by
Safia Dickersbach
The cultural foundation of the Federal Republic of
Germany, the „Kulturstiftung des Bundes“,
decided to initiate a new thematic focus in its sponsorship work. The programme
is called “TURN” and – as explained in the introductory statement – it is
supposed to deal with „Africa“. Although there are certainly good intentions
behind this new initiative, the information published about this programme on
the website of the “Kulturstiftung”
and the funding guidelines which were recently released raise more questions
than answers. I want to share some of my anger and disappointment with you as
follows:
1. “TURN” is supposedly dedicated to foster “German-African
cultural relations”. Without a doubt a cultural exchange is necessary to
develop mutual understanding and communication. As opposed to Germany, Africa
is not one country, but rather a whole continent consisting of more than 50
individual countries. The Kulturstiftung
apparently considers all those countries to be culturally homogenous enough to
be able to entertain coherent “cultural relations” with Germany. Could it be
that the people at the Kulturstiftung
are talking about 50 different relationships between Germany and the individual
African countries? But then wouldn’t it seem a bit ambitious to have a jury of
three people make decisions involving an entire continent, 50 countries and
more than 2000 languages together with the cultures and customs connected to them?
Are the three jury members familiar enough with all these countries to fully
comprehend their different cultures and languages? And what do these three jury
members know about the currently developing new arts and culture scenes on the
huge African continent?
2. The budget the Kulturstiftung
considers to be sufficient enough to achieve all those goals (see No. 1 above) is
a modest 2 million EUR. This is not a joke. The exhibition “Who knows tomorrow”
alone which took place in Berlin and showed the works of solely five (!) African
artists had a budget of 900,000 EUR. It is ironic to call the provision of 2
million EUR for projects that are supposed to last until 2015 and cover a whole
continent a “thematic focus”. Especially so if it is a focus of a foundation of
the German federal government. Compared with the
overall budget of the Federal Republic's state secretary for culture of over 1
billion EUR per year which includes the budget of the German Federal Cultural
Foundation, the money which is designated for the TURN – Africa project is
nothing more than small change money. With such a tiny budget would it then not
be more honest and realistic to focus the activities on a few African countries
or a specific region of the continent?
3. The Kulturstiftung
claims to support the new African initiatives in the area of contemporary and innovative
art. But on the other hand:
a. Africans are not allowed to apply for the funds
directly.
b. The African partners are only allowed to apply together
with an institutional partner in Germany. The funding guidelines reveal the
reason to this: “The German partner, as
the project coordinator, has to assume responsibility for ensuring that all
funds are expended as contractually agreed upon with the Federal Cultural
Foundation.” In other, simpler, words: The Africans are not trustworthy. Basically the funding guidelines tell the other side
of a prospective cultural exchange in a roundabout way what in blunt words
would be: Sorry, but we cannot trust you, the German art and culture institutions
have to first discover you, choose you and then they have to be the lead
partner in the exchange, because with bookkeeping we have to rely on the German
side.
c. There is no mechanism that guarantees an adequate
representation of the different African points of view.
d. No information about the sponsorship scheme has
been published in African countries. At least the funding guidelines have been
recently made available in English. But French, Portuguese and Arabic
translations have yet to appear and it is not that we are asking for Kiswahili,
Yoruba, Chichewa, Ovambo, Hausa, Kinyarwanda and Shona, just to mention a few.
e. How exactly does the Kulturstiftung want to prevent the fact that essentially it yet
again reflects the German point of view of what is artistically relevant in
Africa? Because this is what happens when only German institutions are allowed
to apply for funding and no African artist or art collective nor any creative
community from Africa has been informed and enabled to apply for funds
themselves? If only the German viewpoint counts, why does Kulturstiftung even mention the so-called “cultural exchange”? This approach reminds me very much of the
paternalistic attitude which characterized the way Europeans dealt with
Africans in former centuries. Do the African countries still want to be treated
like this? The attitude transmitted by the funding guidelines and the structure
of the TURN programme seems to be the consequence of profound prejudices and
can only be considered by the African side as completely disrespectful.
f. What is the role and position of the “new
developments and initiatives” in Africa which Kulturstiftung emphasizes, if solely the German institutions are
allowed to decide whom they choose as their African cooperation partner? Basically,
with this strategy Kulturstiftung cements
the current dominance of Western/European art professionals being the decision-makers
in regards to what is accepted as significant or important African art. If this
is not an expression of a hegemonial approach in cultural affairs than what is?
