More Goethe

There are Goethe-Instituts in many African countries, but not all artists benefit from them. Zukiswa Wanner, a Goethe Medal awardee, has some ideas for improving this.
 

By Zukiswa Wanner

As an artist living in Johannesburg and later in Nairobi, I had known of the Goethe-Institut. I had known of the Goethe-Institut’s existence in the same way that I knew of the British Council and Alliance française – another western institute in African countries considered influential in the west and seeking to peddle its average artists and fund some of ours as a way of influencing the arts in our countries in a sort of cultural neo-colonisation.

I write this looking at my Goethe Medaille and thinking how mistaken I may have been but also understanding how anyone on the outside looking in like myself when I first got to know the Goethe-Institut would think that.  I consider myself someone who appreciates and consumes the different art forms, but the Goethe-Institut was a place I thought of in the same way I think of art house movies and abstract art: nice to attend once in a while when looking for quirky conversations with quirky artists and free wine, but only when one absolutely has no better art to consume.

I know now that music, film, literature, visual art in the form of paintings, photography or cartoons are but some of the arts one can experience at the Goethe-Institut across Sub-Saharan Africa. Emerging as well as mainstream artists have been participants in events at the different Goethe-Instituts, but far too few people know about them. Communication on what they actually do has been one of the greatest challenges for the Goethe-Instituts in whatever country. Local competition is fierce.

To use my personal history, I have been a writer since 2011 who also has plenty of interesting ideas on literature and other art forms. But I only became aware that I could partner with the Goethe-Institut as an individual in 2016. I had always assumed that the Goethe-Institut partnered with organisations and not individuals. I met the then director of Goethe-Institut Nairobi at an event at the National Museum. As we chatted over drinks, we realized that despite our different backgrounds, we had quite a lot in common so I invited her for dinner at my home so we could continue our chat. Our dinner was a social event with my family and hers where we laughed about our mothers. I was later surprised when she called me, as a friend I thought, to pick my brain on a series of events that Goethe-Institut would be partnering with Alliance française. She then asked me whether I wanted to curate the series of dialogues that we would call Displacement & Refuge.

This, essentially was how my curatorial career and partnership with Goethe-Institut, which led to later curating Artistic Encounters, the regional AfroYoungAdult and now the also regional Virtually Yours, a series of online discussions about contemporary African literature, was born. I recount this less to show how much work I have done with the Goethe-Institut in SSA, but more to highlight that but for happenstance, I probably wouldn’t have done all these projects.

Some other artists request a simpler way to access funding. Most artists are not great at talking about their work. As someone who is both an artist and a curator, I know I am certainly better at talking about other people’s work than mine as the former embarrasses me and makes me feel like I am showing off. Instead of written proposals, perhaps artistic impressions and photos could be part of the proposals. Also, rather than focusing on age, couldn’t the focus be on whether the proposed idea is a good one?

When artists finally manage to partner up with the Goethe-Institut, the one statement I have heard and experienced consistently is how the partnerships suggest a direction without dictating; the staff at the Goethe-Institut will give the artist enough leeway to execute their work without interference.

On the African continent, the Goethe-Institut’s partnerships have helped realize artistic dreams. I am particularly in awe of the synergies they have created in visual art and music across the continent. As a writer, I should like to see more work in literature, however. Not just translations of contemporary literature from German to the official language of the host country and vice-versa. Why not more Goethe at the Goethe-Instituts? Now that would be something.