In Mwangola, Gelmira Gourgel Exhibits the Music That Fueled Angola’s Independence

Gelmira Gourgel presenting the Mwangola exhibition on Angolan revolutionary music, standing beside archival records at Columbia University

Gelmira Gourgel, an Angolan architectural designer and curator, wants people to see Angola in all its depth, not as the country that rarely enters conversations about Africa, but as a nation whose rich cultural traditions, enduring craftsmanship and creative resilience have long shaped the continent’s artistic imagination. In her own words, it is a politically […]

At MoMA, a New Exhibition Celebrates West Africa’s Modernist Architectural Legacy

Modernist BOAD (West African Development Bank) building in Lomé, Togo, featured in MoMA’s Architects of Liberation exhibition. Photograph by François-Xavier Gbré, 2025.

In 1960, 17 African countries gained independence in what became known as the “Year of Africa.” For many of these newly sovereign nations, political freedom was only the beginning. They were confronted with what an independent African nation actually looked like, a question that stretched beyond governance and infrastructure into the continent’s creative life: art, […]