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The Africa Institute (GSU) is pleased to host Boukary Sawadogo, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, City University of New York who will explore the historical and contemporary significance of African animation in his talk titled, “African Tale of Animation” on Thursday, April 4, 2024 (10:00 am – 12:00 noon) at The Africa Institute – Auditorium (location map). The seminar is open to all; register to attend.
Recent animated media productions have brought global attention to animation in Africa. The Iwaju animated series was released this year to popular acclaim. Less than a year ago, the world of animation was swept by Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, an anthology of ten afro-futurist episodes featuring Africa’s talents in animation from several countries. Set in the neo-futuristic city of Lusaka, Zambia, around four secondary school superhero girls, Super Team 4 animated series was released by Netflix in 2023. The world is only now discovering African animation which has been steadily growing since the start of the twenty-first century, with the advent of digital technologies, allowing the animation medium, specifically computer animation to be appropriated by more storytellers. Even more significantly, the history of animation in Africa goes back to the 1910s when South Africa, United States, Europe, Japan, Argentina, and Australia were the early big players. An Artist’s Dream (1915), a draw-toon by Harold Shaw, was the first animated short to be locally made in Africa. In addition to South Africa, other countries such as Egypt, Belgian Congo (Zaïre, later renamed Democratic Republic of Congo), and Niger have been active in the history of African animation from the 1930s through the 1970s. The presentation aims to underline a longstanding history of animation on the continent against the backdrop of both the dearth of attention to Africa in animation studies and the marginalization of African film and media in the larger field of film and media studies globally.
The understudied history of animation in Africa must be engaged as a way to open lines of inquiry which could subsequently lead either to the emergence of a field of African animation studies or to the development of a subfield of African animation studies. Beyond disciplinary considerations, the study of African animation provides new critical interventions into Africa’s richly textured performance and visual cultures, the continent’s encounters with the world, questions of racial and minority representations, and dialogues with Asian cultural productions. The lecture draws on the research of Boukary’s current book project on African animation (History, Aesthetics, Theory, and Industry) and his own experiences in curating the Harlem African Animation Festival for years now.
Boukary Sawadogo is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the City University of New York’s City College (Department of Media and Communication Arts) and CUNY Graduate Center (French doctoral program, and the Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures). As a scholar of African cinema, he has authored five books on African cinema, including two editions of his undergraduate textbook African Film Studies: An Introduction (2022 and 2018), West African Screen Media: Comedy, TV Series, and Transnationalization (Michigan State University Press, 2019), and Les Cinémas Francophones Ouest Africains (1990–2005) published by Harmattan in 2013. He is currently working on a monograph on African animated film. His research and teaching interests in African diasporas have resulted in audiovisual media productions such as the short documentary Salut Y’all: African Teachers on the Bayou (2013) on the personal and professional experiences of African teachers of French in Louisiana, and the web series, Aventure Africaine à New York (African Adventures in New York) from 2016 to 2018. In addition, he has authored a book, Africans in Harlem: The Untold New York Story (Fordham University Press, 2022) on historical and contemporary encounters between Africans and New York City’s historically Black neighborhood of Harlem.
Idrissou Mora- Kpai, an award-winning Beninese filmmaker, recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and Prince Claus award, committed, for the past 25 years, to produce not only artistically compelling but also socially relevant work that tells the stories of people underrepresented in mainstream productions. He is currently an Okwui Enewzor fellow in Visual Culture, Performance Studies, and Critical Humanities at The Africa Institute (GSU). Read more.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
The Africa Institute (GSU) is pleased to host Boukary Sawadogo, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, City University of New York who will explore the historical and contemporary significance of African animation in his talk titled, “African Tale of Animation” on Thursday, April 4, 2024 (10:00 am – 12:00 noon) at The Africa Institute – Auditorium (location map). The seminar is open to all; register to attend.
The Africa Institute (GSU) is pleased to host Boukary Sawadogo, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, City University of New York who will explore the historical and contemporary significance of African animation in his talk titled, “African Tale of Animation” on Thursday, April 4, 2024 (10:00 am – 12:00 noon) at The Africa Institute – Auditorium (location map). The seminar is open to all; register to attend.
Recent animated media productions have brought global attention to animation in Africa. The Iwaju animated series was released this year to popular acclaim. Less than a year ago, the world of animation was swept by Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, an anthology of ten afro-futurist episodes featuring Africa’s talents in animation from several countries. Set in the neo-futuristic city of Lusaka, Zambia, around four secondary school superhero girls, Super Team 4 animated series was released by Netflix in 2023. The world is only now discovering African animation which has been steadily growing since the start of the twenty-first century, with the advent of digital technologies, allowing the animation medium, specifically computer animation to be appropriated by more storytellers. Even more significantly, the history of animation in Africa goes back to the 1910s when South Africa, United States, Europe, Japan, Argentina, and Australia were the early big players. An Artist’s Dream (1915), a draw-toon by Harold Shaw, was the first animated short to be locally made in Africa. In addition to South Africa, other countries such as Egypt, Belgian Congo (Zaïre, later renamed Democratic Republic of Congo), and Niger have been active in the history of African animation from the 1930s through the 1970s. The presentation aims to underline a longstanding history of animation on the continent against the backdrop of both the dearth of attention to Africa in animation studies and the marginalization of African film and media in the larger field of film and media studies globally.
The understudied history of animation in Africa must be engaged as a way to open lines of inquiry which could subsequently lead either to the emergence of a field of African animation studies or to the development of a subfield of African animation studies. Beyond disciplinary considerations, the study of African animation provides new critical interventions into Africa’s richly textured performance and visual cultures, the continent’s encounters with the world, questions of racial and minority representations, and dialogues with Asian cultural productions. The lecture draws on the research of Boukary’s current book project on African animation (History, Aesthetics, Theory, and Industry) and his own experiences in curating the Harlem African Animation Festival for years now.
Boukary Sawadogo is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the City University of New York’s City College (Department of Media and Communication Arts) and CUNY Graduate Center (French doctoral program, and the Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures). As a scholar of African cinema, he has authored five books on African cinema, including two editions of his undergraduate textbook African Film Studies: An Introduction (2022 and 2018), West African Screen Media: Comedy, TV Series, and Transnationalization (Michigan State University Press, 2019), and Les Cinémas Francophones Ouest Africains (1990–2005) published by Harmattan in 2013. He is currently working on a monograph on African animated film. His research and teaching interests in African diasporas have resulted in audiovisual media productions such as the short documentary Salut Y’all: African Teachers on the Bayou (2013) on the personal and professional experiences of African teachers of French in Louisiana, and the web series, Aventure Africaine à New York (African Adventures in New York) from 2016 to 2018. In addition, he has authored a book, Africans in Harlem: The Untold New York Story (Fordham University Press, 2022) on historical and contemporary encounters between Africans and New York City’s historically Black neighborhood of Harlem.
Idrissou Mora- Kpai, an award-winning Beninese filmmaker, recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and Prince Claus award, committed, for the past 25 years, to produce not only artistically compelling but also socially relevant work that tells the stories of people underrepresented in mainstream productions. He is currently an Okwui Enewzor fellow in Visual Culture, Performance Studies, and Critical Humanities at The Africa Institute (GSU). Read more.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
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