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Chimurenga Library, An introspective of Chimurenga Magazine, Cape Town Central Library, 2009
Talks

Collaborative Intervention: Chimurenga Library

Friday, May 23, 2014

5 p.m.

San Francisco Public Library

Discover new stories in the stacks of the San Francisco Public Library through this intervention by Chimurenga, a Cape Town collective focused on Pan-African history and culture. In addition to publishing, music, and Internet radio ventures, Chimurenga has created interventions in libraries ranging from the large City of Cape Town library to the small Keleketla community library in Johannesburg. Chimurenga Library is a multimedia installation and research project exploring the history of FESTAC ’77, the Second World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977. FESTAC remains the largest Pan-African arts festival that has ever taken place, but despite its epic scale and ambition, its story is neither widely known nor well understood. Browse Chimurenga Library and reflect on what this event was, what it might still mean, and how it can lead us to think about our many histories of diaspora, from the Bay Area to Africa and beyond.

Copresented with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of Public Intimacy and Live Projects 4