioned well?
4. The Kulturstiftung also sponsors research
projects. In the presentation of TURN there is so much talk about cooperation
and exchange between German art institutions and their counterparts from Africa
that it was somewhat surprising to see that an additional programme is needed within
the TURN fund to promote research projects. If this is a concession of the lack
of knowledge about the African art scene and of cultural misunderstandings,
then wouldn’t it be better to support more than 10 research projects with 9,000
EUR each? Actually, a much bigger share of the budget should have been made available
for such fact-finding missions. The harsh reality that essentially more research
is needed to enable a successful cultural exchange appears almost like a
Freudian slip in the rhetoric about promoting German-African cultural
relations.
In any case, these
research missions actually might enable German institutions to thoroughly explore
contemporary and emerging art and culture in African countries, as opposed to
the blind following of the conventional wisdom of the established circle of
Western-educated art professionals and curators. This would be an opportunity to critically reflect
on the dominance of the Western-influenced art scene and its particular agenda
in the perception and global acceptance of African art. Curiously enough Kulturstiftung mentions the “cultural
exchange” between the five African art institutions which it considers to be progressive
and the “Afro-diaspora communities” worldwide. Mentioning this kind of an
“exchange” might be a euphemism for a connection which – as mentioned above –
is sometimes criticized for solidifying the influence of Western diaspora communities
and artists on the international discourse in regards to what kind of art should
be considered worthwhile and exhibited as relevant contemporary African art. An
exchange which too often silences and drowns out the voices of the local
artists and creative communities based in Africa. Why do we not let the African
art communities decide for themselves which kind of art should be considered as
the benchmark of contemporary art from Africa today? Would it not be a sign of mutual
respect and intercultural understanding?
5. The final
remark in the funding guidelines speaks for itself: The Kulturstiftung recommends to its applicants to regularly follow up
on the travel warnings of the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office) relating to
African countries. Maybe it would have been wiser (and not only more appropriate
with regard to the available funds) to focus the whole effort on a limited
number of countries which would not actually be on the Auswärtiges Amt travellers’
“black list”.
All this leads to
a question: Does “TURN” really “revolutionize” the hegemonial treatment of the
value and quality of African traditions and idiosyncrasies by the European art
establishment which we have observed for too long? Will the time come when numerous diverse art
scenes, creative communities and cultural circles on the African continent
finally be taken seriously and treated as an equal, a partner that has an
opinion – a voice that must be heard?
6. What does the Kulturstiftung, the German Federal
Cultural Foundation, say about all this: Dr. Uta Schnell who runs the TURN programme
claimed in a statement which she emailed to me that the Kulturstiftung “unfortunately is limited by statutory and
administrative possibilities”, so that it could not “take into account all
suggestions it might have desired”. I am wondering whether those statutory and
administrative restrictions are a consequence of the same subtle prejudices and
patronizing attitudes which characterize the whole structure of TURN and its
funding requirements and which we believed to have been buried for long in the
past of European-African interconnections. Maybe not without reason Uta Schnell
did not answer me any more when I asked her what exactly those “statutory and
administrative” obstacles were and what changes they prevented which the German
Federal Cultural Foundation would have desired to make. It is a sad experience
that a serious Western institution recognizes severe deficits in its programme,
but then gives in to unclear administrative regulations instead of fighting for
an immediate modification of the programme and a removal of its problematic
parts.
A cultural
exchange requires respect for your cooperation partners and dealing with them
at eye level; these basic principles seem to be completely ignored by the
structure and funding requirements of TURN although you would expect them to be
observed first and foremost in an arts and culture related programme. If
already the elite circles of the art world in Europe deal with an easy element
of arts and culture policy like that, what does this reveal about the way the
political decision-makers will act when it comes to shaping the really relevant
policy actions for dealing with Africa in foreign policy, development aid and
other questions of human survival?
This text was
first published on October 1st, 2012, and was last updated on
February 5th, 2013.
Safia Dickersbach
is an art market practitioner, born in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, currently based
in Berlin, Germany, and is the Public Relations Director of Artfacts.Net, a
British company which is the leading online database for modern and
contemporary art.
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