November 20, 2009
“Mobile A2K, Resources, Interfaces and Contents on Urban Transformations” : follow up
“Mobile A2K: Resources, Interfaces and Contents on Urban Transformations” is the international meeting focused on African urban transformations, technology and education held at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center from 6 to 8 of October 2009. Mobile A2K aimed at developing a format for an itinerant, modular and ever-changing exhibition.

Participation is the key to recording and accessing knowledge. Mobile A2K relies on existing resources to familiarize schools, libraries and cultural institutions with new interfaces that can help tracking and communicating urban transformations. Scholars, intellectuals and managers in the sphere of cognitive studies, media, education, architecture and art were invited to connect and think creatively about the opportunities provided by exhibition design, mobile phones, open platforms, copyleft and user-generated contents in the fields of formal and informal education.

Starting from the position papers by the co-curators Iolanda pensa and Roberto Casati, the meeting focused on the experience of three already existing organisations, partners of lettera27, operating within the African context to raise a brainstorming on new formats for exhibiting and communicating contents on urban transformations.
Doual’art organises conferences, such as Ars & Urbis, to enact a change in the way citizens percept and live the city of Douala (Cameroun) through the arts and by commissioning works of art in distinctive spots of the city.
Kër Thiossane is an association based in Dakar (Senegal) aiming at developing a center for digital creativity. They organise Afropixel, an event gathering digital artists in the African continent for the dissemination and experimentations of new practices and hardware.
Chimurenga Library operates in Cape Town as a cultural organisation, editing a magazine, organising conferences and exhibitions. They operate in the context of cultural institutions of Cape Town suggesting new and provocative views of Black/White culture in literature and the visual arts.

During the three days of the meeting the participants were involved in group discussions aiming at producing a one or two pages report on the issues and questions raised by the discussants. Thus, A2K developed concepts and formats which received benefits from the scholars and the other partners of the foundation, such as Wikimedia Foundation, Orange, the African Center for Cities, Moleskine.

The three concepts/directions of Mobile A2K are to be developed as exhibition format on urban transformations for formal/informal education within three existing projects promoted by Doual’art, Kër Thiossane and Chimurenga. 
They have been provisionally labeled as “producing and distorting maps” , as the challenge of mapping a mapless city as Douala: given a blank slate on which to draw. How does one create a map which serves the need of the local population? What is the most appropriate means to make the city readable? Working with unmapped spaces provides a scope for thinking differently about how to represent the city. 
The definition “the exhibition as a text-book”, says that the exhibition is a moment in time, but it has to be considered in its full dimension which requires a “before” and an “after”. The notion of continuity, as well as that of repetition is a key to learning process. The audience become a kind of a translator, because translation is in itself a learning experience and an example of knowledge acquisition.
Then, “the pedagogical suitcase”. Suitcases are the very symbol of mobility: the first portable typewrites were fitted into suitcases. Starting from the basic metaphor, we propose some scenarios for suitcases that could be used as instruments of mobile knowledge and learning.

On the mid-term (by 2010) lettera27 will foster the implementation of the concepts developed at the meeting in two exhibitions. One in Dakar (Afropixel, May 2010) and the other in Douala (Salon Urbain de Douala, Fall 2010). Moreover, a series of meetings on the issues and concepts concerning A2K will be presented at Festivaletteratura in Mantua (Italy, September 2010).

Image: Courtesy of the artist. Detail from "Lagos Nigeria Pattern 1" by Lino Hellings.