The Asian-African Conference held in 1955 in the city of Bandung, Indonesia, can be considered a catalyst of already existing political and cultural affiliations. Stimulated by the Bandung moment, this Asian-African alliance had an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist rationale. Reanimating the so-called ‘third-way’ political imagination carried by the Bandung spirit, this collective research is driven by a poetics of correspondence, addressing cultural traditions while at the same time revealing translational experiences across Asia, Africa, and their diasporas.

Live roundtables will be held online and in English language every Thursday, bringing together scholars, curators, and artists to explore the political, artistic and cultural resonances of the Bandung Conference. 

Thursday, 4 November, 16h (CET)

Grace Samboh Arham Rahman
KARANGAN: Lampiran tentang pengelolaan, keramah-tamahan, dll (Appendices on organization, hospitality, and other things)

The National Archive of the Republic of Indonesia (ANRI) logged at least 565 photographic documents from the preparation up to the event. Oftentimes, these pictures are treated, read, and analyzed as evidence, visual — and therefore factual — proofs. Have we ever considered that the Asia-Africa Conference (1955) might be consciously constructed to be a myth? Through a selection of images, this presentation attempts to unpack the creation of what is now tagged as ‘the Bandung spirit’ through one particular aspect of the conference’s organizational side.

(Spoken in Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles)

Ntone Edjabe
Radio Freedom

On the radio broadcasting projects of liberation movements during the anticolonial stuggle: the African National Congress (ANC), the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) and more. On the city studios of Cairo, Accra, Conakry, Algiers, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka and more. On our attempt to map the circulation of ideas through these places, amidst regime changes and the shifty allegiances of the Cold War and Sino-Soviet conflict. On the nodes beyond the continent such as Delhi, Havana, East-Berlin, and of course, the surveillance centres of the West.

Sadie Woods
Songs of Liberation

Sadie Woods delves into the stories behind her forthcoming mixtape Songs of Liberation. This new work situates political speeches, music and sonic ephemera of the 1955 Afro-Asian Bandung Conference of African and Asian nations within liberation movements around the world, and most notably the American Civil Rights Movement. Shared themes of self-determination, national independence and sovereignty in struggles against colonialism, imperialism, apartheid and forced occupation are interwoven into an aural document and performed as a social intervention.

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