NAB XVIII 2019

Current Affairs
Climate, Migration, and Racism –
the 9th BIGSAS Literature Festival
focused on main topics of crises
Text SABINE GREINER
Photos MAX ARNDT
The BIGSAS Literature Festival of African
and African-Diasporic Literatures
celebrated its ninth anniversary
by discussing topics such
as climate change and war as global
causes of crises, and also by scrutinizing
the European narrative about the “refugee
crisis”. The diverse and entertaining
three-day program included readings,
workshops, and art performances.
“The BIGSAS Festival of African and African-Diasporic
Literatures is an indispensable
component of Bayreuth’s cultural landscape”
– with these words Beate Kuhn, a
mayor of Bayreuth, officially opened the
9th annual Literature Festival in the afternoon
of Friday 5 July 2019. Almost all the
seats at the auditorium of Iwalewahaus –
Bayreuth’s number one address for displaying
and experiencing African art – were
taken when the mayor pointed out the importance
of the annual festival organized
by the Bayreuth International Graduate
School of African Studies (BIGSAS) and
now supported by the newly founded Africa
Multiple Cluster of Excellence.
Fridays for Future
demonstration opened the festival
Prior to the mayor’s speech, the participants
had already experienced a festival opening
of a very special kind. The event’s organizers
had invited people to take part in a Fridays
for Future+ demonstration, marching
all the way from the University of Bayreuth
campus via the Refugee House to the city’s
centre. The Fridays for Future movement
that has motivated millions of international
pupils and students to take to the streets
since March 2019, creating an awareness
for the global climate crisis, also resonates
in the underlying topic of the 2019 festival:
Crises and Responsibilities. kNOWledges
in Academia, Arts and Activism. Susan
Arndt, Professor of English Studies and
Anglophone Literatures.
the festival’s spokeswoman,
explains, “Fridays
for Future has reminded
all of us to face
the planetary crisis and
the responsibilities it
entails, and we are very
happy to have opened
the festival in cooperation
with this resistance
movement.”
In this context, climate change and the
crises it thus causes was the major theme
of the festival’s first day. After settling in
Iwalewahaus and listening to the opening
speeches of Arndt, Kuhn, and the spokesperson
for the newly founded Cluster of
Excellence Africa Multiple, Rüdiger Seesemann,
the audience was first shown the
Afrofuturist short movie Pumzi by Kenyan
Wanuri Kahiu. The movie’s topic – water
shortage and its implications – was later
discussed by Alice Pinheiro Walla, professor
of political philosophy, and Oliver
Nyambi both in their separate keynotes, as
well as in the podium discussion that followed.
Next up was a reading of the works
by Dikko Muhammad (Nigeria) and Mai’a
Williams (USA).
The festival‘s organizers Dilan Zoe Smida, Shirin Assa and Susan Arndt
(from left) hosted and moderated the three-day event.
38
The 2019 Literature
Festival of
African African-
Diasporic Literatures
started off
with a Fridays For
Future demonstration.
Later that day, the festival’s venue moved
to its second location – the distinguished
Old Palace of Bayreuth – where the audience
was invited to take part in an intergenerational
workshop discussing the
“Thunberg Effect” and developing a method
to experience the power of solidarity
in the face of the climate crisis. Furthermore,
the exhibition Imaginatorium Resistance
was officially opened to the public.
The day concluded back at Iwalewahaus,
where the mesmerizing Spoken Word
Night featuring Musa Okwonga of BBXO,
Blesz, Faten El-Dabbas, and Kolade
Igbasan invited listeners to reflect on topics
such as solidarity and colonialism.