g. When Kulturstiftung
writes on its website that “the programme
will primarily provide German institutions and artists incentives to enhance
their profiles with new themes, working methods and perspectives”, it
sounds as if fresh African ideas and innovations are exploited as new
inspirations to rejuvenate the cultural scene in Germany instead of promoting
equitable cultural cooperation between Germany and the different African
countries. Why do those German institutions not just exhibit or present the
best of what Africa has to offer in the same way as they would do it in their
regular programmes in case of an artist from France or the U.S. without talking
about profile-enhancement with new working methods?
h. It seems that the theme "Africa" has been
misused to cast a favourable light on the work of the German Federal Cultural
Foundation in its 10th anniversary year 2012 which was celebrated in June 2012
with Chancellor Angela Merkel joining the festivities. The Kulturstiftung’s TURN project – different from what they made it
sound in their initial press and media campaign – is not so much about
strengthening the institutions for artistic and cultural projects in African
countries, but it is rather about fostering the German art and culture scene.
This truth has been revealed when a TURN jury member conceded in a comment on
Facebook: “They’ve also said that the
fund is about the ‘German institutional art-and-culture-scene’ and not about
‘supporting African contemporary art institutions’, but I’ll leave them to
clarify that.” What does this statement mean in the end? It proves that the
marketing campaign which was centred upon a “new focus on Africa” was actually
misleading to the German public, the taxpayers whose money the Kulturstiftung is using and the
political decision-makers who decide about the Kulturstiftung's budget.
What is exactly the misleading element? As a headline
to the presentation the German Kulturstiftung states that their goal is to promote
German-African relations in arts and culture. But from comments like the one
above we now know that the intention of the program is rather to invigorate and
vitalize the German institutional art-and-culture scene and less to strengthen
African contemporary art institutions. But then the program should have been
better called something like “Advancement
of the internationalization of the German art and culture scene through cooperation
with artists from African countries” instead of creating the impression of
a big new policy focus of "German-African cooperation" in cultural
affairs.
i. Out of the five institutions which Kulturstiftung mentions in its TURN
concept as an example of new artistic developments in African countries two are
managed, founded or directed by curators who indeed have an African origin, but
were raised and/or professionally assimilated in the West. Of course, there is
nothing bad about being educated abroad and obtaining a broader professional
horizon. On the other hand, one has to be aware that these so-called diaspora
curators are often criticized by artists who are still based and working on the
African continent for exerting an undue influence on defining what is
internationally accepted as relevant contemporary African art to the detriment
of local art scenes and communities in Africa.
Local artists complain that those art spaces are usually
not exhibiting art which is accepted and appreciated in their home countries and
in the communities in the vicinity of these institutions. Instead they select
artists whom they consider to be in line with the international trend in order
to satisfy the expectations or requirements of their Western backers and sponsors
or to become critically acclaimed in the West. Some artists claim that the
activities of those art spaces and their exhibitions often demonstrate experimental
and almost compulsively pretentious art which is not enrooted in the countries
where those institutions are located. While there might be some envy and
competitive resentment in such remarks and an objective judgment on the quality
of art is an oxymoron, it is at least questionable to present experimental art
like installations and video art as important African art in a cultural setting
in which visually strong and historically acknowledged art forms like painting
and sculpturing still have to overcome significant obstacles in order to be
viable as a part of the cultural life. The problem is not whether contemporary
art forms like video art and installations should or should not be part of an
artistic programme, rather whether such art should be presented as the currently
(only) representative and significant kind of contemporary African art in spite
of the fact that in most of the African countries there are sophisticated art
works of the last 10 to 20 years which are simply ignored by the international
art establishment until now.
j. Whether the “new African institutions” actually
work “outside the public funding system” as Kulturstiftung
claims on its website seems dubious. Those institutions will hardly get funding
from their home countries, but rather from Western and European sources, be it
state-sponsored development aid or money from private foundations. Does this
statement yet again highlight deficits in information about the state of art
life and institutions in Africa?
k. Another aspect of this doubtful approach is the
selection of the jury which seems to be totally miscast. The only African on
the jury, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, according to information given by her, was born
in Germany to Ghanaian parents, studied in England and Russia and is currently
based and works in Germany, the United Kingdom and Ghana. Besides the fact that
the internet reveals an awkward variety of birth dates and places for her,
jumping between Africa and Europe back and forth according to project-related
suitability (born in 1976 according to information of the African Film Festival
of Milan, born in 1977 according to information of the Nigerian Invisible
Borders Trans-African Photographic Initiative and born in 1980 in Accra
according to information of OCA / The Office for Contemporary Art Norway, all
in all a rather confusing and embarrassing biographical hotchpotch which puts
her credibility as the “African representative” into question), she is at least
due to her upbringing and education subconsciously as “Western” in her
attitudes and points of views as the theatre-director Sandro Lunin from
Switzerland and the Bavarian-based journalist and deejay Jay Rutledge. Why
didn’t the German Federal Cultural Foundation choose at least one if not a
handful of additional art and culture professionals who have spent most of
their life living and working in Africa as jury members? Somebody who is not in
one way or the other connected to the Western or (Eurocentric) “international”
art scene and its somewhat specific understanding and particular taste of
contemporary art? Why is there not at least one genuinely African artist or art
professional to complement the jury who makes sure that the African perspective
on art is taken into account and Africa’s artistic vision is positioned well?
