THE TRUE SIZE OF AFRICA

THE TRUE SIZE OF AFRICA
November 9th 2024 – August 17th 2025
World Heritage Site Völklinger Hütte

Press conference: Thursday, 7 November 2024, 11.00 a.m.
Opening ceremony: Friday, 8 November 2024, 6.30 p.m.

“Here rests in God my dear n***, Chim Bebe, deceased 1912 at the age of 26 years.” This epitaph on the gravestone of a man born in the West African colony of Togo at the old cemetery in Saarlouis illustrates just how close Africa is to Germany, even here in Saarland. Although North Africa already served as the breadbasket to the Roman Empire, the size of the African continent as a whole has been systematically underrepresented on world maps since the time of Mercator. To this day, its geographical scale and global historical significance have been underestimated, despite its prehistoric role as the cradle of humanity. In his book Africa Is Not a Country, Dipo Faloyin writes that the key thing to remember about Africa is that it is a continent made up of 54 culturally and geographically diverse countries.

THE TRUE SIZE OF AFRICA aims to take a different artistic and cultural approach to this huge continent through continual shifts of perspective and a multitude of curatorial voices. A “museum of memorability” will reflect on Africa’s past and present from the perspective of Europe as a colonial power. By contrast, artists from DR Congo and Namibia cast their gaze on private European collections of African sculptures and objects and curate them between the machines and flywheels of the blower hall. The guiding principle is to reverse the traditional perspective – here, Europe’s dark industrial modernity now meets the diverse, luminous culture of Africa. Major artworks from recent decades are paired with sound and spatial installations created especially for the exhibition. This generates a dense network of impressions and modes of perception that, ideally, enables a sustained and multi-layered encounter with THE TRUE SIZE OF AFRICA in its past, present and future.

Invited artists include John Akomfrah (London, UK / Accra, Ghana), Malala Andrialavidrazana (Paris, France /Antananarivo, Madagascar), Kader Attia (Berlin, Germany / Algiers, Algeria), Sammy Baloji (Brüssel, Belgium / Lubumbashi, RD Congo ), Memory Biwa (Windhoek, Namibia), CATPC (Lusanga, DR Congo), Omar Victor Diop (Paris, France / Dakar, Senegal), William Kentridge (Johannesburg, South Africa), Kongo Astronauts (Kinshasa, DR Congo), Roméo Mivekannin (Bouaké, Ivory Coast), Zanele Muholi (Kapstadt, South Africa / Umlazi, South Africa), Kaloki Nyamai (Nairobi, Kenya), Emeka Ogboh (Berlin, Germany / Lagos, Nigeria), Thomas J. Price (London, UK), Zineb Sedira (Paris, France / London, UK / Algiers, Algeria), Yinka Shonibare (London, UK),The Singh Twins (UK), Tavares Strachan (New York, US / Nassau, Bahamas) and Géraldine Tobe (Kinshasa, DR Congo).

A comprehensive catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition, edited by Ralf Beil, Markus Messling, and Christiane Solte-Gresser, with contributions from Binyavanga Wainaina, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Franck Hofmann, Andreas Eckl, Matthias Häussler, Felwine Sarr, Till Förster, Elara Bertho, Olaudah Equiano and Nadia Yala Kisukidi as well as inserts for all artists.

In cooperation with the Käte Hamburger Research Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation (CURE) at Saarland University, Saarbrücken.