Announcing Afro-Nordic Collaborations

OCA is delighted to announce a series of intersectional dialogues and collaborations with Black communities in the arts in the Nordic region and globally.

The first element in the series is found in the recently launched online platform YPPĒ, founded by Norway-based Congolese artist and curator Nicole Rafiki, with various discursive sections supported by OCA. Initially created as an annual, bilingual, print art journal in 2017, YPPĒ has transitioned into an online discursive space dedicated to discussing and disseminating artistic knowledge, and particularly supporting the work of African artists who explore and interrogate the concepts of womanhood and liminal gender identities.

The second element in the series pursues the collaboration with YPPĒ further, launching a selection of textual and performative digital contributions in August 2021 co-curated with OCA. The latter bring focus to the role of the arts in generating processes of healing to counter the historical and ongoing colonial experiences of Black communities today. As Rafiki comments:

"Healing the continent is only possible if Africans from the continent and diaspora understand the importance of playing their part, because natives and descendants of Africa have the power, individually and collectively, to create a different legacy for the next generation."

Through this collaboration and further projects to come, OCA joins forces with various Black peers to work together in the international amplification of their artistic debates and knowledge, starting from the perspective that the Nordic countries are home to a vibrant community of Black artists whose lives and practices are multidimensional and central to the Nordic region. Our goal is that these collaborations will also contribute to the much-needed systemic transformations of art institutions in Norway and the Nordic region, including our own, addressing matters of programme, personnel, audiences and the critical power of language in all of these processes.

Watch out for more news on the series.