TIME FRAME and TOM- Resist Resisting!

The one minutes Africa – Meeting in Rotterdam – February 4, 2010

From 27 January to 7 February a selection of One Minute videos from African makers has been presented as part of the Africa focus of the International Rotterdam Film Festival 2010. They are the result of a series of workshops and presentations organized by The One Minutes and its African partners in different countries. They prove that visual culture in Africa is very much alive and young artists/students are eager to make video productions that reflect on local and global questions from a personal and artistic point of view.

But the question is: How can The One Minutes, as a global platform for short videos, contribute to video art / visual culture in Africa?

We have been invited to join them in a discussion/brainstorm meeting about video production in Africa, where the needs and requirements and how can The One Minutes and its partners in Africa contribute to local, regional and pan African dynamics, was further discussed.

This semi-public meeting was divided in two parts:

For the morning session they invited Ousseynou Wade (Dakar Biennale), Majid Seddati (film and video festival, Casablanca), C. Ktydz Ikwuemesi (Art Republic and Pan African Circle of Artists, NIgeria), Guy Wouete (artist/Rijksakademie, Cameroon), Luc Fosther Diop (artist/Rijksakademie, Cameroon) to prepare short presentations about their experience as collaborators. During the lunch we would sit around the table discussing ideas and proposals how to practically develop The One Minutes Africa in the coming years.

Time Frame found very interesting those issues relates with sustainability in terms of :

-Providing infrastructures for locals to keep developing skills, researching and developing their own initiatives with interantional support.

-Ensuring regularity in the organization of upcoming editions and self-organization. Is it only a question of motivation?

- Presenting international channels of distributions so artists can understand what cames after video production and find their own way into the art market. Fostering also local distribution, the process should start from the bottom ideally.

- If the one minutes can’t be everywhere with regularity, then it might be better to strategically focus on a few countries and partnership with other initiatives on video art taking place in those countries in parallel.

We are very fond of this last idea, international cooperation and cultural intervention in Africa probes to be a great challence. We should foster collaboration between international foundations, share resources, energies and experience. Only then we will be able to design experiences with a greater impact. It’s not about colonizing but about sharing.

Thanks ‘The One Minutes’ for sharing this with us,

and we hope fruitful collaboration might come in the future.

TIME FRAME