Mapping Afropolitan Imaginaries 1 The Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies

Abstract

Open to all, including members of the Africa Centre network and friends, this workshop invited members of the public and stakeholders to explore and celebrate the ‘Afropolitan’ dimension of creativity in London life – a cultural tendency in our art, media, books, style, food and fashion. If you are a young Black creative, an entrepreneur dealing in African goods or services, a Londoner with a diaspora network, or in any way involved in community-based activity connected to the Africa Centre or its mission, this event included your voice, alongside other stakeholders. Artist and academic Mavernie Cunningham led the half-day event which will be organised in two parts.

In the first part, life stories were presentated from invited speakers to celebrate contemporary urban identities and creative forms of practice in the African and Black diaspora community of London that go beyond the cliché of cosmopolitanism. In the second part, collaborate on an art-led participatory workshop to produce mini-manifestoes oriented by guiding principles took place followed by discussion and debate. These were used to map an emergent collective identity. We envisaged this map of intersecting imaginaries as a cultural manifestation of solidarity and agency that we may think of as Afropolitan.

The “Mapping Afropolitan Imaginaries 1” workshop was the second of four events in a series at the heart of a research and knowledge exchange project called London Afropolitan.

The project team, from London Metropolitan University, includes Mavernie Cunningham, Matthew Barac, Harriet McKay, Adeyemi Akande, Wally Mbassi, and Emma Carpenter.

Speakers

Workshop leader: Mavernie Cunningham is Head of Art at London Metropolitan University. Both an experienced educator as well as an artist, she maintains a multidisciplinary practice that includes a range of the visual output, spoken word, and as a musician. More recently, Cunningham’s artistic practice and research activity has included collaborative film making sound and performative spoken word.

Guest speakers: Additional guest speakers include designer Ricardo Eversley, musician DJ Pioneer (AKA Jason Edwards), and photographer Lakruwan Rajapaksha.

Event Chair:  Dr Harriet McKay is curator and academic. She has worked for the National Trust, V&A and Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and has been a Trustee of the Design History Society, UK. Her academic career includes teaching experience at the Department of Design, Royal College of Art, and on the Heritage Studies and Museology MA programmes at the School of World Art Studies, University of East Anglia. Born in Kampala, Uganda, Harriet has retained a keen interest in the material and visual dimensions of culture across the African continent. Working in the Design subject area at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Met University, she is a member of research centre CUBE: the Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies. Current research activity includes the project "(Re)Making: Craft-Design and Women's Empowerment in the Global South" which explores food production in the urban environment through the lens of gender in Morocco, Rwanda and South Africa.