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African Art in Venice Forum

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AAVF is a platform presented during the Venice Biennale expanding dialogue on contemporary art from Africa & its diasporas.

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We stand here today on the shoulders of giants. We give thanks to our newly ascended ancestor, @madamekoyo Kouoh, whose spirit continues to guide us. It was a profound honour to have been invited to moderate a panel discussion within the context of In Minor Keys, the 61st Venice Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh, an extraordinary human being, the first African woman and the first Black woman to be appointed curator of the Biennale. I am deeply grateful to the @aavforum for the invitation to moderate Africa in Minor Keys – Conditions of Visibility, in conversation with @kemangwalehulere , In Minor Keys artist, South Africa; @theawakonate , curator, art consultant, and founder of Culture Art Society, Denmark/Côte d’Ivoire; @beyagillegacha , artist and Cameroon Pavilion curator, France/Cameroon; and @mylesigwe , designer, researcher and curator, US/Nigeria. Grounded in the context of the Biennale’s main exhibition and national pavilions, the conversation reflected on the frameworks that shape visibility. It asked not only who is seen, but how narratives are constructed, histories are written, and meanings are framed. Together, we considered how visibility can open new possibilities, while also questioning the structures it might continue to reinforce. The panel was presented by @strauss_and_co, African Art Dialogues with the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.

With gratitude, Ntshepe Tsekere Bopape @mo_laudi Artist, Curator, DJ and Writer South Africa/France
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@labiennale #venice #biennale #koyokouoh taken in Venice, Italy by @aavforum

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YOUR PERSPECTIVE, YOUR EXPERIENCE.
AAVF 2026 THROUGH YOUR EYES.

Did you photograph the African Art in Venice Forum 2026?

Some of the most meaningful images are often the ones taken by the people who experienced the conversations with us. The unexpected angles, fleeting moments, encounters, and details we may have missed.

If you captured photos or videos during this year’s Forum, we’d love to see them.

Please send your files in the highest resolution possible via WeTransfer (or any file-sharing platform), together with the credit name you’d like us to use.

Selected images may be featured across our social media, website, and future promotional materials, always with full credit.

Help us tell the story of this edition through the many perspectives that made it possible.

info@aavforum.com

Photo credit: @lordkubolsstudio taken in Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal - Venice by @aavforum

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1922 Revisited: Live Arts Program
Presented by @thirdspaceartfoundation
In collaboration with @aavf and @ecc_italy
Program Curator: @janinesytsma
Curatorial Producer: @lehuntnouveau
Program partners: @fca_ghana @NEWMEDIA @uarkart @uark.arthistory @ccalagos @theafricacenter
Venice Biennale | May 5–9

Wednesday, May 6
ESCAPE THE BOXES
Zora Snake and Wilfried Nakeu
Zora Snake and Wilfried Nakeu draw on the subversive narrative of 1922 Revisited to propose a performative trio involving a visual artist, a choreographer, and audience participation within a transformed space, where silence awakens the stories obscured by the hierarchical display of artworks. The performative act reimagines a reclaiming of original memories that have been stripped of their authentic function. For the artists this becomes a way to recontextualize the sacredness of works connected to the living, in relation to perspectives of repair and healing from the “fragments of history.”

📷: @lordkubolsstudio

Follow for more reflections on 1922 Revisited and announcements about future programs

Additional information on the foundation and programs → www.thirdspaceartfoundation.org

#1922revisited #VeniceBiennale @zorasnake @wilfriednakeu taken in Venice, Italy by @aavforum

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1922 Revisited: Live Arts Program
Presented by @thirdspaceartfoundation
In collaboration with @aavf and @ecc_italy
Program Curator: @janinesytsma
Curatorial Producer: @lehuntnouveau
Program partners: @fca_ghana @NEWMEDIA @uarkart @uark.arthistory @ccalagos @theafricacenter
Venice Biennale | May 5–9

Wednesday, May 6
The Dash
Wura-Natasha Ogunji and ruby onyinyechi amanze

The Dash is a performance of two runners who race in slow motion for exactly one hour. The performance may be staged within an interior or exterior space: the fixed space of a room; an open plaza; tight city corridors; or from a start line to the finish. The spectators play an important role in this staged competition. As vocal timekeepers, they collectively signal the start time, the half-way mark, and crossing of the finish line.

