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Exhibition - Concept "West to West"
Contemporary African Art at the Diaspora.

Selected Artists so far:

Diagne Chanel - Amouzou Glikpa - George Hughes - Jemes Koko Bi - EL Loko - Owusu-Ankomah

Africa’s people were shipped to the West by the million and forced into slavery. However, over
the centuries, probably just as many died as they were being hunted down inside the continent
and then during the perilous sea crossings under cramped and stinking conditions before slavery was finally abolished. Some hoped to make it to the West just to survive, even though it meant being forced into slavery, whereas others shed tears that fell to the ground in this new West, causing magical gardens that will be forever Africa to spring up out of the earth. So Africa came
to the West in the form of endless small human seeds and pebbles, covering the ground and transforming it and, over the course of time, the West gradually became a part of Africa.

So today, if thousands of Africans move to the West, this exodus is a search for the remains of a lost Africa.

These immigrants are looking for the other part of the divided Africa. Esotericism has the myth
of Atlantis; for Africa’s people, Atlantis is more than just a lost dream; it is their West. The ocean between is made up of tears. For Europeans, Atlantis has fallen apart; for Africans, the West has swum away and what now separates it are all the waters of mourning and despair, the waters of wanderlust, all the water that has fallen on the hard continent and dried it out. Africa, the ocean and the West have become one and this is why some dreams are so vivid that this West is nothing more than an extension of Africa. 

Artists are now moving towards the West in search of clues. They are not moving away, rather
they are exploring this Africa in the faraway West.

For these artists, using the word diaspora almost amounts to treason. The word is certainly misplaced because they are not moving away, rather they are moving into an Africa that is not bound by borders, tribes, ethnic groups, countries or nationality.

They swear eternal friendship, form close alliances, because this Africa is now scattered everywhere. One only has to look at the millions of blacks from Canada to the USA, from the Caribbean to Brazil. The West became Africanised a long time ago. Now, at last, we must have
the courage to meet on equal terms. This is the work of the artists who are the most important
links for realising visions.

All the millions of creolised or still black people who are alive today must realise and understand that they do not fall between two stools but that West and West belong together. There are just different aspects or viewpoints, in much the same way as Japanese woodcutters create images of Mount Fuji from a hundred different angles. They both create, and are a creation of, the mountain.

It is thus our duty to see artists, writers, musicians or dancers not as emigrating or fleeing from Africa, rather they are the Africa that represents a departure towards a new, deeper
understanding of the story of a continent that does not heed skin colour, does not conform to traditional geography, does not separate that which has long since been bound together by fate.

West to West is a manifesto on a broader way of thinking and on the inclusion of everything that belongs together under the umbrella of humanity, both in physical landscapes and in the landscapes of our minds.

West to West itself endeavours to unite that which was torn asunder a long time ago. This West is also present in Europe, particularly in the former colonial powers of Great Britain, France,
Portugal, Holland, Italy and also in Germany or Switzerland. Africa is here and has been here
for a long time, politics only allows hostile assimilation. For a long time, even intellectuals were
the victims of false divisions or of those who believed that Africans should stay in Africa and
uphold their traditions – also in art. But to which Africa are they to belong? Where does this blindness actually originate? What is stopping politics from acknowledging that Africa has been here for a very long time now and that it is part of our culture?

West to West wishes to contribute to a move towards greater honesty and realism, towards
greater equality and alliance, also towards the right to be allowed to be a global citizen without being accused of being a traitor to one’s culture. Urged on by questions such as: “Where is the mask?” or “Why not in your own language?” Such questions are ostracising, discriminating. The world around embraces West to West.

West to West says no to go home and a reversal in the thinking that one’s homeland is and
always shall be where two opposites meet.

West to West leaves behind the ignoble and dangerous roots mentality, leaves behind negritude and finds the same people with the same cares, the same poverty and riches, envy and greed, loves and longings. So what, apart from we ourselves, separates West to West?

Al Imfeld Sept. 2005