Intrafrika+ exhibition at the Yaoundé cultural centre

© Laura Arranz / afrol News

afrol News, 30 March - The Intrafrika+ exhibition, which has toured much of sub-Saharan Africa, is currently making its last stop in Cameroon's capital, Yaoundé. Artists from Ghana, Togo, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Nigeria are presenting their works reflecting the interaction with American and European art, covering the theme termed the "Atlantic Triangle".

The travelling exhibition, organised by the German Goethe Institute, has now reached its final destination, Yaoundé. Starting its voyage in Berlin, the Intrafrika+ exhibition continued to Dakar (Senegal) and other African cities where the Goethe Institute is present. In Yaoundé, capital of the German ex-colony Kamerun, the exhibition now finds its culmination.

Eight artists and three countries. In this way - as an integration and experimentation between different continents - the idea of Intrafrika+ was created. With the support of the Goethe Institute and the initiative of German artist Werner Reister, African artists encounter with American and European influences. The result is artwork of the most pure contemporary stile.

Reaching Yaoundé, the exhibition was placed in the city's Africréa art gallery. The inauguration act counted with the presence of the Director of the Goethe Institute in Yaoundé, Michael Friedrich, but also with a great number of African artists and foreign diplomats, including most European Ambassadors.

The original artworks inevitably reflect the different socio-economic platforms in the artists' countries of origin, which include Ghana, Togo, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Nigeria, but also Brazil and Germany. More interesting however, they also reflect a broad cultural equivalence between the regions described as the "Atlantic Triangle".

The Intrafrika+ initiative started with an invitation to Berlin from the German government, sent to artists such as Olu Amoda, Sidy Seck, Jean Marc Siangue, Kosí Assou and others. In Berlin, they lived together in a creative collective during four weeks, which ended up in the artworks that now are the backbone of the Intrafrika+ exhibition. A new concept of how to integrate creative impulses from apparently very different countries had been born.

Also the title of the exhibition, "Forms of co-existence," served as a source of inspiration for the artists. The basis of inspiration, however, was the discovery of common cultural ground throughout the history of their disperse homelands. The differences between the continents were not interfering with the artists' creative work and cooperation.

Intrafrika+ discovers a universal platform for all artistic expression. Especially in the most recent contemporary art, there seems to be a poetic unity and no borders exist at all.

The contemporary art exhibition can be enjoyed in Yaoundé's Africréa art gallery and cultural centre until 16 April. After that date, the travelling exhibition is dismantled.

By Laura Arranz

© afrol News

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