We talk to Afua Hirsch about her BBC series exploring African art, music and culture
“I’ve spent enough time in Africa to know that if you go anywhere you tear up the rulebook, what’s going to happen is what’s going to happen, but that is the joy and the magic of it,” Afua Hirsch says with a laugh. The journalist and broadcaster is reflecting on African Renaissance, her new BBC series exploring the diverse creative scenes in Senegal, Kenya and Ethiopia and tracing how artists have responded as history accelerates and changes around them.
In the three-part series she discovers how Dakar’s hip hop, dance and fashion scene has ever fed off historic power struggles and culture clashes and hears from choreographer Germaine Acogny and rapper Didier Awadi. She meets painter Dennis Muraguri, whose series of Nairobi’s matatu minibuses have become as much an image of the city as the landscape itself. And she discusses the epic painting renowned artist Eshetu Tiruneh created in response to Ethiopia’s 1974 famine – an image that puts a very different spin on the usually tired charity-case narrative.
“I’m really interested in negritude and pan-Africanism, and the innovation of the thinkers of that era, and how it shapes so much of our identity today,” explains Hirsch, who is also author of Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging and long-time columnist for The Guardian.
But the series is also driven by her enduring personal obsession: “My walls are covered in African art. I have Ghanaian heritage so I spend a lot of time in Ghana – there are some amazing painters coming out of there right now,” she adds. “Congolese painter Chéri Samba is really exciting, and there are so many ‘superstar’ artists in Nigeria that are commanding huge prices at Bonhams. But you will also see work that belongs on a world stage from artists you’ve never heard of.”
“I’m really interested in negritude and pan-Africanism and how it shapes so much of our identity today”
These contemporary artists often reveal an indelible connection to politics and power. In one episode, discussing the new wave of Chinese investment in Kenya, painter Michael Soi comments wryly, “As an artist, I think the time for painting beautiful flowers is over.” In another, she meets celebrated Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh whose recent work addresses how climate change affects women in rural communities across Africa [see our story with Muluneh here].
“Life and art in African countries go hand in hand and this generation are also being very intentional about taking art out into the everyday,” Hirsch concludes. “It’s the opposite of elitist, an understanding that art is for everyone and it’s central to a rich life.” Tune in to see how the continent with the youngest population in the world – where six in 10 people are under 25 – is home to some of the most exciting creative voices in the world – and how its cultural renaissance continues to tear up the rule book in its own way.
African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power is airing now on BBC Four and iPlayer
Header image: First in the Heart is a Dream by Aïda Muluneh