Floriana

 

Arrived and well

April newsletter

 

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A few words on Frantz Fanon's centenary. And a conversation on music production

This month, some anti-colonial inspirations from the Caribbean to Cameroon.

Melissa Chemam

Apr 01, 2025

A few words on Frantz Fanon's centenary. And a conversation on music production

This month, some anti-colonial inspirations from the Caribbean to Cameroon.

Melissa Chemam

Apr 01, 2025

Manifestation en soutien aux mineurs isolés sans logement

 

Ce samedi 29 mars : 

Des centaines de personnes ont manifesté dans toute la France samedi 29 mars 2025, en soutien aux mineurs isolés sans logement, notamment après les violences policières à la Gaîté Lyrique... Ici, à Paris.

This weekend

 

Visiting the 'Black Paris' exhibition at Pompidou with Johny Pitts

 

In English

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Read also my article: 

'Paris Noir' exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artists

The 'Paris Noir' exhibition at the Pompidou Centre brings together works by African, American, Caribbean and Afro-descendant artists who lived and worked in Paris between the 1950s and the end of the 1990s. 

Link: https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20250322-paris-noir-exhibition-showcases-work-made-in-french-capital-by-black-artists

Exposition 'Paris Noir' au Centre Pompidou - Petite vidéo d'introduction

 

En français

(English to come...)

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Read also my article: 

'Paris Noir' exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artists

The 'Paris Noir' exhibition at the Pompidou Centre brings together works by African, American, Caribbean and Afro-descendant artists who lived and worked in Paris between the 1950s and the end of the 1990s. 

Link: https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20250322-paris-noir-exhibition-showcases-work-made-in-french-capital-by-black-artists

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad time..."

 

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasise in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.”

― Howard Zinn

Yasmine Hamdan - Shmaali شمالي

 

Beloved Yasmine Hamdan 

Yasmine Hamdan - Shmaali شمالي
(Official Music Video)

"I’m happy to share with you my new single, Shmaali on Mother’s Day (we in the ME celebrate our mothers with the first breath of spring). Shmaali comes from the Tarweeda, a Palestinian folk song form that expresses grief and joy using coded language as an act of rebellion against occupation and rule. Tarweedas were traditionally performed by women and largely preserved and passed on by them. It is difficult to determine the origin of the song, but it most likely originated towards the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the British Mandate over Palestine. ‏I am honoured to carry this tradition, especially in these times🌹To our mothers" 

  - YH 

Paris Noir @ Centre Pompidou

 

First insight, in pictures.

New works by Jon One, Valérie John, Nathalie Leroy Fiévee, Jay Ramier, Shuck One 

20th century artists include: Wifredo Lam, Beauford Delaney (a friend of Baldwin's), Ernest Breleur, Skunder Boghossian, Christian Lattier, Demas Nwoko... 

Lots of them from Haiti, Martinique, Côte d'Ivoire... And a few Americans, of course, like Faith Ringgold.

From the creation of the magazine 'Présence Africaine' to that of 'Revue noire', Paris noir traces the presence and influence of black artists in France between the 1950s and 2000s. 

It highlights one hundred and fifty artists, from Africa to the Americas via the Caribbean, whose works have rarely been shown in France.

During the press visit, this Tuesday:

"Black Paris offers a vibrant immersion in a cosmopolitan Paris, a place of resistance and creation," the curators said, "that gave rise to a wide variety of practices, from a new awareness of identity to the search for trans-cultural artistic languages."

From international to Afro-Atlantic abstractions via surrealism and free figuration, this historical voyage reveals the importance of artists of African descent in the redefinition of Modernisms and Post-modernisms.

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Meeting a British friend: Photographer Johny Pitts, author of the book 'Afropeans'. More with him soon! 

The exhibitions gathered paintings mostly, but also drawings, photographs and films works.

Always the view... 

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Black Paris

Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance 1950 – 2000

March 19th – June 30th 2025 Centre Pompidou | Galerie 1 | Level 6

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Update

My article here: 
https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20250322-paris-noir-exhibition-showcases-work-made-in-french-capital-by-black-artists 

 

Paris African Book fair 2025

 

A little tour at the fourth edition of the Paris African Book fair, this Saturday. More soon, especially on Frantz Fanon, as this year marks his centenary.

Paris African Book fair, Saturday 15 March 2025:

The French Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet presented his art book
at the Paris African Book fair, on Sat. 15 March 2025 © Melissa Chemam

Authors Jean Khalfa and Suzanne Dracius, two world-renowned specialists of psychiatrist

and anti-colonialist writer Frantz Fanon, speaking at a discussion on Fanon's centenary,

at the Paris African Book Fair, on 15 March 2025 © Melissa Chemam

Cameroonian author Eugène Ebodé presenting his latest book, 'Zam Zam'

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The Salon continues tomorrow! 

https://www.salondulivreafricaindeparis.com/