Culturescapes 2023 Sahara, a volcano of artistic works and experiences, is over after eight weeks of diverse exhibitions, performances, concerts, readings, and conversations. In this festival edition, we looked together into questions of borders, resilience, and possible sustainable futures.
Thank you for being with us in Basel, Bern, Zug, Bellinzona, Chur, Lausanne, Zürich, Baden, Dornach, as well as Bielefeld, Mulhouse, Dresden, Kortrijk, Valencienes, and Roubaix! We believe that art happens only when people come to experience it. And you did!
We had an honor to work with 129 artists, who created 127 events at 39 partner institutions and brought together some 42,000 visitors.
Let us share a few impressions with you:
“I would like to refer to the Culturescapes 2023 Sahara as an [innocent temptation] that provoked and challenged curiosities to explore alternative possibilities in telling my own stories and to create such a vulnerable space in my performance for others to experience those urges for solidarity, empathy and love,” said Va-Bene Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT), a multidisciplinary performance artist from Ghana, who was a resident at the Atelier Mondial and performed at the Master Symposium at Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW and at Dampfzentrale Bern.
“I sincerely appreciated the positioning of visual art with other creative forms of expression, from dance to music, to theater and creative lectures. It was my first opportunity to showcase multiple pillars of my practice—a physical playground, drawings, works on paper, an installation, and a musical instrument simultaneously. It has forever changed my artistic practice, especially the performance of my instrument, held in collaboration with Sonic Space Basel,” wrote Temitayo Ogunbiyi, an artist from Nigeria, who has an exhibition You will follow the Rhein and compose play, which is still open at the Museum Tinguely until January 14, 2024.
Yarri Kamara, writer, translator, and the festival’s Artistic Advisory Board member said: “I particularly appreciated the face-to-face connections with people from other parts of the Sahara; the festival offers a learning experience for Basel residents, but also one for those who partake in the festival. In addition to learning about Basel, it was great to learn about the differing contexts and cultures within the Sahara through talking with participants from Algeria, Ghana, Mali/Haiti, Senegal, Western Sahara.”
The Culturescapes program is finished. However, not everything is over!
“The Drummers and Their Drumbeats”—ten video portraits of participating artists done by Anita Afonu, an award-winning Ghanaian documentary film director—are waiting for you. Check out our YouTube channel. The recording of “Shores of Sahara-Sahel: Waves, Forms, Futures,” the Master Symposium at Institut Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW in collaboration with Culturescapes, is here for you to watch.
The festival’s anthology Sahara: A Thousand Paths Into the Future is also available! Co-editors Kateryna Botanova, Yarri Kamara, and Quinn Latimer put together a fascinating book with essays, poems, visual stories, and more. It features such important voices as Achille Mbembe, Ben Okri, Amy Niang, Hindatou Oumarou Ibrahim, Felwine Sarr, and many others. Get your copy in Basel—at the Museum Tinguely, Kunsthalle Basel, Bider and Tanner, or CIVIC. Or order online!
Our online Magazine saved some eye-opening stories about the climate activism in the Sahara-Sahel, the role of festivals in times of crisis, and artistic mission as seen from the Western Africa. Read them here.
Now, the Culturescapes will take a break we dreamed about! But we don’t disappear. All the stories about travels, research, encounters, and upcoming program for 2025—on our Instagram!
Stay tuned and see you in 2025!
Photo: Serge Aimé Coulibaly & Faso Danse Théâtre. C La Vie. Opening Culturescapes 2023 Sahara. By Matthew Lee.
