Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy

A look at African video-art to draw attention to the new means of artistic communication of the “dark continent”, giving a new vision of Africa today, far removed from the clichés of its post-colonial image. This is the aim of “Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy” [SFIP], the project created by the young curator Kisito Assangni who has brought together 15 African video-artists living in Africa, Europe and America: Jude Anogwih, Younes Baba-Ali, Saidou Dicko, Ndoye Douts, Kokou Ekouagou, Mohamed El Baz, Samba Fall, Nicene Kossentini, Kai Lossgott, Michele Magma, Nathalie Mba Bikoro, Johan Thom, Saliou Traoré, Guy Woueté and Ezra Wube.

The videos selected for the exhibition can be seen from 2 – 27 May, 2012, at the video-art Hall of Lu.C.C.A. – Lucca Center of Contemporary Art (free admission). The exhibition has already been shown in Sweden, Mexico, Estonia, Romania, Ukraine and the US.
“The techno-cultural revolution – Assangni stresses – has democratized cultural and artistic practice through everyday access to new media. At the same time, the pervasive presence of technology in our lives has raised questions about privacy, surveillance, property, the domination of western media in globalization and the privilege of access in the developed world”.

The [SFIP] project is an instrument for the global diffusion of new experiences through short films and videos that focus on aesthetic and methodological perspectives to “fight ignorance and intellectual perfidy” in contemporary African art. A way to retell the history of Africa and the relation between tradition and modernity through new forms of media.

Short biography – Kisito Assangni
This Togolese artist and curator studied in Lomé and Paris. His work is centred on the theme of the impact of post-globalization and “psycho-geography”, a concept defined in 1955 by the French situationist writer Guy Débord. His projects have been exhibited internationally in various locations including the ICA-Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Arnot Art Museum in New York, the Musée des Arts Derniers in Parigi, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, the Arad Art Museum in Arad (Romania), the ExTeresa Contemporary Art Museum in Mexico City. Kisito is the creator/curator of the “Time is Love Screening” and “SFIP” projects. He currently lives in London, Lomé and Paris.