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Listen: African Cosmologies

POSTED: 04 February 2021

Lose yourself (or, perhaps, find yourself) in this playlist curated by Autograph’s Director Mark Sealy

"Africa is everywhere, isn't it? I want to elevate our way of thinking, from geography, to cosmology."

- Mark Sealy

Meet the challenge laid down by legendary jazz composer Sun Ra and knock at the door to the cosmos with this playlist compiled by Autograph’s Director, Mark Sealy, to accompany the critically-acclaimed exhibition African Cosmologies: Photography, Time and the Other.

Curated by Sealy for FotoFest International Biennial 2020, the exhibition features the photographic works of over 30 artists from across the continent and its diaspora and utilises improvisational jazz as a lens through which the notion of ‘African’ can be liberated from colonial frameworks and their fixed interpretation of geography.

FIND OUT MORE

To further immerse yourself, purchase the African Cosmologies book, published in conjunction with the exhibition.

Mark Sealy highlights eight artworks included in the exhibition for the British Journal of Photography.

Read Andrew Hibbard's review of African Cosmologies for Frieze.

Read an interview with Sealy, expanding on the influence of improvisational jazz on his framing of African Cosmologies.

Images, from top: 1) Aïda Muluneh, Access [detail], Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From the series Water Life, 2018. Courtesy of Aïda Muluneh and Water Aid