Unraveling the (Under-) Development Complex or Towards a Post- (Under-) Development Interdependence

Savvy Contemporary,

Berlin, Germany

26 November, 2022 — 27 January, 2023

Group Exhibition

This project takes its cue from and celebrates Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa fifty years after its publication, while asking the question: How can we imagine a Post-(Under)Development World?

Walter Rodney’s well researched and trenchant historical, sociological, and socio-economic account was published in 1972 which makes this year, 2022, its 50 anniversary. The seminal book takes us through the institutionalisation of colonialism, the partitioning of peoples, the imposition of languages and destruction of knowledges and cultures, and how they had repercussions in the moment of 1971/72, and continue to have in the present, 50 years later. It offers the reader a historical exposé of the African continent before the Middle Passage, before the violent and inhumane machinations of the transatlantic slave enterprise while also taking us through the era of decolonial movements.

This project is a daring effort to analyze the status quo and imagine a world that doesn’t exist in the binary of “development” and “underdevelopment”. It manifests itself in multiple locales (Bandjoun, Nairobi, Berlin, Abidjan, and Johannesburg) as a series of research, exhibitions, performances, lectures, conversations and workshops around the myths of “development” and “underdevelopment” as well as imagining and crafting a Post-(Under)Development world.

Exhibiting Artists:
Jess Atieno, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Sheila Chukwulozie, Christopher Cozier, Binta Diaw, Sènami Donoumassou, Sofia Gallisá Muriente & Natalia Lassalle Morillo, Rajyashri Goody, Karachi La Jamia, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, Syowia Kyambi, Wallen Mapondera, Anna Mapoubi, Emo de Medeiros, Marie-Claire Messouma, Manlanbien, Kumari Ranjeeta, Moffat Takadiwa, The Victor Jara Collective, Munem Wasif, Guy Woueté

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