Art & Activism: Afropresentism, a Verb

In partnership with New York African Film Festival

With artists including Black Rose, Manny Vega, Jojo Abot, and Neema Githere

Wednesday, June 5, 7:30pm

FREE with RSVP

Join us for a Town Hall with the New York African Film Festival. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first Pan-African Congress, we will be activating the spirit of Pan-Africanism through this panel discussion featuring an intergenerational group of three artists from Africa and the diaspora who are mobilizing Afropresentism as a verb to not just dream the future, but to create it.

Reaching back into the past and forward into the unknown, the 26th New York African Film Festival weaves a story of the present using all genres of cinema from Africa and the African Diaspora. From the archival to the experimental, classic fictional narrative to documentary, the festival selects treasured stories from the past to contextualize the present and all of its possible futures.

The present is the future in motion.

Afropresentism liberates African cultural, social and technological advancement from the realm of the speculative or surreal, and instead locates these nuanced and mystical stories in the here and now—not as distant potentialities, but as codes interwoven into our present reality. Afropresentism is as much a praxis as it is an aesthetic.

Artists include 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗲, one of the original 8 Grandassa Models and owner of the first salon in Harlem dedicated to African hairdressing; 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗻𝘆 𝗩𝗲𝗴𝗮, a painter and mosaicist; and interdisciplinary artist, 𝗝𝗼𝗷𝗼 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘁, who will engage in conversation with moderator and The Africa Center Portal curator, 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗺𝗮 𝗚𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲.