A continent. A diaspora.
A conversation.
OPENING THE JOURNAL
Loading content…Selected source-grounded coverage. Source dates are shown on each story; the edition date is a curation date in Africa/Accra.
Kinshasa’s Best Talent Visuel competition will use drawing, photography, graphic design and video to explore the capital under the theme “Kin la Belle”. Organiser Platini Ndaka told ACP that the November 2 edition aims to foreground cultural heritage, local talent and everyday initiatives, encouraging artists to tell more varied stories about the city.
ART AFRICA reports that Ibrahim Mahama’s The Harvest Season at Fondation Cartier in Paris will connect installations and archival materials with contributions from nine artists and collectives. Drawing on Ghana’s colonial and postcolonial histories, the exhibition examines labour, industrial heritage and collective memory. Contributors include James Barnor, Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, Gideon Appah, Zohra Opoku and the Congolese collective CATPC, extending the collaborative approach of Mahama’s cultural institutions in Tamale.
Two bronze sculptures by Alfred Liyolo at the Congolese press agency’s Kinshasa headquarters are receiving renewed attention after a visit by his daughter, Myoto Liyolo. ACP’s account recalls their installation in 1975 and considers their place in the agency’s history, connecting the sculptor’s monumental practice with the preservation of institutional cultural heritage.
Egyptian artist Rafik Greiss’s The City and the City at Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art combines a newly commissioned film with black-and-white photographs. ART AFRICA describes figures waiting in desert landscapes, accompanied by a score from musician 7038634357. Curated by Emma Enderby and Liberty Adrien, the exhibition considers anticipation, perception and the instability of memory through images that resist a fixed historical or geographical reading.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s visual artists’ union and Belgium’s Stanley’s Auctions have announced talks towards a strategic partnership. According to a communiqué reported by ACP, discussions will address artwork traceability, authentication, contracts and artists’ rights. The proposed framework also seeks to protect artists’ market standing and strengthen safeguards for Congolese cultural heritage.
The Photographers’ Gallery in London presents Colour Years, an exhibition of Sanlé Sory’s colour photographs from Burkina Faso. ART AFRICA reports that the Burkinabé photographer began experimenting with colour in the mid-1980s at his Volta Photo studio in Bobo-Dioulasso. Curated by Taous Dahmani, the presentation includes restored prints and Volta Jazz record covers, examining portraiture, self-representation and everyday life after independence.
Intermittent Islands at New York’s Katonah Museum of Art brings together Belkis Ayón, Yanira Collado, Marielle Plaisir and Lisa C Soto. ART AFRICA describes an exhibition connecting Caribbean displacement and cultural memory through printmaking, textiles, found materials and installation. Ayón draws on Afro-Cuban spiritual traditions, while Plaisir examines race and power; their works connect personal experience with wider histories of identity and belonging.
Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam announced a survey of South African artist Moshekwa Langa spanning work made between 1995 and 2026. Curated by Gabi Ngcobo and Kabelo Malatsie, You Will Find Us in the Best Places will bring together nearly 120 works across drawing, collage, photography, video and installation. ART AFRICA describes a presentation organized around recurring memories, places and questions of belonging rather than a strict chronology.
Swaline Mkhonto and Zovuyo Pendu’s Site Forming brings together printmaking, installation and figurative painting at Johannesburg’s Bag Factory Artists’ Studios. ART AFRICA describes the exhibition as the culmination of their 2025/2026 Young Womxn Studio Bursary. Mkhonto explores bodily memory and fragmented space, while Pendu examines faith and the unconscious. The presentation includes curatorial input from Penina Chalumbira and collaboration with members of the Letsema collective.
Olivier Barlet examines how Jacques Panijel’s Octobre à Paris and Yasmina Adi’s Ici on noie les Algériens approach the repression of Algerian demonstrators in Paris. His review considers testimony, language, reconstruction and archival images. The films feature in an Algerian cinema programme in Paris, while Panijel’s documentary returns to French cinemas on October 21.