The Africa Center and African Export – Import Bank – Afreximbank, announces the upcoming launch of the Afreximbank Africa Diaspora Center (AADC), an initiative that will help in bridging the gap between Africans, both in Africa and the diaspora with the African continent.
The Afreximbank Africa Diaspora Center will serve as a link, connecting Africans and people of African descent to each other, allowing the flow of African centered information. This will allow individuals make better use of economic opportunities in Africa and the Diaspora. The official launch will take place at the 2024 Future Africa Forum on Monday, September 23rd 2024 from 4:30pm EST at the Africa Center at Aliko Dangote Hall, 1280 Fifth Avenue, New York.
The establishment of the AADC advances the Africa Center’s mission to enhance engagement with contemporary Africa by giving insight into the role of Africa as well as Africans in today’s world. The initiative also seeks to promote Afreximbank’s mission to ‘create a vibrant and significantly sizeable economic force that can front the challenges of now and build opportunities for Africans of tomorrow’. Through this collaboration, both organizations aim to facilitate individual and collective engagement with Africa in impactful and progressive ways.
Alongside the launch of AADC, the Africa Center will open the exhibition Points of Resonance: Contemporary Photography in Africa on September 18, 2024. The exhibition curated by Heba Farid and Zein Khalifa, founders of TINTERA gallery, and Sarah Sarofim – an independent curator and editor, based in Cairo, Egypt will bring together the work of twelve artists living and working in Africa and the Diaspora: Ibrahim Ahmed, Sammy Baloji, Fatoumata Diabaté, Nelly El Sharkawy, Maheder Haileselassie, Heba Khalifa, Seif Kousmate, Lebohang Kganye, Safaa Mazirh, Hashim Nasr, Nobukho Nqaba, and Dawit L. Petros. Using the language and tools of photography, these artists explore the effect of migration, colonialism and changing identities.
The 2024 Future Africa Forum will include a panel conversation, special remarks by invited guests, and a celebration of African fashion, complemented by live music and African cuisine. Points of Resonance will be free and open to the public for two months, presenting the fluid exchange of African and Diaspora cultural identities.