Art Moves Africa – Retracing Roots and Tracing New Routes: Mobility and Touring in North Africa

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Country-Specific Information
CHEDMED
DEMOCRATOZ
MÂAN (TOGETHER)
RACONTE’ARTS
Examples of mobility projects
Organized by Nomad Tracks, an Algerian multidisciplinary
collective, ChedMed was a meeting of
Algerian and Senegalese artists in Dakar in 2017.
It was the second stop in a long-term project
aiming to revive the idea of the “Tricontinental”
South-South organization. A group of Algerian
artists were invited to Dakar to build and paint
a house together in Dakar’s medina. Concerts
were hosted and photographers documented the
process. The next edition is in Vietnam.
Lead singer Sadek Bouzinou has been creating
songs inspired by pan-Africanism and anti-racism
movements, mixing raï, reggae, gnawa and other
musical genres. He currently lives in Dakar.
A new digital arts festival organized by visual artist
Mouna Bennamani and photographer Mahmoud
Agraine that will connect Algerian creatives with
artists from North Africa, Africa and beyond. It
will be the first of its kind in the country.
The country’s only fully independent theatre
festival, it has regularly invited artists from West
and Central Africa to perform in the remote villages
where it is held every year.
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MARSAD 1
MERIEM BOURAOUI
A collective of photographers, visual artists, writers
and graphic designers travelled from Algiers
to the south of Algeria in a van, exploring the
Algerian stretch of the TransSaharan highway
that was designed to link Algiers to Lagos, via
Agadez in Niger. They have future plans to explore
Ottoman trade routes between Salé (Morocco)
and Algiers, and potentially to continue the road
trip down to Lagos.
Slam poet Meriem Bouraoui travelled to
N’Djamena, Tchad, in November 2018, to represent
Algeria in the African Cup of Slam Poetry.
Her trip was supported by AMA.
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QUOTE:
« For the most part, [Algerians]
only know Africa through
Western music. But as artists,
we can really build a vision.
Music isn’t everything but
it can do a lot. […] I’m here [in
Dakar] to learn. I want to show
Algerians the positivity
of Senegal. »
Sadek Bouzinou
Singer/songwriter, Democratoz,
Oran/Dakar*
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