On September 18, the exhibition opened in FOAM Fotografiemuseum ‘Afropean’. This exhibition features work by photographer and writer Johny Pitts (Sheffield, UK) who explores Afro-European identity through music, photography and literature. Traveling through Europe, Pitts examines the life of the black community on the European continent. While the political debate often presents cultures as coherent and defined, Pitts’ Afropean aims to show how cultures are rather hybrid and have things in common.inent.
While photographing, Pitts traveled to London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Rome, Marseilles, Madrid and Lisbon to capture the underexposed story of the black community. For example, he documents Cova Da Moura, the Cape Verdean favela on the outskirts of Lisbon with its own underground economy. He also visits the Parisian banlieu Clichy Sous Bois, where riots broke out in 2005 after Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré were electrocuted in an electricity cabin where they had been hiding from French police. The question Pitts’ work raises is what we ultimately mean by a common European identity. Are groups of black migrants who have lived, worked and created here for centuries not Europeans? It is precisely by recognizing that cultures are hybrid and by seeing our shared historical connection that we ultimately learn to better understand our own identity.
The exhibition is on view until November 1 at FOAM!
FOAM
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam
www.foam.org