Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE) decades ago in all walks of life, although few paid attention to it outside of sport, and which is now claimed by an exhibition.
Casa África inaugurates this Friday “We are AFRO!”, a collection of 28 photographic portraits of personalities from science, cinema, music, activism, university, fashion, politics or television born in Spain or who have been decades made Spain their country with their work and that they are proud of their African roots.
Its author, José Luis Simón, explains that he began to think about this project in 2019 based on a reflection: “In the media, negative approaches to Afro people for pateras or manteros were frequent and only occasionally they were spoken of positively, but with the gyrfalcons of the sport ”.
“Afro-descendants always complain about their lack of visibility. They lament that they are… but as if they were not. They have been working in Spain for years, fighting for themselves and for the country and they feel invisible,” says Simón, who wanted to compose a choral portrait of “very powerful” figures in various professions.
And from that approach “We are AFRO!” was born, a project in which personalities such as the film director Santiago Zannou, the musician El Chojín, the actresses Astrid Jones and Sarah Sanders, the model Awanda Pérez, the presenter Jennifer Rope, the journalist Desirée Ndjambo or two very popular faces on Spanish television in the seventies and eighties: the brothers Charlie and Noemi Hussei, co-founders of the ballet “Zoom”, with Giorgio Aresu.
Other faces less known to the general public also appear, although they are a reference in their respective fields of work, such as the historian Antumi Toasijé, president of the Council for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Spain; the businesswoman Bisila Bokoko, the architect Clara Caballero or the activist Isabelle Mamadou, coordinator for Spain of the United Nations program for the International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024.
Similarly, they presume from their African origins – direct or also with well in America – figures such as the member of the Ecuadorian Academy of the Spanish Language Justo Bolekia, the anthropologist Fernando Barbosa, the professor Ana Cebrián, co-founder of Afroconciencia; lawyer Susana Bokobo, botanist Vicente Mazimpaka, businesswoman Consuelo Cruz Arboleda, vice-president of the International Foundation for Human Rights; or the politics of Rita Bosaho, the first black MP in Congress.
The show is completed with faces such as filmmaker Tony Romero, the director of the Karibu Association, Nicole Ndongala; the promoter of the Afrodictionary, Ngoy Ramadhani; the deputy director of Equal Treatment and Racial Diversity of the Ministry of Equality, Nicolás Marugán; the coordinator of the Reception Committee for Refugees of the Catalan Generalitat, Laia Muñoz; the geriatrician Juan Carlos Rocabruno or the doctor in Physical Education and specialist in gender studies Patricia Rocu.
The exhibition closes with two anonymous faces, those of the Spanish architect Clara Abella and the Sierra Leonean builder Biden Kanu, friends of the photographer, who pose with their young son.
“They, as a family, are the summary of this multiculturalism that is becoming more and more common, to which we all have to get used to,” said photographer José Luis Simón.
The director of Casa África, José Segura, has encouraged the public to get to know this exhibition, which he considers “one of the brightest and most striking” that the institution has hosted “in recent times.” EFE