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Panafrica Days
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Wednesday, March 5
 

10:10am MST

Introduction
Wednesday March 5, 2025 10:10am - 10:25am MST
Speakers
avatar for Antawan Byrd

Antawan Byrd

Art Historian & Curator

Wednesday March 5, 2025 10:10am - 10:25am MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave

10:25am MST

Keynote: Koyo Kouoh
Wednesday March 5, 2025 10:25am - 11:15am MST
Join us for a keynote by Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art
Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town. 
Moderators Speakers
avatar for Koyo Kouoh

Koyo Kouoh

Curator
Koyo Kouoh is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary ArtAfrica (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town since May 2019. Prior to this appointment, she was thefounding Artistic Director of RAW Material Company, a centre for art, knowledge and society inDakar, Senegal... Read More →
Wednesday March 5, 2025 10:25am - 11:15am MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave

11:20am MST

Panel: On the Circulation and Transmission of Africa/Diasporic Aesthetic Practices
Wednesday March 5, 2025 11:20am - 12:35pm MST
Join us for a panel with Huey Copeland, Krista Thompson, Ebony Patterson, and Kodwo Eshun. 
Moderators Speakers
avatar for Huey Copeland

Huey Copeland

Dr. Huey Copeland, Andrew W. Mellon Chair and Professor of Modern Art and Black Study at the University of Pittsburgh, is widely recognized as a leader in art history, specializing in visual cultures and critical theories of the African diaspora, Europe, and the United States. He... Read More →
avatar for Krista Thompson

Krista Thompson

Krista Thompson is the Mary Jane Crowe Professor of Art History at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois.  She is the author of An Eye for the Tropics (2006) and Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice (2015), recipient of the Charles Rufus... Read More →
avatar for Ebony Patterson

Ebony Patterson

Artist
Ebony G. Patterson's expansive practice addresses visibility and invisibility, through explorations of class, race, gender, youth culture, pageantry and acts of violence in the context of "postcolonial" spaces. With the strong sensibility of a painter, Patterson works across multiple... Read More →
Wednesday March 5, 2025 11:20am - 12:35pm MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave

12:35pm MST

Lunch
Wednesday March 5, 2025 12:35pm - 1:35pm MST

Wednesday March 5, 2025 12:35pm - 1:35pm MST

1:40pm MST

Keynote: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Wednesday March 5, 2025 1:40pm - 2:15pm MST
Join us for a keynote by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, who has been featured at Tate Britain, The Guggenheim Bilbao, Haus Der Kunst, the Serpentine Gallery, The New Museum and The Studio Museum in Harlem. 
Moderators
IW

Ivy Wilson

Director
Speakers
LY

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Artist
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was born in 1977 in London, where she lives and works. She attended Falmouth College of Arts and the Royal Academy Schools (MA). She has had solo shows at Tate Britain, The Guggenheim Bilbao, Haus Der Kunst, the Serpentine Gallery, The New Museum and The Studio... Read More →
Wednesday March 5, 2025 1:40pm - 2:15pm MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave

2:30pm MST

Panel: Panafrica's Future Conversations
Wednesday March 5, 2025 2:30pm - 3:45pm MST
Join us for a panel with Hélio Menezes, Marilyn Nance, and Serubiri Moses. 
Moderators Speakers
avatar for Hélio Menezes

Hélio Menezes

Hélio Menezes is the Artistic Director of Museu Afro Brasil, in São Paulo. He acted as curator for Contemporary Art and Literature at Centro Cultural São Paulo between 2019 and 2021. Some of his recent works include the curation of the 35th São Paulo Art Biennial, Choreographies... Read More →
avatar for Marilyn Nance

Marilyn Nance

Photographer
Marilyn Nance’s artistry takes on many forms including photographs, prints, fiber arts, installation, and social practice. A graduate of New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, Nance is a digital pioneer. An artifact of the ancient web, her website soulsista.com... Read More →
avatar for Serubiri Moses

