Arts of Survival: Recasting Lives in African Cities

FAIN: EH-231183-15

Indiana University (Bloomington, IN 47405-7000)
Eileen Julien (Project Director: February 2015 to May 2017)
James Ogude (Co Project Director: February 2015 to May 2017)

A three-week institute for twenty-five college and university faculty on arts and culture in Nairobi, New Orleans, Port-au-Prince, Lagos, and Accra.

Our summer institute, "Arts of Survival: Recasting Lives in African Cities", explores contemporary urban culture and arts in African and African diaspora cities--Accra, Lagos, Nairobi, New Orleans and Port-au-Prince. These cities share African "roots," but are distinctive because of the unique "routes" that subsequently shaped them: landscapes, and histories; multiple languages; waves of immigrants who brought and continue to bring their labor, culture and creativity; and the sometimes tragic events, both "natural" (hurricanes and earthquakes) and man-made (political violence and legacies of colonialism and slavery), that these cities have undergone. Our goal is to examine how art engages the political and social hierarchies embedded in these cities and often recasts marginal or precarious lives into lives endowed with beauty, elegance, and an intrinsic value that exceed their constraining structures.