The jury is delighted to bestow the 2018-2020 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice on Chimurenga, the Pan African collective who have boldly and unapologetically reclaimed the African imaginary.

Chimurenga invests in deep research on history, representation, and culture through a methodology of collective remobilization of knowledge. The artistic process is a forward reimagining of the global polity, through a multiplicity of forms, eschewing the separation of various art forms from one another and from wider social and political practices. This includes the Pan African Space Station, the roaming Chimurenga library and the periodical Chronic, which incorporate the sonic, performative and written experiences in digital and physical spaces through which the project decenters and recreates new centers of knowledge. It reflects on the collective political histories and memories in the pan African community that is world-making.

Founded by Ntone Edjabe in 2002, Chimurenga performs as a pan-African platform that promotes voices of culture, arts and politics from Africa. As one of Chimurenga’s outputs, Pan African Space Station (PASS) is an online radio station and pop-up studio, simultaneously, “a performance and exhibition space; a research platform and living archive.” Developed by Chimurenga in collaboration with musician and composer Neo Muyanga in 2008, PASS is a virtual and material space that reflects on the collective political histories and memories in the Pan-African community. With its slogan “There are other worlds out there they never told you about,” the interdisciplinary station intersects sound, music and words, further engages in conversations including art and technology, community and borders, utopia and oppression.

As an internet-based radio station, PASS explores the possibilities of creating new knowledge across distributed networks of time and space. Through live performance, stories about music in Africa and archival exhibitions, PASS plays a significant role in challenging existing ideas about Africa and bringing unique aspects of the interconnection between music and history. At the same time, PASS also expands its projects to physical spaces such as cities of Johannesburg, Amsterdam, Helsinki and Cairo. Chimurenga uses a metaphorical term “landing” to emphasize the ways in which the virtual “space station” enters into physical spaces. Upon landing each city, Chimurenga collaborates with local cultural producers to organize conferences, festivals and exhibitions. As such PASS is a catalyst for idea-sharing and innovation of African art and culture. As noted on its website, PASS investigates “how we locate ourselves and how we mediate our human and historic commonality.”

Read more about Chimurenga’s receipt of the 2018-2020 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice on the ARTNEWS website.