Curating the Africa-Asia ConFest with Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy, Chương-Đài Võ, and Fábio Baqueiro Figueiredo

This episode of the podcast is a special discussion connected to our upcoming event, Africa–Asia: A New Axis of Knowledge, which will take place in Dakar from June 11-14. Because not everyone will be able to join us in person, we thought it would be meaningful to bring you some of the conversations and ideas that have inspired this third edition of the event – previously held in Ghana (2015) and Tanzania (2018). In anticipation of the event, Laura Erber speaks with three guests about the Conference-Festival model and some of the key themes and ideas that inspire it. In different ways, each of the three guests approach their work in a way that embodies the transregional and culturally engaged dimensions of the event. First, Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy is Director of Programs at RAW Material Company in Dakar. Second, Chương-Đài Võ is an independent curator and professor at the École Supérieure d’Art in Paris-Cergy, and she is also the lead curator of the ConFest artistic program. Finally, Fabio Baqueiro Figueiredo is an historian and professor at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador, Brazil. Together, they have an interdisciplinary conversation about festivals, conferences, and cultural events rooted in the Global South – especially those inspired by the idea of non-alignment. We’ll look at historical milestones like the 1955 Bandung Conference and FESTAC 77, as well as more recent initiatives, to reflect on how such gatherings create space for cultural, political, and social expression outside dominant power structures – and what kind of genuine alternatives they might offer today in different contexts.