Kiripi Katembo "Avancer". Un regard series (2008-2013). Copyright Kiripi Katembo Siku Foundation. Courtesy MAGNIN-A Gallery, Paris. © Kiripi Katembo, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2026
Activity
Thursday, 19 and Friday, 20 February 2026
Morning seminar “Black Urbanities. Black Politics in the City”
coming soon
MACBA and CCCB coorganise Black Urbanities. Black Politics in the City, a seminar convening voices from across a variety of disciplines, geographies and political histories to explore collective experiences of Black living in the city.
Black Urbanities. Black Politics in the City, curated by AbdouMaliq Simone and Asha Best, aims to reflect collectively on the experiences of Black living in the city. This seminar plays with the notion of “black urbanism” as a method for engaging the urban in a different key, a different modality – considering the singular and unparalleled ways in which Black folks continually prototype new and possible forms of being urban. Exploring 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.
Programme
Thursday, 19 February
09:30 – 09:45 h
Opening remarks
Asha Best, AbdouMaliq Simone
09:45 – 11:30 h
Architectures for Black Living. Materiality and Extractivism
Mpho Matsipa, Thandi Loewenson, Alana Osbourne, Asha Best (mod.)
Urbanity is also a matter of design. A way of using the materials of the earth to construct and inhabit. It is also a way of using the energies, intelligence and creativity of bodies to build and use. How has blackness been deployed to generate specific ways of urban living; how is blackness its own design in counter-distinction of all the designs imposed upon it. What can the earthly and the airborne tell us about black livingness in the face of ongoing extraction and degradation?
Urbanity is also a matter of design. A way of using the materials of the earth to construct and inhabit. It is also a way of using the energies, intelligence and creativity of bodies to build and use. How has blackness been deployed to generate specific ways of urban living; how is blackness its own design in counter-distinction of all the designs imposed upon it. What can the earthly and the airborne tell us about black livingness in the face of ongoing extraction and degradation?
11:45 – 13:30 h
The Reparative. A Toolbox of Black Urban Practices
Jovan Scott Lewis, Natalia Figueredo, Asha Best, Teresa Caldeira (mod.)
Blackness is always acted upon and seldom with; always curtailed and exhausted, always having to compensate for exploitation and incarceration. But in what ways does blackness circumvent the constraints, use urban physical and social infrastructures to both challenge normative modes of urbanization and to offer and rehearse new forms of living?
Blackness is always acted upon and seldom with; always curtailed and exhausted, always having to compensate for exploitation and incarceration. But in what ways does blackness circumvent the constraints, use urban physical and social infrastructures to both challenge normative modes of urbanization and to offer and rehearse new forms of living?
Friday, 20 February
09:45 – 11:30 h
Blackness and Being in Urban Europe
Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Cristina Roldão, Saiba Bayo, Elvira Dyangani Ose (mod.)
More than an exploration of the conditions of black inhabitants in Europe, the question here is how heterogeneous black populations interact with the intricate singularities of European urban landscapes to engender something unprecedented and viable in face of intense racism.
More than an exploration of the conditions of black inhabitants in Europe, the question here is how heterogeneous black populations interact with the intricate singularities of European urban landscapes to engender something unprecedented and viable in face of intense racism.
11:45 – 13:30 h
Struggles for Black Autonomy
Top Manta (Lamine Sarr), Mamadou Seydi, AbdouMaliq Simone, Youssef El Maimouni (mod.)
This session will explore the specific tactics and practices deployed by various black associations in Barcelona to open up spaces of autonomous action in an overwhelmingly white city. Without the possibilities of working with extensive economic and political resources, how do black residents, nevertheless, create platforms on which to sustain important values, improve their security and invent new ways of using the city?
This session will explore the specific tactics and practices deployed by various black associations in Barcelona to open up spaces of autonomous action in an overwhelmingly white city. Without the possibilities of working with extensive economic and political resources, how do black residents, nevertheless, create platforms on which to sustain important values, improve their security and invent new ways of using the city?
this activity is part of
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 
Lamine Sarr 
A. M. Simone 
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 activity falls within the framework of Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture
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.
exhibition
From 6 November 2025 to 6 April 2026
Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica
MACBA Thirty
We celebrate Year Thirty of an infinite MACBA that projects the future as a space for revision and possibility: of taking up what was left unfinished, updating what needs it and projecting anew everything that can still be transformed.
