Opening of 2023 edition

Culturescapes 2023 Sahara, the 17th edition of the Swiss biennial, opens in Basel on October 1, 2023. This year, Culturescapes also celebrates its 20th anniversary.

By connecting the seas and oceans on the opposite sides of the continent, the Sahara used to be a network of pathways and travel routes, carrying and connecting peoples and cultures. Together with artists and curators from within and around the desert, Culturescapes wants to look into what Sahara means today.

The program of Culturescapes 2023 Sahara spans over two months, from October 1 to November 30, and brings together nearly 80 visual artists, performers, dancers, theater companies, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and thinkers to over 40 cultural venues in Basel, other cantons of Switzerland, as well as partner festivals in Belgium, Germany, and France.

C La Vie, the new performance by Serge Aimé Coulibaly & Faso Danse Théâtre, launches the opening days followed by the new works of Nolan Oswald Dennis at Kunsthalle Basel and Yasmine El Meleegy at For, Basel. Then Basel Colonial offers city tours focusing on Basel colonial entanglements, and Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW runs a two-day symposium Shores of Sahara-Sahel: Waves, Forms, Futures.

Culturescapes’ artists, who come from Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Sahara itself, develop a multilayered Saharan narrative that weaves around the topic of borders, resilience, and futures.

Is the Sahara a barrier, an impermeable border, a barren, hostile land? Or is it a habitat for various peoples and non-humans who made it their home, their travel route? Is the Sahara, cut with the straight lines of political borders drawn up by distant foreign rulers, a testimony to the colonial era, or a realm, where questioning these borders and their consequences, and calling to redraw them is possible?

For the peoples in the greater Sahara-Sahel region, resistance, struggle, and survival are a way of life. Violence and suffering are daily realities for many. But the vocabulary of the Global North has a complimentary word for it—resilience. A word tinted with the fascination of the imagined power of the distant powerless that blinds us to the actual price they must pay for it. What would non-resilient but livable lives in the Sahara look like?

Thinking of the Sahara and Africa in terms of a cultural revolution, rethinking power centers, humanistic revival, and free circulation of people and ideas is what connects all the different parts of the Culturescapes program as a multidimensional network with a tinge of utopia. But isn’t it a perfect time to stop being afraid of utopias? The Saharan space offers a possibility to imagine multiple plural non-linear futures for a more just and equal, caring, and humane world. As Senegalese philosopher Felwine Sarr writes, “From this day forward, as in the time of the first rising suns, Africa will once again become the spiritual lungs of the world.”

These many questions raised by Culturescapes 2023 Sahara also echo in the anthology Sahara: A Thousand Paths Into the Future, co-edited by Kateryna Botanova, Yarri Kamara, and Quinn Latimer, published by Sternberg Press. With contributions by Badi, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Binta Diaw, Rahima Gambo, Monique Ilboudo, Beaouda Lebdai, Achille Mbembe, Yara Mekawei, Amy Niang, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Felwine Sarr, Jonas Staal, and others.

Artists and participants
Ala Fekra, Ami Yerewolo, Anita Afonu, Asanda Ruda, Azu Tiwaline, Basel Colonial, Bassekou Kouyaté & Amy Sacko, Benaouda Lebdai, Bibata Ibrahim Maïga, Binta Diaw, Bouchra Ouizguen, Bruno Moll, Chus Martínez, Étienne Minoungou, Fatou Diome, Felwine Sarr, Henri-Michel Yéré, Kader Tarhanine, Keziah Jones, Kettly Noël, Mohamed Sleiman Labat, Mory Samb, Lionel Loueke, Nacer Khemir, Nadia Beugré, Nadia Owusu, Noël Nétonon Ndjékéry, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Phoenix Atala, Qudus Onikeku, Quinn Latimer, Radouan Mriziga, Rania Mamoun, Serge Aimé Coulibaly & Faso Danse Théâtre, Tchina Ndjidda, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT), Yara Mekawei, Yarri Kamara, Yasmine El Meleegy, and others.

Co-curated by Jurriaan Cooiman and Kateryna Botanova. For further questions or information, please contact the communication department at media [​at​] culturescapes.ch.