M.Bassy is curating the exhibition project »Unity in Diversity: Pan-African Art Practices of Collective Care« in fall & winter 2025 with multi-media installations, objects and video works by the artists Larry Achiampong, Sammy Baloji, Hamedine Kane & The Otolith Group. Hamedine Kane from Dakar will be our artist in residence and be present at the opening for an artist talk together with the artist, musician and filmmaker Larry Achiampong from London. Furthermore, in the run time of the show, there will be a panel conference with the writer and activist Attillah Springer, architect and director of AMO Samir Bantal, the actress, screenwriter and director Aïssa Maïga and artist Larry Achiampong a.o. at M.Bassy on 8.11.2025. 

The exhibition project »Unity in Diversity: Pan-African Art Practices of Collective Care« explores the connection between the Pan-African movement and art as a means to explore African and diasporic identities and heterogeneities and to pave the way for a decolonial future. To this end, we invite artistic positions, initiatives and voices to Hamburg that engage with Pan-Africanist values of community, alliance, colonial resistance, collective economies, hospitality, indigenous knowledge preservation, shared environmental and resource protection and spiritual consciousness.
 
The participating artists & speakers approach Pan-Africanism as a conceptual space that hosts collective and shared visions of a sustainable future that affects the well-being not only of the African continent but of the entire planet. In view of the increasing political pressure of the right-wing voices in the West, the urgency of a common discourse on collective values focusing on unity instead of separation - which in our globalized, hyper-capitalized, (post)colonial world is in direct correlation with our neighboring continent - is evident here. To what extent can African knowledge systems and Pan-African efforts to find »unity in diversity« serve as a model to enable alliances and social change and combat racism? Can we create a new vision of the world from a Pan-African perspective?

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS & COLLECTIVES
WITH A TRIBUTE TO AND CONTRIBUTION BY GEORGES ADÉAGBO:

LARRY ACHIAMPONG (b. 1984 in London, UK; lives In London)

The artistic projects of British-Ghanaian artist, filmmaker, musician, and lecturer Larry Achiampong explore concepts of class, gender, and identity in transcultural and digital contexts through film, photography, acoustic and visual archiving, performance, object art, sound, and game design. In his artistic work, popular culture intersects with traces of colonial history—Achiampong combs through history and the present for persistent inequalities in society. The artist has realized numerous international projects, including commissions for Art on the Underground, London (2022) and The Liverpool Biennial, UK (2021). He has taught at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2020) and the University of Central Lancashire, UK (2016) (i.a.). His solo exhibitions include Turner Contemporary, London (2022); Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada (2021), and 019, Ghent, Belgium (2019) (i.a.). In 2021, he was nominated for the Jarman Award, and in 2023, he was on the list for the British Academy Film Awards.

SAMMY BALOJI (b. 1978 in Lubumbashi, Congo; lives between Lubumbashi and Brussels, Belgium)

Sammy Baloji has been exploring the memory and history of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work is ongoing research on the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region, as well as a questioning of the impact of Belgian colonization. His video works, installations and photographic series highlight how identities are shaped, transformed, perverted and reinvented. His use of photographic archives allows him to manipulate time and space, comparing ancient colonial narratives with contemporary economic imperialism. A Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, he has received numerous fellowships, awards and distinctions, notably at the African Photography Encounters of Bamako and the Dakar Biennale and was a laureate of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. In 2019-20, he was a resident of the French Academy of Rome – Villa Medici. Since 2018, he teaches at the Sommerakademie in Salzburg. Sammy Baloji co-founded in 2008 the Rencontres Picha/Biennale de Lubumbashi. His has been exhibiting at numerous international institutions as the EMST, Athens, Greece (2025); Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK (2024); Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy (2022) & Beaux-Arts de Paris, France (2021); Lund Konsthall, Sweden & Aarhus Kunsthal, Denmark (2020). He has participated i.a. in the 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023), the Architecture Biennale of Venice (2023), the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023), Sydney Biennial (2020), documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens, 2017), the Lyon Biennial (2015) and the Venice Biennial (2015).

