Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica

The exhibition addresses the art of the African diaspora as an aesthetics of back and forth, between the artistic production of the African continent and the proposals of Black communities scattered throughout the world. Artists, writers and other cultural workers have reacted over more than a century to global histories of supremacy, conflict and rupture, including slavery, colonialism and racial discrimination, among others.  

While Pan-Africanism aspires to transnational and planetary solidarity, the exhibition also brings together experiences and manifestations conditioned by contextualised visions that are not always aligned. A broad set of philosophical ideas will structure the exhibition, while biographical information and a historical vision will be outlined by particular works, documents and installations.

MACBA proposes an itinerary structured around concepts that expand notions such as the foundations of Pan-Africanism, studies of negritude – both as an aesthetic movement and unifier of Blackness – representation, the weight of religious and animist beliefs, and the forms of public protest and anti-racism and civil rights movements.   

The result is a collection of pieces in diverse materials and formats that, without hierarchy, represent fine arts, music and vernacular or popular cultures from Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, North America and Western Europe. Visual and sound objects are also shown in dialogue with texts and political manifestos. 

Throughout the exhibition, ephemera – from newspapers and magazines to posters and pamphlets – are of great relevance as they are crucial to understanding the importance of printed and graphic materials in the distribution and formation of Pan-Africanism. The curatorial team has pursued the painstaking task of researching relevant and groundbreaking materials on liberation in the catalogues of libraries and archives.

The exhibition is the result of ambitious research that is also manifested in an eponymous publication. This catalogue that endeavours to act as an academic reference for artistic research includes philosophical essays, biographical information and historical context related to the works and installations on display in the exhibition. Likewise, an academic anthology will compile contributions and a bibliography on the presence of Pan-Africanism in Spain at crucial moments in history. Similarly, this exhibition proposal is complemented by a rigorous public programme that provides the museum the opportunity to expand its audience and connect with new visitors. The programme will include public conversations, seminars, and outreach with local Black communities and archival activations, narrating not only the historical and global vision of Pan-Africanism but the oral traditions, diverse musical genres, political statements and environmental sounds of everyday life that have shaped the narrative of Pan-African unity and liberation in the Catalan, Spanish and European contexts. 

The activities will kick off before the exhibition opens at MACBA and will permeate the spaces, programmes and projects that co-inhabit the museum. The Independent Studies Programme (PEI) will work with ideas such as Pan-Africanism and postcolonial solidarity beyond race, through the practices of art, aesthetics and archiving.