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Culturescapes Sahara 2023
80 visual artists, performers, dancers, theater companies, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and thinkers in a two-month program (October/November 2023)
Culturescapes is a multidisciplinary biennial arts festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2023. Since 2003, the festival focuses on the cultural landscapes of countries and regions. Based in Basel, Switzerland, it extends its presence far beyond one city or country with the network of more than 40 partner institutions all over Switzerland, in Belgium, and in the three-countries region between Switzerland, Germany, and France.
With each edition the festival aspires to promote cross-border dialogue and mutual learning between cultures, as well as cooperation and networking. Its founders believe that cultural relations and understanding is a gateway to more inclusive, open, and fair societies. In 2023, the focus for Culturescapes’ 17th edition will be on the Sahara. By connecting the seas and oceans on the opposite sides of the continent, Sahara used to be a network of pathways, travel routes, carrying and connecting peoples and cultures. Together with artists and curators from within
and around Sahara, Culturescapes wants to talk about Sahara today.
We look at the moving borders of the desert and the postcolonial borders of the African countries, question resilience as a key feature of political and socio-environmental reality in Africa, and imagine the possible futures as seen from the vastness of Sahara affected by climate change.
The Centre for African Studies offfers a course linked to the festival under the direction of Henri-Michel Yéré and invites for encounters and an direct engagement with selected artists.