In their embodiment of restraint and reverberation, collectivity and calm, the performers incorporate facial expressions, hand signals and other gestures as critical choreography and necessary glitch. This movement-language references and riffs from the archive and research of the African sculptures of the 1922 Venice Biennale; track and field competitions; and the languages of drawing shared by amanze and Ogunji.

The title of the performance–with its multiple meanings–offers an additional layer of poetic possibility to this endeavor. A dash is a quick run, a punctuation mark, and in Nigeria, a gift, or a bribe. Turning to the grammatical dash, the race could be conceptualized as break or interruption. Inviting separation from the usual rushing of time, the performance might also be read as the belaboured writing of a long run-on sentence.

📷: @francescabottazzin_ph

Follow @thirdspaceartfoundation for more reflections on 1922 Revisited and announcements about future programs

Additional information on the foundation and programs → www.thirdspaceartfoundation.org

#1922revisited #venicebiennale @wuraogunji @ruby_onyinyechi_draws taken in Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal - Venice by @aavforum

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1922 Revisited: Live Arts Program
Presented by @thirdspaceartfoundation
In collaboration with @aavf and @ecc_italy
Program Curator: @janinesytsma
Curatorial Producer: @lehuntnouveau
Program partners: @fca_ghana @NEWMEDIA @uarkart @uark.arthistory @ccalagos @theafricacenter
Venice Biennale | May 5–9

Tuesday, May 5
Openings and Meanderings: Supplications for More Accessible Futures
Bernard-Akoi Jackson in the stead of Jelili Atiku

📷: @francescabottazzin_ph @lordkubolsstudio

Follow @thirdspaceartfoundation for more reflections on 1922 Revisited and announcements about future programs

Additional information on the foundation and programs → www.thirdspaceartfoundation.org

#1922revisited #venicebiennale @benjoonam @blaxtarlines @janinesytsma taken in Venice, Italy by @aavforum

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A few shots from the illuminating panel, Traditions Today: Performing and Processing Toward a Holistic History at the African Art in Venice Forum on Tuesday! @aavf @ebuhlanti_republik @homannla
@amapleleafonthewind @wuraogunji @ruby_onyinyechi_draws @benjoonam

Evoking In Minor Keys’s considerations of “procession,” what does it mean to make and innovate so-called “traditional” art practices, like West African urban masquerades, in a contemporary environment? How do performance artists allow us to empathize and embody experiences of epistemic repair? Considered together, masquerade and performance art practices offer us paths for seeing how “classical” and “contemporary” art are not separate realms but can be considered part of a continuously evolving field.

Presented by African Art Dialogues with the National Museum of African Art Smithsonian

Moderator:Khanyisile Mbongwa, Curator of Art in the Public Realm at Amos Rex - curatorial theorist, sociologist, and Sangoma (ancestral-indigenous healer), (South Africa)

In conversation with:
Hervé Youmbi, New African Masquerades artist/curator (Cameroon)
*Amanda Maples, Lisa Homann, and Jordan Fenton (New African Masquerades curators) (USA)
David Sanou and Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa (New African Masquerades artists) * (Burkina Faso and Nigeria)
Wura-Natasha Ogunji, artist (US-Nigeria; 1922 Revisited: Live Arts Program Participant)
ruby onyinyechi amanze, artist (Nigeria-US; 1922 Revisited: Live Arts Program Participant)
Bernard Akoi-Jackson, artist, writer (Ghana; 1922 Revisited: Live Arts Program Participant)
Photo credit: @lordkubolsstudio taken in Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal - Venice by @aavforum

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A wonderful way to kick off Venice Biennale vernissage week with The African Art in Venice Forum @aavforum organised by Art Dialogues and co-sponsored by @strauss_and_co @smithsonian_africanart @thirdspaceartfoundation and @krone.world.