4. The Kulturstiftung
also sponsors research projects. In the presentation of TURN there is so much
talk about cooperation and exchange between German art institutions and their
counterparts from Africa that it was somewhat surprising to see that an additional
programme is needed within the TURN fund to promote research projects. If this
is a concession of the lack of knowledge about the African art scene and of
cultural misunderstandings, then wouldn’t it be better to support more than 10
research projects with 9,000 EUR each? Actually, a much bigger share of the
budget should have been made available for such fact-finding missions. The harsh
reality that essentially more research is needed to enable a successful
cultural exchange appears almost like a Freudian slip in the rhetoric about
promoting German-African cultural relations.
In any case, these research missions actually might
enable German institutions to thoroughly explore contemporary and emerging art and
culture in African countries, as opposed to the blind following of the conventional
wisdom of the established circle of Western-educated art professionals and curators. This would be an opportunity to critically reflect
on the dominance of the Western-influenced art scene and its particular agenda
in the perception and global acceptance of African art. Curiously enough Kulturstiftung mentions the “cultural
exchange” between the five African art institutions which it considers to be progressive
and the “Afro-diaspora communities” worldwide. Mentioning this kind of an
“exchange” might be a euphemism for a connection which – as mentioned above –
is sometimes criticized for solidifying the influence of Western diaspora communities
and artists on the international discourse in regards to what kind of art should
be considered worthwhile and exhibited as relevant contemporary African art. An
exchange which too often silences and drowns out the voices of the local
artists and creative communities based in Africa. Why do we not let the African
art communities decide for themselves which kind of art should be considered as
the benchmark of contemporary art from Africa today? Would it not be a sign of mutual
respect and intercultural understanding?
5. The final remark in the funding guidelines speaks
for itself: The Kulturstiftung
recommends to its applicants to regularly follow up on the travel warnings of
the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office) relating to African countries. Maybe it
would have been wiser (and not only more appropriate with regard to the
available funds) to focus the whole effort on a limited number of countries
which would not actually be on the Auswärtiges Amt travellers’ “black list”.
All this leads to a question: Does “TURN” really “revolutionize”
the hegemonial treatment of the value and quality of African traditions and
idiosyncrasies by the European art establishment which we have observed for too
long? Will the time come when numerous
diverse art scenes, creative communities and cultural circles on the African
continent finally be taken seriously and treated as an equal, a partner that
has an opinion – a voice that must be heard?
6. What does the Kulturstiftung,
the German Federal Cultural Foundation, say about all this: Dr. Uta Schnell who
runs the TURN programme claimed in a statement which she emailed to me that the
Kulturstiftung “unfortunately is limited
by statutory and administrative possibilities”, so that it could not “take into
account all suggestions it might have desired”. I am wondering whether those
statutory and administrative restrictions are a consequence of the same subtle
prejudices and patronizing attitudes which characterize the whole structure of
TURN and its funding requirements and which we believed to have been buried for
long in the past of European-African interconnections. Maybe not without reason
Uta Schnell did not answer me any more when I asked her what exactly those
“statutory and administrative” obstacles were and what changes they prevented
which the German Federal Cultural Foundation would have desired to make. It is
a sad experience that a serious Western institution recognizes severe deficits
in its programme, but then gives in to unclear administrative regulations
instead of fighting for an immediate modification of the programme and a removal
of its problematic parts.
A cultural exchange requires respect for your
cooperation partners and dealing with them at eye level; these basic principles
seem to be completely ignored by the structure and funding requirements of TURN
although you would expect them to be observed first and foremost in an arts and
culture related programme. If already the elite circles of the art world in
Europe deal with an easy element of arts and culture policy like that, what
does this reveal about the way the political decision-makers will act when it
comes to shaping the really relevant policy actions for dealing with Africa in
foreign policy, development aid and other questions of human survival?
This text was first published on October 1st,
2012, and was last updated on February 5th, 2013.
Africa Is Not A Country - Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/RPgfMt
Safia Dickersbach is an art market practitioner, born
in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, currently based in Berlin, Germany, and is the
Public Relations Director of Artfacts.Net, a British company which is the
leading online database for modern and contemporary art.
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