“There has been a long-standing interest in African artistic expression, but it has been confined to traditional art,” says Olivier Chow, founder of the Lausanne-based gallery Foreign Agent, which specializes in contemporary African art. “As with Chinese art in the 1990s, platforms like 1-54 Art Fair and various museum exhibitions have pushed this trend. And movements like Black Lives Matter have led to greater diversity, representation and inclusion for black artists and other groups marginalized by the art world.”

Trevyn McGowan, co-founder of Southern Guild, a Cape Town gallery that has been promoting African artists to mainstream Western circles for years, adds: “The art world in Europe and the United States needs to learn from ‘other’ voices and listen to them.

These artists have something important to say, they use materials in completely new ways, they come up with techniques of their own making, they challenge and disrupt them.

Many of the artists we represent such as Madoda Fani, Rich Mnisi and Zizipho Poswa use their work as a channel to explore, unearth and preserve traditional forms of knowledge and spirituality, ancient cosmologies and mythologies and to celebrate the beauty of objects and craft forms that have been passed down for generations.”

More vertical is the Interlude Rwanda project (until October 25), curated by Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompt and with Bonita Mutoni and Cristina Romelli Gervasoni, aimed at promoting, through installations in three symbolic buildings throughout Rwanda, the liveliness of the local art scene at a time when the country stands out for stability and economic growth.

“The exhibition is the result of a mentoring program over a year and a half in which we created over a hundred works with ten local artists. All the projects have a connection to the territory and the history of the nation. For example, Medard Bizimana, a sculptor from the north of the country, works volcanic stone into site-specific objects for the king’s kitchens and pantries.

In Rwanda, the common thread among artists is the need to reread their own history through techniques or methods rooted in the territory but seeking very personal signs.

After the genocide of thirty years ago, which we also wanted to show here so as not to forget, there is a need to reconnect an interrupted history.

More generally, the flourishing of the expression of the so-called "global south" arises from the need to free themselves from the colonial past, which is still present in many of these countries, to give voice to these emerging economies".

London-based designer Simone Brewster clarifies an important aspect of the phenomenon: “Diversity has been something that has been discussed in the design sphere for many years and the growing awareness we are seeing is largely driven by designers of color.”

Brewster’s work, in fact, underpins the desire to represent an African and not Western cultural expression within design, precisely in response to an ongoing lack of representation.

“Creatives of color,” Brewster continues, “are centered on their heritage in an authentic way. And the interest that is being seen is due to the high quality of the work and, hopefully, a willingness to embrace a wider range of inspirations, stories and aesthetic principles. Acknowledging the existence of an African diaspora means admitting that there is not just one history or one culture. The more I dig, the more I realize how fascinating this is and how much there is still to learn from Africa, to draw inspiration from.”

The artistic and design approach of African creatives highlights alternative ways of responding to existential questions or instances common to the entire Planet, such as the ecological one. “I like the way artists like Hamed Ouattara and Bibi Seck recycle,” Chow continues.

“Recycling is now a global issue but in the African continent it has been practiced for a long time due to the difficulty in sourcing materials. For many local artists it is a warning about the state of the world and the waste we produce, often exported from the West to Africa.” And McGowan adds: “There is a tangible sense of the manipulation and presence of the human body in the work of many, along with the reaching of other spiritual realms and the commitment to personal and collective action.

Cheick Diallo reshapes scrap metal, fishing rope and leather scraps using West African artisanal techniques, while Andile Dyalvane dances with clay as she coils it and invokes her Xhosa ancestors. Many of the artists we represent imagine new paths that honor tradition and define an expanded sense of self where the complexity of past, present and future can flourish.”