Serubiri Moses

Serubiri Moses is a Ugandan curator and author based in New York City. His writing is primarily concerned with aporia, violence, as well as exhibition histories. His exhibitions are rooted in methods of collective teaching, and listening as an epistemology. He serves as part-time... Read More →

Wednesday March 5, 2025 2:30pm - 3:45pm MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave

3:45pm MST

15-minute Break
Wednesday March 5, 2025 3:45pm - 4:00pm MST
Wednesday March 5, 2025 3:45pm - 4:00pm MST

4:05pm MST

Closing Keynote: Louis Chude-Sokei
Wednesday March 5, 2025 4:05pm - 4:55pm MST
Join us for a keynote by Louis Chude-Sokei, Professor of English, the Wein Chair and Director of African American and Black Diaspora Studies at Boston University. 
Moderators
AG

Adom Getachew

Political Scientist & Curator
Speakers
avatar for Louis Chude-Sokei

Louis Chude-Sokei

Boston University
Louis Chude-Sokei is Professor of English, the Wein Chair and Director of African American and Black Diaspora Studies at Boston University. Books include The Last Darky: Bert Williams, Black on Black Minstrelsy and the African Diaspora, The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black... Read More →
Wednesday March 5, 2025 4:05pm - 4:55pm MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave

5:00pm MST

Closing Remarks
Wednesday March 5, 2025 5:00pm - 5:05pm MST
Speakers
AG

Adom Getachew

Political Scientist & Curator

Wednesday March 5, 2025 5:00pm - 5:05pm MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave
 
Thursday, March 6
 

3:30pm MST

Curatorial Tour: All Panafrica Shows
Thursday March 6, 2025 3:30pm - 5:00pm MST
Speakers
AG

Adom Getachew

Political Scientist & Curator
avatar for Antawan Byrd

Antawan Byrd

Art Historian & Curator

Thursday March 6, 2025 3:30pm - 5:00pm MST
Photography & Media Galleries 1-4 - Art Institute of Chicago

6:00pm MST

Artist Talk: Wangechi Mutu
Thursday March 6, 2025 6:00pm - 7:00pm MST
Internationally renowned for her sculptures, paintings, films, installations, and collages, Wangechi Mutu’s practice examines the very idea of human representation—both how we see and evoke what we believe we are, and how we see and evoke those we understand as outside of ourselves. Her experiments rendering hybrid female creatures and vivid dystopian dreamscapes investigate how our value systems, artistic or otherwise, obscure or uplift our images and reflections.

Join the artist for a talk on her work in Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica and her broader practice.

To register, please click here
Speakers
WM

Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu is a Kenyan American artist. Mutu has participated in several major solo exhibitions in institutions worldwide, most recently, Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined at both the New Museum and New Orleans Museum of Art; Thinking Historically in the Present at the Sharjah Biennial; Wangechi... Read More →

Thursday March 6, 2025 6:00pm - 7:00pm MST
Fullerton Hall - Art Institute of Chicago 111 S Michigan Ave
 
Friday, March 7
 

12:00pm MST

Library Tour: Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies
Friday March 7, 2025 12:00pm - 2:00pm MST
Established in 1954, the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University is the largest separate Africana collection in existence. Its scope is as wide as the continent of Africa itself; its subject matter ranges from art, history, literature, music, science, technology and religion to communications, engineering, management and cooking. The Africana collection is a resource for the entire university, and most of Northwestern's disciplinary programs are reflected in the collection. In addition to serving the NU community, the Herskovits Library also serves regional, national and international scholars.


For tickets, please click here.
Moderators
avatar for Antawan Byrd

Antawan Byrd

Art Historian & Curator

Friday March 7, 2025 12:00pm - 2:00pm MST
Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies

2:00pm MST

From Panther to Panther: Legacies of Resistance
Friday March 7, 2025 2:00pm - 5:00pm MST

On May 28, 2022, a historic conference took place outside Mumbai, India. The meeting brought
together leaders of the Black Panther Party and the Dalit Panthers, on the 50th anniversary of
the revolutionary group’s founding, which aimed to abolish caste-based discrimination in India.
This event symbolically and concretely solidified a connection uniting the anti-caste and anti-
racism movements, advocating for liberation that traverses borders.


