Our official founding year of 1996 is upon us for today's #ThrowbackThursday!
The photo treasures show memories of the "Sura za Afrika" festival, whose success with around 200,000 participants* led to the founding of kulturen in bewegung. The first all-Austrian Africa festival with its own office, its own organizing team and an extraordinary budget. Some ministries were persuaded to contribute and Ö1 created its own focus. That was something special!
To be seen on the photos: The press conference for the adoption of the Vienna Memorandum with Heinz Fischer (!) and Lucia Omondi, Les Ballets des danses africaines Senegal, our stage at the Rathausplatz and impressions from the African market.
We also scoured half the office for the exhibition catalog on "The Other Journey - Africa and the Diaspora" and chose a work by Frantz Lamothe as an example. The controversial exhibition at Kunsthalle Krems was the first of its kind in Austria on contemporary art from Africa. The question came from a museum director in Vienna and some journalists*: "Is there contemporary art in Africa?". Since then, the cultural scene in this country has learned a lot!
Art and culture from the Global South became a fixed program at VIDC and since then there have been hundreds of cultural events. We hope that many more projects will follow.
1996 was so rich in photos that we will be able to show you more Sura za Africa snapshots next week!