Montpellier is on African time for a week from October 9 to 15 to “change views on the African continent” with exhibitions, screenings, shows and workshops, in parallel with a congress on the management of ‘water.
From Monday October 9 and for one week, Montpellier is organizing the first Europe-Africa biennial. Ambition? “Transform looks” on contemporary African realities, areas of cooperation and the role of diasporas. This biennial is intended to be an extension of the Africa-France summit of October 2021, in a new format, during which French President Emmanuel Macron spoke in Montpellier, in an electric climate, with hundreds of young Africans and in the absence of other heads of state.
A multi-faceted event
“This first Europe-Africa biennial in Montpellier will be a multi-faceted event with multiple speakers which will once again put the territory on African terms and reaffirm Montpellier’s desire to be the place where a new relationship is invented. to Africa“, indicated the mayor of the city, the socialist Michaël Delafosse. For him, it is both “changing views on the African continent“and to create”a framework conducive to innovation, imagination, and the collective implementation of concrete solutions“.
In its general public cultural component, the organizers have scheduled exhibitions, film screenings, concerts, dance, screenings, workshops and a craft and gastronomic market. A “festival of ideas“will be the occasion for a”twenty debates around current African thought“, specifies the program.
With the presence of around thirty African creative entrepreneurs, emphasis will also be placed on the cultural and creative industries (video games, 3D animation, etc.), a sector in which Montpellier hosts internationally renowned studios and schools.
Focus on water management at Euro-Africa Waters Days
The development and innovation component will take the form of a congress, the Euro-Africa Waters Days (October 9 to 11), where the issues related to water management faced by African countries and those in the Mediterranean basin will be addressed. . A campus for young African entrepreneurs is also taking place from October 1 to 11, still in Montpellier.
Finally, during the duration of the biennial, several city squares will be animated by representatives of the African diasporas.
This meeting, both cultural and focused on innovation, is also a way for Montpellier to reaffirm its international influence in the run-up to the designation in December of the city chosen as European Capital of Culture in 2028, where it faces applications from Clermont-Ferrand, Rouen and Bourges.
First Euro-Africa Biennial, in Montpellier from October 9 to 15, 2023