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

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Foreword
FORE —
WORD
In a world where freedom
is better guaranteed
for goods and
digital products than for human beings, more and more
people are being condemned to watch as the space of
their fundamental rights and freedoms shrinks. Many
of them have been forced to flee wars, climate change
or oppressive regimes. It is often their freedom of movement
that is most threatened, as travel restrictions
multiply in the face of rising anti-migration sentiments.
Cultural diversity has never been in as much danger as
it is in today’s polarized world.
Strategically positioned at the crossroads of Europe,
Africa and Asia, North Africa is one of the regions that
is most significantly affected by ongoing tensions in the
geopolitical arena. The first spark of the Arab uprising
in 2010 in Tunisia is still coursing through the whole
region. It has brought hope, with high-spirited and
creative civic initiatives led mainly by young people. Yet
restrictions on the freedom of movement and speech
of its people have also reached their highest peaks in
the last decade.
This mapping study is a contribution by AMA to shed
light on the actors and initiatives that are striving to
revive historical connections and build new bridges
between North Africa and the rest of the continent, as
a form of resistance but also as a means of unlearning
colonial modes of relating with the regions south of the
Sahara and north of the Mediterranean. This study is
the 4th volume of AMA’s mapping series, which aims
to address the obstacles to artistic mobility within
Africa by providing information on the infrastructures,
the institutional and funding frameworks as well as
the challenges and opportunities linked with mobility
on the continent.
We hope this study will help inform both practitioners
and policy makers on the ways to promote and support
artistic mobility within Africa.
Khadija El Bennaoui
AMA Director