“Afropean”

Notes from Black Europe.

“Afropean.Hear was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity… A continent of Cape Verdean favelas, Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German reggea and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was part of Europe too”.

“Afropean” is an on-the-ground documentary of the places where Europeans of African descent live their lives. Setting off from his hometown of Sheffield, Johny Pitts makes his way through Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Rome, Marseille and Lisbon, through council estates, political spaces, train stations, tour groups, and underground arts scenes.

Here is an alternative map of the continent, revealing plural identities amd liminal landscapes, from a Cape Verdean shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon to Rinkeby, the eighty per sent Muslim area of Stockholm, from West African students at university in Moscow to the notorious Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. A Europe populated by Egyptian nomads, Sudanese restaurateurs, Belgo-Congolese painters. Their voices speak to Afropean experiences that demand to be heard.