To ‘emerge from the great night’ (Achille Mbembé), we offer here a kaleidoscope of little-known utopias, a reassembly of unique experiences and visions that Africa, or rather Africans and their diasporas, invent every day, overcoming all the clichés and binarities inherited from the colonial era: tradition and modernity, urban and rural, religious and rational, West and Third World… We believe that it is here, in Africa, that solutions for a fairer and more appetising future are to be found.
Who said artists are idealists? Don’t we need them to glimpse the richness of the world? They change the way we look at things, they challenge our preconceptions. Here, the photographs show bodies traversed by multiple spiritualities, bodies in love with the music and gestures that free the women and men of today from their pain. The form accompanies the subject being photographed, and the techniques used free themselves from the diktat of sharpness, highlighting blur, movement and night. A profound humanity emerges. Flashes of light wake us from our torpor, and eyes look back at us. Each artist has approached the Other as a friend who reveals us to ourselves.
This collection celebrates the spirit of this unique festival in the Congo. For Kokutan’art is the art of being together in the diversity of powerful imaginations that will shape the world of tomorrow. With this 2025 edition, entitled Afrotopiques, we’ll be re-imagining what’s possible thanks to the invaluable and piercing insights of photographers from three continents. Let’s pay close attention to what the images are telling us, and maybe we’ll be able to detect a new dawn in the vibrant colours and charcoal blacks.
Elise Billiard Pisani
Curator of the Kokutan’art Festival
Festival officially opens on 6 May and closes on 6 June 2025
OPENING WEEK
6th to 10th May
TUESDAY 06 MAY
17H00: Entertainment in front of the IFC
18H00 : Opening of the photo exhibition / IFC Hall
18H30 : Opening show in the Savorgnan room / IFC
WEDNESDAY 07 MAY
12.00: Discussion: Contextualising, interpreting and talking about your work?
Moderated by Franchesca Bel, visual artist, art critic, director of the Arts et mondes association and head of the consultancy department at the Maison des Artistes in Paris.
Moderated by Wences Mouandzibi, Journalist
Venue: Institut français du Congo / Salle André Gide
2.00 pm: Professional meetings with Léonard Pongo, Photographer (Belgium – DRC) and Arsène Mpiana (Photographer (DRC))
Venue: Institut français du Congo / Salle André Gide
5.00 pm: Cultural events
6.00 pm: Opening of exhibition II
Venue: Centre d’Art contemporain Les Ateliers SAHM
THURSDAY 08 MAY
10H00: Cultural events
11H00: Opening of exhibition III
Venue: Faculty of Letters, Arts and Human Sciences, Marien Ngouabi University
12.00 pm: Discussions: Territory of the Imaginary: New narratives from Africa.
Moderated by Remy Mongo-Etsion, Metteur en tête, Metteur en fête and sculptor (Congo); Elise Billiard Pisani (France), curator, artist, anthropologist and lecturer at the University of Malta; Fann Attiki (Congo), novelist-slammer.
Moderated by : Paule Sara Nguie, Founder and Coordinator Human Empress
Venue: Faculté des Lettres, Arts et Sciences Humaines, Université Marien Ngouabi
2.00 pm: Discussions: Afrotopics – Re-imagining the possible
Hosted by Les Têtes Brûlées (Congo)
Moderated by Christevie Moukengue (Congo), journalist
Venue: Faculté des Lettres, Arts et Sciences humaines (FLASH), Université Marien Ngouabi.
SATURDAY 10 MAY
10.00am: City tour: visit to the heritage of Brazzaville
6.00 pm: Closing ceremony
Venue: Institut français du Congo
Information
Institut français du Congo
BP 2141, N1, Brazzaville, Congo-Brazzaville
May 06, 2025 to June 05, 2025