HAMEDINE KANE (b. 1983 in Nouakchott, Mauretania; lives between Dakar, Senegal, Brussels, Belgium and Paris, France)

Hamedine Kane is a Senegalese-Mauritanian multidisciplinary artist. Trained as a librarian, he made his first trip to Europe in 2004 after obtaining a grant to study the book trade in Paris. Shortly afterwards, he settled in Brussels, where he developed his artistic practice around his own experience of migration, turning to film, photography, installation, performance, drawing and engraving. In his work, Hamedine Kane sees borders not as symbols, limits or factors of impossibility, but as places of passage and transformation. In doing so, he repeatedly draws on a rich cosmos of African, African-American and Afro-diasporic literature on socio-political engagement. He has already participated in numerous international festivals and biennials, i.a. in Dakar and Berlin (2022) and in the 36th Bienal de São Paulo (2025). In 2024, he was artist-in-residence at the Villa Medici in Rome, Italy with the project “Circolo Nero N***8: Pan-African Encounters.”

An attendant sculptural assemblage at his exhibition at M.Bassy, »Le Code Noir: #4«, comprises items gathered by Hamedine Kane during his travels – personally significant entities from the past he transmits to the present-day audience. The installation includes cigarette packets and bottles of rum shared with friends, as well as a collection of publications, ritual objects, natural treasures, collectibles and artworks – also from his recent artist residency in Hamburg. Three paintings of pivotal political figures in the Pan-African liberation movement pay tribute to and are a contribution by the Benin-born artist George Adéagbo (b. 1942), who lives between Hamburg and Cotonou. The portraits depict Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), the first president of independent Ghana; Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961), the first prime minister of independent Congo; and Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), the first Black president of South Africa. Hanging partially on the wall and partially arranged on a blue Mauritanian cloth, traditionally used for sitting and socialising, »Le Code Noir: #4« emerges from Kane’s experience of nomadic life, exile and the process of establishing a sense of place through exchange and meaningful objects. The installation is an open Pan-African narrative offering an unlimited number of connections from history to the present bridging time and places.

THE OTOLITH GROUP (founded in 2002): ANJALIKA SAGAR (b. 1968 in London, UK; lives in London); KODWO ESHUN (b. 1967 in London, UK; lives in London)

The Otolith Group is an artist collective founded in London in 2002 by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. Their work is research-based and encompasses film and video productions, audio recordings, performances, installations, and curatorial projects. The collective also publishes, develops programs, and promotes the work of other artists. The aim is to create a public platform for discussion about contemporary art and to generate a critical research space between theory, practice, and exhibition. In 2010, they were nominated for the Turner Prize. Their work has been exhibited internationally in numerous venues, including the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy (2024); the Secession, Vienna, Austria (2022); the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland (2022); the Institute for Contemporary Art in Richmond, Virginia, USA (2020); the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands (2019); the Kunsthall Bergen, Norway (2014); and the MACBA in Barcelona, Spain (2011). The artist group has also participated in numerous international biennials, including Manifesta 9, Belgium; documenta 13, Kassel; and Forum Expanded at the Berlinale (2020).
 
 
 

OPENING: 11.10.2025, 7 pm, with an artist talk by Hamedine Kane & Larry Achiampong, moderated by Joyce Maria Muvunyi

Please reserve via: reservation@m-bassy.org

M.Bassy e.V., Schlüterstraße 80, 20146 Hamburg
Opening hours during the exhibition: Thu - Sun, 2 - 6 pm

12.10.2025, 12-2:30 pm: »IF IT DON'T EXIST BUILD IT« Workshop #1 with Larry Achiampong (2-3 hours)

A sharing session and a space to talk and share stories with the artist, filmmaker, musician, and lecturer Larry Achiampong. Join us to share you stories! Bring an item from your personal archive (this could be an object, a photo, a video game, etc.) and use it as a prompt to join the conversation with the other participants. The idea behind this sharing session is to explore the concept of 'archive' as a personal space. This also links to the artist's childhood and his upbringing in a low socioeconomic background. Being able to 'collect' anything was expensive. Now, as an adult, Larry Achiampong has built an archive of video games and consoles, and developed a personal library. All with the intention of being able to share: share through connections and experiences.

BIPoC WORKSHOP SERIES #1 with Larry Achiampong (2-3 Std.)
Participation free of charge (incl. drinks & snacks)
Please reserve: reservation@m-bassy.org

(Information & the date for WS #2 will follow shortly on our website & via our newsletter!)
 

PANEL CONFERENCE: 8.11.2025, 7 pm, with Larry Achiampong, Samir Bantal,, Aïssa Maïga & Attillah Springer.

Please reserve: reservation@m-bassy.org

We would like to thank the Claussen-Simon-Stiftung, the ifa - Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, the Liebelt Stiftung, the Ministry of Culture and Media in Hamburg and the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS for their funding and support of the project.