The Africa Re-Union, a landmark artistic and cultural initiative, was unveiled at the FNB Art Joburg, transforming the fair into a platform of reclamation, resistance, and imagination where art became both manifesto and movement.
The project deliberately reverses the legacy of the infamous 1884 Berlin Conference—where Africa was carved, divided, and diminished without consent—by restoring the continent as the author of its own story and custodian of its heritage.
Conceived and co-created by pan-African thinker and Brand Africa founder Thebe Ikalafeng, realised on canvas by celebrated South African visual artist Mark Modimola, and anchored in history by Professor Kwesi DLS Prah, the Africa Re-Union is more than artwork. It is a provocative declaration, an urgent invitation, and a rallying cry to reimagine Africa’s history, identity, and future.
The monumental 3m x 2m canvas uses an equal earth projection to restore Africa’s true scale and dignity, rendered without borders to correct centuries of distortions that made the continent appear smaller and marginal on global maps.
At its center stands a symbolic round table where Africa’s historical and contemporary voices—ranging from Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, and Wangari Maathai to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Thabo Mbeki—are symbolically seated. One chair is deliberately left empty, calling on every African today to take their place at history’s table.
In a gesture of permanence, Ikalafeng has gifted the original canvas to the UNISA Art Gallery, ensuring the work lives where Africa’s future is being studied and shaped. Only 2,063 signed reproductions will be made available, a symbolic nod to the AU Agenda 2063 for an integrated, peaceful, and prosperous Africa.
“This is not a return to the Berlin Conference table but the setting of our own table—equal, sovereign, and unapologetically African,” said Ikalafeng.
The Africa Re-Union stands as both remembrance and declaration: a mirror of the past and a map for the future, guiding Africa toward a destiny it must author and define for itself.
