Contra la Raza [Against Race] Live Programme

The Contra la Raza [Against Race] exhibition evokes futuristic imaginaries expressed through poetics of the Black experience, generating new forms of global and egalitarian humanism. This live programme invites you to meet some of the artists participating in the project. This proposal, curated by Katherine Finerty in collaboration with Raúl Muñoz de la Vega, takes as its departure point the exhibition curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose and The Showroom, London for the last edition PHotoEspaña. Join us to take part in a programme including screenings, conversations and performances, and revisit the exhibition in Nave 0 which will stay open until the end of November.

Contra la Raza [Against Race] questions how imagery in audiovisual formats communicates from a global Black and Pan-Africanist perspective. Inspired by the eponymous book by British historian Paul Gilroy, Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line (2000), the live programme of events will address the fundamental role played by decolonial and anti-racist movements in the historical and contemporary fight for human rights, appealing to our collective consciousness to advocate for the establishment of a new planetary humanism.

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The live programme will include:

– The first-ever screening of Larry Achiampong’s full Relic Traveller series to date, accompanied by an online artist talk with Curator-at-Large Katherine Finerty exploring decolonial narratives about identity, migration, technology and agency.

– Project screening and conversations Taxidermy of the Future curated by Bruno Leitão and Paula Nascimento, bringing together works by artists Kiluanji Kia Henda, Grada Kilomba, and Mónica de Miranda that dissect persistent spectres in both European and African societies (Commissioned and produced by FAS – For Arts Sake)

– Artist talk Collective Geopoetics with Contra la Raza Curator Elvira Dyangani Ose and artists Sally Fenaux Barleycorn and Heidi Ramírez, moderated by photographer and professor Rubén H. Bermudez highlighting Spain-based artist collectives through works by

– Performances of SOUTH X SOUTH EAST by Belinda Zhawi combining poetry and sound to explore the emotional landscape of youth migration whilst interrogating what it means to forge identities based on geographies

Live Programme Website

Live Programme Brochure

Larry Achiampong: Relic Traveller Series Screening & Online Talk

Friday 29 October 7–9pm CEST | Sala Azcona, Cineteca

Book HERE

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A special screening of the five films currently comprising Larry Achiamping’s evolving Relic Traveller series, a multi-disciplinary project manifesting in performance, audio, moving image and prose. This one-hour screening will be followed by an online conversation with the artist and Contra la Raza [Against Race] Co-Curator Katherine Finerty (Curator-at-Large, The Showroom, London), and a Q&A with Katherine.

Achiampong’s body of work serves as both a physical platform and speculative landscape for Contra la Raza, centring multidisciplinary approaches in telling decolonial narratives about identity, migration, technology, agency and imagination. His Relic Traveller series has been evolving since 2017 as a multi-site project mixing visual poetry with generational healing. It explores the past, present and future through narratives of Pan Africanism and African diasporic identity in relation to colonialism, postcolonialism and the heightened nationalism of current times.

Two videos in this series are also currently playing on loop in Nave 0, Matadero Madrid until 28 November 2021– the first in the series, Relic 0 (2017), and the most recent Reliquary 2 (2020) – activated by paraphernalia, conceptual imagery illustrated by Wumi Olaosebikan and fabrications from the second series of Pan African Flags For The Relic Travellers' Alliance. This installation sets the stage for an immersive call and response between colonial ghosts to future progeny.

More info HERE

Taxidermy of The Future Project Screening & Talk

Saturday 30 October 12–2pm CEST | Sala Azcona, Cineteca

Book HERE

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Taxidermy of the Future is a project curated by Bruno Leitão and Paula Nascimento bringing together works by three multimedia artists, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Grada Kilomba and Mónica de Miranda that dissect persistent spectres in both European and African societies, from Greco-Latin mythology to the postcolonial era. After the screening this event will feature a conversation with Co-Curator of the project Bruno Leitão and Elvira Dyangani Ose followed by Q&A. Blurring the lines between history and fiction, memory and fantasy, these works are a living testimony of the narrative vitality of contemporary expression. The project also has its foundation as an exchange of references between the two curators, and the artists whose work has been essential in their research. Taxidermy of the Future was first shown as a film programme at the 6th edition of the Lubumbashi Biennale Future Genealogies, Tales From The Equatorial Line (2019) and then expanded into an exhibition shown at the National Museum of Natural History, Luanda (2020).

Taxidermy of the Future is sponsored by FAS – For Arts Sake. This screening and conversation event is possible because of their generous support.

More info HERE

Collective Geopoetics Screening & Artists Talk

Saturday 30 October 5–7pm CEST | Sala Azcona, Cineteca

Book HERE

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This unique screening and artist talk with Contra la Raza [Against Race] Curator and MACBA Director Elvira Dyangani Ose, moderated by photographer and professor Rubén H. Bermúdez, highlights Spain-based artist collectives through works by artists Sally Fenaux Barleycorn and Heidi Ramírez, in conversation. Departing from historian Paul Gilroy’s quest to dismantle racialising and marginalising politics, the Contra la Raza [Against Race] project proposes a poetics for an emerging egalitarianism as a catalyst for holistic cosmopolitan democracy.

More info HERE

Belinda Zhawi: SOUTH X SOUTH EAST Performances

Saturday 30 October 8–8:30pm CEST | Intermediae, Matadero
Sunday 31 October 12–12:30pm CEST | Intermediae, Matadero

Book HERE

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Writer, sound artist and educator Belinda Zhawi stages SOUTH X SOUTH EAST, an ongoing performance since 2019 combining poetry and sound to explore the emotional landscape of youth migration whilst interrogating what it means to forge identities based on geographies. It looks into what it means to have more than one home and a further exploration of what home means. The aim of the project is to explore the emotional landscape of these seismic shifts and how they can affect a person in their later life when thinking about identity. SXSE thus addresses the loss and mourning of home or geographies through the use of poetry, vocalisation and music. The works featured in this projects are field recordings and original works with musical contributions from harpist, Marysia Osuchowska and Caleb Azumah Nelson.

More info HERE