This is a past event.
Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe
Mobility and circulation are crucial experiences in the contemporary world - experiences that make us encounter the other, that allow us to embrace difference, to open up to other ways of world making, that demand the full exercise of empathy and responsiveness. Nevertheless, the history of world mobility is also a history of inclusions and exclusions, boundaries and frontiers – geographical, social, economic and cultural. To overcome this dichotomy and open up the world we share together demands path-breaking thoughts. For a world without borders is the subject of Achille Mbembe’s talk.
Achille Mbembe (Cameroon, 1957) is a research professor in history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (South Africa) as well as at Harvard University's W.E.B. Dubois Research Institute. He holds a PhD in history from the Université de Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne and a DEA in politics from the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris. He teached at Berkeley, Columbia and Yale University, among others, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1996 to 2000, he was the executive director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa in Dakar (Senegal). In this same city he co-created, in 2016, Les Ateliers de la Pensée, a vital space of debate and encounter amongst thinkers, artists and academicians from and about Africa.
A leading historian, philosopher and political theorist who is being working extensively on postcolonial theory and African Politics, he has published extensively in fields as diverse as African history, politics and aesthetics, and critical theory. Some of his important books are: On the Postcolony, Critique of Black Reason and Politiques de l’inimitié. Mbembe holds the 2015 Geschwister Scholl Preis and in 2018 was awarded with the Ernest Bloch and Gerda Henkel Prizes.
09 OCT 2018
TUE 18:30
Free entry*
Duration 2h
* Free entry (subject to availability) tickets available on the day from 6pm at the ticket-office
In english
25th Anniversary of Culturgest
Culturgest begins its season in October, 25 years after its inauguration. Over all these years, Culturgest has played a significant role in developing the artistic fabric that characterises the city of Lisbon. It has accompanied the work of directors and choreographers, producing new creations and presenting them to an ever-growing audience; it has commissioned works from visual artists, organising individual and group exhibitions; it has presented musical concerts, from fado to jazz, from world music to erudite music; and all this has been done with a keen eye on the developments taking place both nationally and internationally. Over all these years, Culturgest has complemented and accompanied this artistic programme with a parallel programming of conferences and debates and a wide range of workshops, guided visits, meetings and shows for schools and families.
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Culturgest will be presenting a programme with some of the leading names from the world of contemporary creation and thought. The festivities begin with the European première of the Konoyo concert performed by the Canadian musician Tim Hecker, accompanied by the Gagaku Music Ensemble from Japan, and will continue with the delightful Bal Moderne, which will be returning to Culturgest ten years after it first presence. For a World without Frontiers is the title of the lecture that will be presented by the Cameroonian thinker Achille Mbembe, in one of the most lucid and influential analyses of today’s post-colonial and multicentric world. His ideas will be echoed by the work of the French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, who are presenting his first solo exhibition in Portugal at Culturgest. In parallel to this, Culturgest will present the work of the Venezuelan artist Juan Araujo, who is resident in Lisbon. One of the high spots of the programme that marks Culturgest’s 25th anniversary will undoubtedly be The Six Brandenburg Concertos, the greatest choreography ever undertaken by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, performed by eighteen dancers from the Rosas company and the baroque music ensemble B’Rock, who will perform J.S. Bach’s masterpiece. And to round everything off, two participatory projects: the Curators’ Collective, a group of Caixa Geral de Depósitos collaborators, will conceive and present an exhibition based on the CGD’s collection of contemporary art, with the help of the curator Filipa Oliveira; in a second project Culturgest will invite organisations, schools and local associations to create and maintain 25 green spaces in the area surrounding the CGD’s building.