Chicago-based SpaceShift Collective invites you to a multidisciplinary program, which explores
the profound influence of the Black Panther Party on the Dalit Panthers through story, sound,
performance, artmaking, and conversation. Featuring contemporary artists, activists, and
scholars who will reflect, through their own practices, on the global solidarity of oppressed
communities, “From Panther to Panther” underscores the cultural and ideological cross-
pollination between the two movements.


Together, we will expand our understanding of how the Black Panther Party’s advocacy for
Black empowerment, self-defense, and social justice resonated with the Dalit Panthers in their
own struggle for equality and dignity. We will pay tribute to these movements, whose legacies
continue to inspire the fight for transnational justice today.

For tickets, please click here.
















Speakers
SS

Shrujana Shridhar

Artist & Illustrator
DL

Damon Locks

Visual Artist, Musician, Educator
Friday March 7, 2025 2:00pm - 5:00pm MST
PO Box Collective
  Discussions, Panel

5:00pm MST

Artist Talk: Betye Saar
Friday March 7, 2025 5:00pm - 7:00pm MST
This exhibition offers the first sustained look at a pivotal moment in Betye Saar’s career, when a visit to Chicago’s Field Museum in 1974 transformed the way she conceived of herself as an artist. A display of more than 60 objects—including a ceremonial robe from Cameroon, costumes and jewelry designed by Saar, drawings, photos, archival materials, and more—casts new light on the way Saar’s early career in costume design informed her pioneering work in assemblage and installation. Let’s Get It On is presented as part of a series of exhibitions and events linked to Panafrica: Histories, Aesthetics, Politics, a multi-year research project at the Neubauer Collegium that is exploring the connections between Pan-African politics and culture.

Exhibition curated by Dieter Roelstraete.
Text by the Neubauer Collegium.

Please click here for more information.
Speakers
Friday March 7, 2025 5:00pm - 7:00pm MST
Neubauer Collegium
  Receptions, Reception

5:00pm MST

Wakaliga Uganda
Friday March 7, 2025 5:00pm - 7:00pm MST
Established in 2005, the Kampala based film studio has developed a model that offers a counter-current to the dominant production paradigm, working with ultra-low budgets and community groups to produce action movies that present a refraction of the violent films coming out of Hollywood. At the Ren— the collective’s first wide-ranging exhibition in the US—they will present a new work, If Uganda Was America, alongside other recent films within a collaborative, customized installation.

Text by the Renaissance Society
For more information, please click here.
Speakers

Friday March 7, 2025 5:00pm - 7:00pm MST
The Renaissance Society
 
Saturday, March 8
 

10:00am MST

Moataz Nasr's The Maze
Saturday March 8, 2025 10:00am - 12:30pm MST
The Maze is a site-specific installation in which ancient Kufic calligraphy is written out on the ground in grass strips. In ancient Arabian cultures, Kufic calligraphy was often used to decorate the palaces of Caliphs and Sultans. The slogan—The People Want the Fall of the Regime—is repeated over and over as the maze is followed. These mazes are found in urban settings, where they are open to public use and interaction.
Moataz Nasr’s art goes beyond the idiosyncrasies and borders of geography, expressing the concerns and torments of the African continent. His work represents the different strands of Egyptian tradition and the nation’s everyday concerns, as well as the indifference, impotence, solitude and weakness inherent to human nature.

Text by Google Arts & Culture

Saturday March 8, 2025 10:00am - 12:30pm MST
Urban Growers Collective

1:00pm MST

Cosmo Whyte: The Mother's Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone
Saturday March 8, 2025 1:00pm - 2:00pm MST
In his first solo exhibition in Chicago, Los Angeles-based and Jamaican-born artist Cosmo Whyte situates the architectural archives of his late father as the structural ground for an intervention and interrogation into the spaces and forms of diasporic protest, spectacle, and witnessing. Presented by The Arts Club of Chicago, in The Mother’s Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone the artist reformulates photojournalistic images onto materials ranging from drawings to hand-painted beaded curtains and steel framings of unrealized structures. In so doing, Whyte poetically asks “what makes a witness? And what does it mean to have become one?”

