About the project

AFROTOPIE.online is an extended, interactive version of the main exhibition of the 21^st edition of Krakow Photomonth (July – August 2024) – the first such comprehensive presentation of contemporary art from Sub-Saharan Africa in Poland, involving eighteen artists representing over a dozen cultures and countries of this large and still insufficiently known region of the world.

The typical visual associations with Africa range between an exotic land and a cursed place, doomed to wars and famine that can only be prevented by the intervention of the Global North. The project ‘Afrotopias’ breaks these stereotypes, proves that ‘Africa is not a country,’ and shows that the challenges faced by the countries in the region are no different from those faced by the rest of the world. The curatorial team – Amy Muhoro (Kenya), Malaika Nabilla (Togo), and Witek Orski (Poland) – invited almost twenty artists to participate in the project. They address such universal problems as the evolution of visual sensitivity, attitudes toward their own customs and cultural practices, the difficulties of forming and shaping gender identity in traditional societies, the paradoxes of contemporary capitalism, and the relationship with nature in the face of climate catastrophe. In the online edition, the curatorial team was joined by Oliwia Bosomtwe.

The virtual version of the project serves as a knowledge base that consists of numerous contextualizing materials, including recordings of meetings with artists, curatorial tours, articles presenting selected problems from the region’s history as well as its contemporary aspects, Afro-Polish relations, and interviews with leading experts in the field from Poland and abroad.

We invite you to take a walk through a number of rooms within Afrotopias.

Credits:

Originators: Tomasz Gutkowski, Witek Orski

Curatorial team: Oliwia Bosomtwe, Malaika Nabila, Amy N. Muhoro, Witek Orski

Website design and programming: Michał Szota

Typography design of Afrotopias: Kiboko Kamau, Pilar Rojo

Video production and editing: Aleksander Hordziej

Polish text editing and proofreading: Maria Gustowska

Translation: Aleksandra Szymczyk

Coordination: Joanna Gorlach

PR services: Agata Maziarz

Fundraising: Tomasz Gutkowski

Legal services: Art & Law Karolina Wojciechowska

Licenses and copyrights

The Foundation for Visual Arts based in Krakow has made every effort to determine the copyright status of the works distributed on the website AFROTOPIE.online .

If we have unintentionally overlooked any artist or creative in our query, please report the omission to us at: fundacja@sztukawizualna.org.

sztukawizualna.org