Part of the École du soir is screening, a cinema screens films that gather unlikely figures, across times and spaces, in fictional encounters to discuss social transformation, cultural property, and who has the right to representation and meaning. The other part is a “scriptorium”, which assembles a working group of artists, activists, and scholars to translate texts by philosopher Souleyman Bachir Diagne, who proposed that “thinking Africa” is to think from language to language. At the same time, École du soir encompasses a series of functional and sculptural structural prototypes that turn the museum space into a hosting structure where many activities are to take place, such as video screenings, listening sessions, workshops, rehearsals, dialogues and contact improvisation.

École du soir poses the question to us here and now: why thinking Africa? The exhibition itself is an answer to this question. Around the thread of “Thinking Africa”,  this space will be a constant source for rich collective feelings, shared reflections and mutually supportive actions. These intellectually decolonizing fragments of thought take us right to the heart of the human condition. In this sense, we will reflect together on knowledge as a (planetary) commons. And this is another urgent question that École du soir wishes to address, that is planetary in scope: how do we live together?

We invite you to watch films, participate in workshops and “scriptorium” activities, and to use the space according to your needs, individually or collectively. In this sanctuary of knowledge and ideas, the artist invites participants to reconsider their differences as points of unity/being in common, face the limits of our individual perceptions as revealed by these archives of knowledge, and further explore the paths of thought that connect us to one another. École du soir weaves together an invaluable moment of cultural exchange: to connect life worlds, to host meaningful encounters, and to form communities of practice. Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum is continuously committed to supporting and presenting serious, experimental contemporary art and intellectual practices. With thanks to ICA, we are delighted to present École du soir in Beijing, where the translated content can be passed on to all our peers who are willing to learn with African intellectual and artistic legacies. As such, we hope to build bridges of dialogue, create unexpected encounters, and to conjure up the challenges of how to live together and think together from in the past and in the present.