Exhibition curated by Janine Mileaf, Executive Director and Chief Curator.
Text by the Arts Club of Chicago.
Click here for more information.

Saturday March 8, 2025 1:00pm - 2:00pm MST
Arts Club of Chicago

1:00pm MST

Jo Ractliffe & Yona-mine in Conversation
Saturday March 8, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm MST
Speakers
Saturday March 8, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm MST
Hyde Park Arts Center

2:00pm MST

The Man Died: Screening and Q&A with Awam Amkpa
Saturday March 8, 2025 2:00pm - 4:00pm MST
Adapted from the searing prison memoir of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, The Man Died is a profound meditation on resistance, resilience, and the indomitable human spirit. Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s civil war, the film traces Soyinka’s imprisonment without trial under a repressive military regime intent on silencing dissent. In the isolation of solitary confinement, subjected to deprivation and brutality, Soyinka’s defiance only deepens.

Interwoven with reflections on his life as a writer and activist, the film reveals the intellectual and moral fortitude that sustains his struggle. Through clandestine writings—fragments of thought smuggled beyond prison walls—Soyinka transforms personal suffering into a powerful testament against oppression.

More than a chronicle of political persecution, The Man Died speaks to the universal necessity of bearing witness. It is a call to confront tyranny with unwavering truth, a reminder that silence is complicity, and that the pursuit of justice endures beyond confinement.

Join us for a special screening of The Man Died as we explore the power of art, activism, and the written word in the fight for justice.

For tickets and more, please click here.
Speakers
avatar for Awam Amkpa

Awam Amkpa

Filmmaker

Saturday March 8, 2025 2:00pm - 4:00pm MST
Black Arts Consortium

3:00pm MST

Yná Kabe Rodríguez
Saturday March 8, 2025 3:00pm - 5:00pm MST
Speakers
DD

Danny Dunson

Creative Director
Saturday March 8, 2025 3:00pm - 5:00pm MST
Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Black History Museum

5:00pm MST

Mwangi Hutter: You Begin to See the Signs
Saturday March 8, 2025 5:00pm - 7:00pm MST
Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to share the upcoming exhibition in Chicago by artist duo Mwangi Hutter, entitled You Begin to See the Signs. The show will be on view from March 4 to April 16, 2025, and will mark the artists' third solo exhibition with the gallery and first in Chicago.

The exhibition will be on view in tandem with the group exhibition Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica at the Art Institute Chicago, which includes Static Drift (2001), part of the museum's permanent collection.

Click here for more information.

Speakers

Saturday March 8, 2025 5:00pm - 7:00pm MST
Mariane Ibrahim Gallery

8:00pm MST

Johnny Dyani tribute with Ntone Edjabe
Saturday March 8, 2025 8:00pm - 10:00pm MST

South African musician Johnny “Mbizo” Dyani relentlessly sought freedom for over two decades. From the day he jumped on a stage in South Africa to jam on a borrowed bass with Chris McGregor’s Blue Notes, then exiled in Europe, and next through dozens of boundary-breaking collaborations, Dyani’s mission was to set the music free. Refusing to bow to apartheid and colonialism, Dyani was "jumping a bass-line like humping a landmine" (Lesego Rampolokeng). Join us as the South African-based Chimurenga presents a performance of Dyani’s music, the sound of "Panafrica,” co-conducted by two of Chicago's favorite musical sons, Adam Zanolini and Ben Lamar Gay.

Purchase tickets with our partners at Constellation here.




Speakers
Saturday March 8, 2025 8:00pm - 10:00pm MST
Constellation
  Presentations, Concert
 
Panafrica Days
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