Welcome to the Afrocene

During the second talk in our Re_Generation series, Yoruba philosopher Dr Bayo Akomolafe will explore his concept of the Afrocene, and what it might offer for our attempts for regenerative tomorrows.

Text by Bayo Akomolafe in English original:

The Afrocene is the hidden public.

If the Anthropocene is the broken slave ship and its rituals of restoration, the Afrocene is the simmering, dimly illuminated, watery distance in the crack of the hull – a sensuous whisper, a goddess beckoning, a third path between the anorexic binary of accountability versus apathy. The gravity of things pulling the whole contraption down into depths. Into excess. The disruptive, anarranging shock to forward movement. An invitation to get lost. To become fish. To become water. To become animal. To shapeshift.

The slave must slither through the cracks in the binary. Through the shrouded path between accountability and apathy. He must zigzag away from capture, performing a refusal that is the very stuff of blackness. He must sniff out a line of flight away from the convergence of history, space-time, wood, longing, technology, gods, microbes, weathering conditions, and morality. Such is the stuff of the Afrocene.

We developed a programme focus on Re_Generation in collaboration with artist and philosopher Siegmar Zacharias. It aims to introduce and rehearse practices of regeneration. In the face of profound upheaval, resource depletion and endangered living conditions, we consider the future of artistic and social practice. What will be the foundations for a future community?

In this talk, Dr Bayo Akomolafe explores his concept of the Afrocene, and what it might offer for our attempts for regenerative tomorrows.