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Title Afrika - Spirende Moderniteter
Full text http://rudar.ruc.dk/handle/1800/27008
Date 2015
Author(s) Schelde, Emma Kirstine; Bramsen, Marie Helene; van den Pol, Marieke Martine; Knarberg, Thea Aaboe; Thomsen, Emmily Steen; Sørensen, Emilie Skovgaard; Jansen, Lars Hedemann
Contributor(s) Jensen, Lars
Abstract In this project we will go in depth with selected artworks from the exhibition 'Africa ' Architecture, culture and identity' at Louisiana Art Museum, with the purpose of answering the following problem definition: How can we understand selected artworks from the exhibition 'Africa' at Louisiana Art Museum from an African point of view? A similarity in the exhibition and our selected art pieces is that it clashes with our understanding of Africa. That is why we have felt the need to engage with this subject. To achieve an analytic position, that opens up a new understanding of the continent, we have been using two theorists: Our starting point is the Cameroonian theoretic Achille Mbembe's theory of how emerging modernities is achieved in Africa. This way Mbembe becomes our African point of view. His goal is to gain an African worldliness, called afropolitanism, by the ability of imagination. We have used the constructionist approach and theories of representation by postcolonial theoretic Stuart Hall, to step out of our unconscious conceptual maps. By doing that, it gets easier to understand another culture and by that, break down our constructed stereotypes. We have explained these theories, the postcolonial foundation on which they are built and how we use them in chapters of scientific theory and method. By doing this, we have created a groundwork that we can base our analysis of the selected artworks on. The three artworks we have chosen to analyze, challenge our views on Africa in three different ways and they all reflect Mbembe's theory. The three pieces have been analyzed separately, before being discussed and compared in a summary. We have focused on how the artworks reflect Mbembe's thoughts of a modern Africa and a use of art as a way of renewing the language, and by that, the story of Africa. This leads to a perspective discussion of our issue, followed by a discussion of our use of methods. By the end we are concluding, through Hall's method, that it is necessary to take a subject position outside our usual conceptual map, because it helps us understand the artworks in a different cultural context. We are doing this with the use of Mbembe's theory of how the modern Africa has to be its own centre in the world.
Subject(s) Afrika; Moderne
Language da_DK
Type of publication Thesis; Humanistisk basisuddannelse (HAB)
Repository Roskilde - Roskilde University Digital Archive (RUDAR)
Added to C-A: 2016-04-26;08:58:18