FESTAC ’77 (1977)

“Festac ’77, also known as the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (the first was in Dakar, 1966), was a major international festival held in Lagos, Nigeria, from 15 January 1977 to 12 February 1977. The month-long event celebrated African culture and showcased to the world African music, fine art, literature, drama, dance and religion. About 16,000 participants, representing 56 African nations and countries of the African Diaspora, performed at the event.

Artists who performed at the festival included Stevie Wonder from United States, Gilberto Gil from Brazil, Bembeya Jazz National from Guinea, Mighty Sparrow from Trinidad and Tobago, Les Ballets Africains, South African Miriam Makeba, and Franco Luambo Makiadi. At the time it was held, it was the largest pan-African gathering to ever take place.” (Wikipedia)

Publisher Africa Journal Limited, London, and International Festival Committee, Lagos, 1977
152 pages
via Abdul Alkalimat

Film documentary (UNESCO, 1977, 26 MB)
Commentary: Arthur Monroe (Black Scholar, 1977), Iris Kay (African Arts, 1977), J. Southern (Black Perspective in Music, 1977), Moyibi Amoda (book-length evaluation, 1978, 80 MB).

WorldCat

PDF (134 MB)

Related documents:
General Programme (25 MB)
General Colloquium Programme (7 MB)
Visitors Guide to the Festival (2 MB)
Spotlight (2 MB)
Additional documentation (ed. Abdul Alkalimat)

DOCUMNT, 1 (2017)

“Documnt is a hybrid magazine / theory journal / artists book / mixtape series started by Matt Arnold and Anne Lippert in 2015. It’s grown into an international community of artists, writers, musicians, DJs – with nodes of activity in Berlin, Vancouver, and New York. As an experiment in post-internet documentation, or different modes of handling, storing and perceiving digital/analog information, objects, networks and processes, we are motivated against individualist/competitive/quantitative-obsessed logic, toward the communal and emancipatory. These are vibrant times.”

Edited by Matt Arnold and Anne Lippert
Published in Spring 2017
118 pages

HTML
PDF (110 MB)

Alondra Nelson (ed.): Afrofuturism: A Special Issue of Social Text (2002)

The issue guest edited and introduced by Alondra Nelson explores futurist themes, sci-fi imagery, and technological innovation in African diasporic culture. Contributors approach this under-explored theme from a variety of angles: as a novel frame of reference for visual culture; as fiction of the near-future; as poetry; as new forms of black subjectivity; as new narratives about the digital revolution; and as the imagining of future directions in African diasporic studies. Alexander G. Weheliye rethinks the category of the posthuman. Ron Eglash historicizes the nerd, while Anna Everett shows how the African diaspora prefigures the Internet. Kali Tal explores the utopian vision of black militant near-future fiction, whose heir apparent, Nalo Hopkinson, is interviewed by Alondra Nelson. The esthetic possibilities of this project are evident in poetry by Tracie Morris, and the images of Tana Hargest and Fatimah Tuggar.

Social Text 71, Summer 2002
146 pages

Publisher

PDF (15 MB)