The African Art in Venice Forum continues to create space for meaningful dialogue, connection, and celebration. Thank you to the artists, curators, and visionaries shaping the narrative. 🌍

#VeniceBiennale #AfricanArt #AAVF #VernissageWeek #biennalecarnevale2026 by @aavforum

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Beyond Here: Queering African Art History | Panel Discussion
WATCH THE LIVE STREAM 🔗 https://zurl.co/tkZ0a

What’s next? This panel builds from the National Museum of African Art’s launch of its Here Project–the largest museum initiative of its kind to date to research, exhibit, collect, and to integrate artists from Africa making work connected to their experiences as out individuals. An opportunity to meet artists and thinkers both in and beyond the Project, the panel seeks to further the conversation about what it means to study, exhibit, and participate in an art history in which queer African voices are not only acknowledged but centred.

Panelists:
Ṣọlá Olúlòde, Here Project artist (UK/Nigeria)
Buhlebezwe Siwani, Here Project artist (South Africa)
Khookha McQueer, Here Project artist (Tunisia)
Damien Ajavon, Here Project artist (Norway/France/Senegal/Togo)
Pamina Sebastião, Here Project artist (Angola)
Moderated by: Kevin D. Dumouchelle, Here Project director and exhibition co-curator (USA, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art)

#StraussAndCo #VeniceBiennale #ArtPanel #Livestream #ArtDiscussion by @aavforum

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During the opening week of the Venice Biennale 2026, the African Art in Venice Forum returns with a programme centred on dialogue, exchange, and critical reflection. Developed by African Art Dialogues in collaboration with Strauss & Co and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, this year’s edition is framed by the theme “Beyond Visibility: A Method of Inquiry”.

Taking place at Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal, the Forum convenes artists, curators, and scholars across a series of panels, performances, and presentations. From discussions on visibility and narrative construction to explorations of queer histories, cultural geographies and performative practices, the programme approaches African art as a dynamic and evolving field.

Extending beyond institutional frameworks, the Forum creates space for shared inquiry and multiple perspectives. In doing so, it considers how visibility operates not as an endpoint, but as a starting point for deeper engagement with histories, identities, and forms of knowledge.

📅 5 - 6 May 2026
📍 Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal, San Marco 1332, 30124 Venice, Italy

Source and Images: African Art in Venice Forum

@aavforum
#aavf2026 #venicebiennale #biennaledivenezia #waau #worldafricanartistsunited contemporaryart by @aavforum

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JOIN US 🎉
The 2026 African Art in Venice Forum begins today!

📍 Venice
📅 May 5–6, 2026
🎟 Free via Eventbrite

#AAVF2026 #VeniceBiennale #ContemporaryArt #VeniceBiennale2026 #BiennaleDiVenezia taken in Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal - Venice by @aavforum

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4:15 PM | Panel Feature

Traditions Today: Performing and Processing Toward a Holistic History

What’s next?

What does it mean to reimagine “traditional” practices in a contemporary world? From masquerade to performance, this panel explores how artists create, embody, and reshape evolving histories.

Moderated by Khanyisile Mbongwa

In conversation with:
• Hervé Youmbi*
• Amanda Maples · Lisa Homann · Jordan Fenton
• David Sanou · Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa*
• Wura-Natasha Ogunji
• ruby onyinyechi amanze
• Bernard Akoi-Jackson

*by video statement

📍 Venice
📅 May 5, 2026
🎟 Free ticket via Eventbrite

#AAVF2026 #VeniceBiennale #ContemporaryArt #VeniceBiennale2026 #BiennaleDiVenezia taken in Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal - Venice by @aavforum

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Only 1 day left - who’s ready? 👀
2 days of dialogue. 1 gathering in Venice.

📍 Venice
📅 May 5–6
🎟 Free registration via Eventbrite

#AAVF2026 #VeniceBiennale #ContemporaryArt #VeniceBiennale2026 #BiennaleDiVenezia taken in Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal - Venice by @aavforum

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