An international conference on art, public space and the culture of memory
September 16–18, 2014, in English
Alle School of Fine Arts and Design
Addis Ababa University
Amest Killo, Hailemariam Mamo Street
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Free admission
www.ifa.de/en/events/future-memories
Participants
Doung Anwar Jahangeer, Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew, Meskerem Assegued, Marilyn Douala Bell, Fasil Giorghis, Khwezi Gule, N’Goné Fall, Stacy Hardy, Mihret Kebede, Cynthia Kros, Premesh Lalu, Ato Malinda, Bekele Mekonnen, Patrick Mudekereza, Jimmy Ogonga, Georges Pfruender, Alya Septi, and others.
Partners
ifa – Institute for International Cultural Relations
Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Addis Ababa University
At the international conference “Future Memories,” specialists will debate art engaging with cultures of memory in African urban spaces.
The three-day event will engage the expertise of artists, academics, curators, historians and architects working in different African countries with a focus on art, its potential to contribute to the development of signifiers of collective cultural memory, and its various forms in contemporary urban realities. The conference aims at enabling a dialogue from different perspectives among experts, an interested public and local art institutions in Addis Ababa, the city where the African Union is based. Some of the questions addressed by “Future Memories” will be: How are different aesthetic or symbolic traditions and contextual reference points negotiated? Does artistic experience generate new forms of encounter, public culture or future memories, and if so, how?
The conference includes excursions, keynote and performance lectures, and panels with artists and curators.
“Future Memories” is initiated and realized by ifa – Institute for International Cultural Relations and funded by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. The conference is organized together with the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Addis Ababa University.
“Future Memories” is designed to lay the groundwork for the jury procedure to choose a new artwork for the African Union Peace and Security Building, which will open in 2015. The Peace and Security Building and the commissioned work of art are a donation from the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany to the African Union. They are realized with local expertise and craftsmanship in the compound of the African Union campus in Addis Ababa. The processes of selecting and producing the artwork will be planned and organized by ifa – Institute for International Cultural Relations. A jury of art and culture experts working in different countries in Africa will convene directly after the conference and announce the winning artist to the public shortly thereafter. Voting members of the jury are Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew, N’Goné Fall, Stacy Hardy, Patrick Mudekereza, and Alya Sebti. Non-voting representatives of the African Union, the German Federal Foreign Office and ifa will join as advisors. The non-voting chair of the jury is artist Olafur Eliasson.
Concept of the conference: Elke aus dem Moore (ifa), Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew, Marie-Hélène Gutberlet, Christina Werner
About ifa
The ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen – Institute for International Cultural Relations) promotes art and cultural exchange in exhibitions, dialogue and conference programs. As a competence centre for foreign cultural diplomacy, it facilitates links among civil societies, cultural practice, art, media and research. It initiates, moderates, and documents discussions on international cultural relations.
