Black Urbanities. Black Politics in the City 

MACBA and CCCB present Black Urbanities, a three-day conference convening voices from across a variety of disciplines, geographies and political histories to explore collective experiences of Black living in the city.

“Blackness entails a mode of existence subject to repeatedly diverse forms of incarceration and enclosure, yet always beyond it…simultaneously as a dwelling in the unknown, a leap, to use Fanon’s terms, without guarantee or map…a virtual plane populated by all of the struggles, compensations, sufferings, voicing of “Black people”…implicitly existent but not always or ever actualized way(s) of inhabiting the earth.” AbdouMaliq Simone

Considering the singular and unparalleled ways in which Black folks continually prototype new and possible forms of being urban, this conference plays with the notion of black urbanism as a method for engaging the urban in a different key, a different modality– a portal through which the city can be told. Through discussions of everyday urban tactics, global struggles for autonomy, and the practice and potential of Black imagination, we ask what sorts of emergent futures are held in Black districts across the globe, especially in the face of unprecedented political and ecological instability? 

Presented by Asha Best and AbdouMaliq Simone, participants include Saiba Bayo, Asha Best, Teresa Pires do Rio Caldeira, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Youssef El Maimouni, Natalia Figueredo, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Jovan Scott Lewis, Thandi Loewenson, Mpho Matsipa, Alana Osbourne, Cristina Maria Roldão Pinto, Tania Safura Adam, Lamine Sarr, Mamadou Seydi, Sindicat Popular de Venedors Ambulants de Barcelona, Anisia Uzeyman i Saul Williams.

This conference is presented within the framework of MACBA’s exhibition Project a Black Planet. The Art and Culture of Panafrica, as well as the Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture programme. 

Programme

5 activities

Black Fabulation and Freedom Dreaming 

With Nadia Yala Kisukidi and AbdouMaliq Simone

activity
Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Beyond Injury 

With Cristina Roldão and Jovan Scott Lewis. Moderated by Tania Safura Adam

activity
Thursday, 19 February 2026

Morning seminar “Black Urbanities. Black Politics in the City”

activity
Thursday, 19 and Friday, 20 February 2026

Possible Futures

With Mpho Matsipa, Elvira Dyangani Ose and Anisia Uzeyman. Moderated by Asha Best

activity
Friday, 20 February 2026

Performance by Saul Williams

activity
Friday, 20 February 2026

participants

Saiba Bayo

Asha Best 

Teresa Pires do Rio Caldeira

Elvira Dyangani Ose

Natalia Figueredo

Jovan Scott Lewis

Thandi Loewenson

Cristina Maria Roldão Pinto 

Mpho Matsipa

Alana Osbourne

Tania Safura Adam

Lamine Sarr

Mamadou Seydi

see detail

A. M. Simone

Sindicato Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes de Barcelona

see detail

Anisia Uzeyman

Saul Williams

Nadia Yala Kisukidi

in collaboration with

With the support of

_{Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.}

This exhibition falls within the framework of Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture

Looking at architecture through different eyes

As part of Barcelona’s year as World Capital of Architecture, and coinciding with the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the museum, MACBA is to organise and host a set of activities exploring the crossover between contemporary art and architecture.

Learn more

more information 02:23

exhibition

From 6 November 2025 to 6 April 2026

Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica