septembre 2026

AFRIKADAA × AFRICAN ART BOOK FAIR (AABF) / NY ART BOOK FAIR 20 YEARS

PRESS KIT
ÉVENT : Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair 2026 – 20th Anniversary
PROJECT : The Pan African Library Will Not Be Colonized
CURATOR : Pascale OBOLO
DATE : September 24 – 27
LOCATION : MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York

THIS HYBRID SPACE EXPLORES PUBLISHING AS A POLITICAL TOOL, A SPACE OF RESISTANCE AND A GESTURE OF SELFARCHIVING IN THE FACE OF MECHANISMS OF ERASURE.

PRESS RELEASE

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the NY Art Book Fair, Afrikadaa and the African Art Book Fair (AABF) are transforming the reading room into a living Pan-African archive focused on audio narratives. At the invitation of Printed Matter, the Afrikadaa collective
presents *The Pan-African Library Will Not Be Colonized* from September 24 to 27, 2026, at MoMA PS1. Conceived by curator Pascale Obolo, this hybrid space combines a reading room with a sound library. Drawing on the archives of the African Art Book Fair (AABF), the
project introduces the concept of an “ ecology of reading. ” It rejects the traditional silence of libraries to offer a participatory environment where books coexist with performances, radio, and collective listening sessions.
The installation features a curated selection of contemporary independent African titles, archives of important publications, listening stations, artwork, and importantly—space to read and rest. Alongside the 10th anniversary of the African Art Book Fair are histories of the magazine Peuples noirs, Peuples africains, founded by the Cameroonian thinker Mongo Beti; the 15th anniversary of the journal Mosaïques; a history of the Nigerian cultural center The Mbari Club; and the 5th anniversary of the double-dummy édition newspaper. NYABF exhibitors are also invited to contribute thematically relevant titles to a non-circulating library available for browsing throughout the weekend.
The daily program schedule in the Reading Room features collaborations with local and international writers, artists, and activists, including Station of Commons, iwalewabooks, the Fantastic Four Double Dutch, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, FLEE Project, We Make Books, and AFRIKADAA, among many others. This interdisciplinary format—with programming ranging from listening sessions, group discussions, and performances—emphasizes collaboration as a primary method uniting independent publishing practices.

In doing so, The PanAfrican Library refuses the silence traditionally associated with libraries, while contrasting the rapid pace of the Fair with an opportunity to engage in downtime, close reading, critique, and reflection. As a partner of the Reading Room, Station of Commons, a transdisciplinary collective of artists, designers, and coders working on digital commons, will broadcast from the Fair on their own radio infrastructure at stationofcommons.org , on the Printed Matter website and africanartbookfair.com .

MANIFESTO

Reading Ecology: publishing as a living infrastructure

The Pan African Library Will Not Be Colonized proposes Reading Ecology as both a curatorial methodology and a political imagination. Rather than conceiving the library as a repository of books, the project understands it as a living ecosystem where publications, voices, bodies, sounds and memories continuously reshape one another. Reading is not approached as an individual act of interpretation but as a collective practice through which knowledge circulates, relationships are formed and futures are imagined.
Developed from the ten-year archive of the African Art Book Fair (AABF), this Reading Room investigates how independent publishing across Africa and its diasporas has generated autonomous infrastructures of knowledge beyond the institutional geographies that have historically organized visibility, legitimacy and circulation. Here, publishing is understood not as the production of objects but as the creation of social, intellectual and affective ecologies that that connect artists, editors, readers, activists and communities across borders.
Reading Ecology begins from a simple proposition: books never exist alone. Every publication carries with it conversations, oral traditions, radio broadcasts, performances, friendships, political struggles, acts of translation and communities of care. The Reading Room therefore refuses the silence traditionally associated with libraries. Instead, it becomes a porous environment where reading expands into listening, discussion, performance and collective imagination. The project unfolds through four interconnected
activations that continuously transform the library into a living curatorial medium where visitors can also rest and chill. The Pan African Library assembles artists ‘ books, independent publications, historical journals, and editorial archives that trace the evolving cartographies of Pan-African publishing.
The Sound Library : Listening Room extends the act of reading through radio, sound archives and collective listening sessions, foregrounding listening as an epistemic practice and a form of cultural transmission developed in dialogue with Station of Commons.
The Commons activates the publications through conversations, readings and encounters that position knowledge as something collectively produced rather than institutionally delivered. The Living Archive brings together performances, artistic interventions and experimental public
programs that continually reactivate the archive in the present, allowing memory to remain dynamic, embodied and unfinished.

by OBOLO PASCALE

PROGRAM

Side A- Friday, September 25
A1. 12-1PM / LISTENING SESSION WITH AFRIKADAA AND STATION OF COMMONS
A2. 2-3PM /LISTENING SESSION WITH JESSIE COX : Sounds of Black Switzerland
A3. 4-5PM / JAM CONVERSΑΤΙON ΟN CANDOMBLÉ : FLEE Project. – Alan Marzo, Olivier Duport
A4. 5-6h30 PM / POLITICS OF SOUND : Pascale Obolo, Juan Fortun, Grégoire Rousseau, Eddie Choo Wen Yi (The Classroom)
Side B- Saturday, September 26
B1. 12-1PM / READING Ecology – TRANSFORMING PUBLISHING IN Africa : iwalewabooks, TJ Benson, Kolá Túbosún, Ese Emmanuel, Nadine Siegert, Pascale Obolo
B2. 3-4PM / CARTE BLANCHE WITH NONTSIKELELO MUTITI : Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, Mbali Mthethwa, mukhtara ayotejú adékúnbi yusuf, Alvin Ashiatey
B3. 5:30 – 6:30PM / JAM CONVERSATION WITH THE FANTASTIC FOUR DOUBLE DUTCH : Robin Oakes Watterson, Pascale Obolo
B4. 5-6PM / « AL MAL TIEMPO, BUENA SALSA » : DJ set by Juan Fortun / SalsaResistencia (The Stage)
Side C-Sunday, September 27
C1. 2-4PM / CARTE BLANCHE – MBARI CLUB LIBRARY SHELF : TJ Benson, Ese Emmanuel, Raimi Gbadamosi, iwalewabooks, Nadine Siegert, katharina Fink, kara lynch, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Smooth Ugochukwu Nzewi, Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, Kólá Túbosún
C2. 4PM / LISTENING SESSION ON MUSIC AS A SPACE FOR HEALING

SPACES OF THE PROJECT

SPACE 1 : THE PAN AFRICAN LIBRARY

This space highlights the textual and graphic materiality of African critical production.
•AABF 10-year archives: A visual retrospective featuring posters, manifestos, and catalogs from the fair’s various editions (from Dakar to international venues).
• Editorial Cartography: A carefully curated selection of artists’ books, contemporary
fanzines, and seminal historical journals, such as Peuples Noirs Peuples Africains (founded by Mongo Beti) and the journal Mosaïques (by Parfait TABAPSI) Rather than preserving history, The Panafrican Library Will Not Be Colonized proposes the library as a commons in motion—a curatorial infrastructure where publishing becomes an ecology of relations and where books operate as living agents of cultural repair, epistemic disobedience and collective world-making. Presented during the twentieth anniversary of the NY Art Book Fair, the project invites visitors to inhabit another geography of artists’ publishing: one grounded in reciprocity, circulation and the radical plurality of Pan-African thought. Reading Ecology is the practice of curating relationships rather than collections.

SPACE 2 : THE SOUND LIBRARY : LISTENING ROOM

• Radio listening station: A selection of sound pieces produced in collaboration with the Afrikadaa collective and the radio platform Station of Commons.
• Collective Listening: an immersive experience where sound heals bodies and stories and enriches the act of reading.
The Reading Room is conceived as a space for extended time within the fair: a place to read, listen, watch, exchange, and rest. The project prioritizes a sensitive and collective experience, inviting visitors to slow down, immerse themselves in the archives, and activate publications as living objects of transmission and dialogue.

ABOUT & BIOGRAPHIES

About Afrikadaa

Founded in 2012, Afrikadaa is a contemporary art magazine and curatorial collective born out of the need to address the invisibility of artists from Africa and its diasporas in major institutions. Conceived as a think tank, the magazine uses both print and digital formats as a space for exhibition and political advocacy.

About the African Art Book Fair (AABF)

The African Art Book Fair is a traveling platform and an independent international fair dedicated to critical production and artists’ books. As a long-standing partner of the Dakar Biennale, the AABF will celebrate a decade of initiatives, support for independent publishers, and the dissemination of autonomous knowledge from the African continent in 2026.

Biography of Pascale Obolo

Pascale Obolo is an independent curator, filmmaker-researcher, and editor-in-chief of the contemporary art journal *Afrikadaa*. She views publishing as a critical and poetic act, capable of bringing marginalized narratives and new decolonial pedagogies to the fore in the field of art. Her work is rooted in a critical and decolonial reflection on the history of archives and modes of knowledge transmission. At the intersection of research, creation, and social engagement, she challenges dominant narratives and works to revitalize marginalized memories through photography, video, performance, music, and publishing. Pascale Obolo views curation as a collective practice in which the exhibition becomes a space for dialogue, experimentation, and social transformation. She has collaborated with several institutions, including the Centre Pompidou, the Palais de Tokyo, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. She is also the founder of the African Art Book Fair (Dakar) and co-director of Miss Read (Berlin). Pascale Obolo actively supports independent and socially engaged publishing practices. In 2023, she was named one of the 100 most influential women in French culture and has been a member of the Executive Board of the Musée des Civilisations Noires since September 2025. Pascale Obolo is the founder of, and currently co-directs, alongside Franck Houglade, the new curatorial training program Labo Benin at the La Grande-Place art space (Porto Novo).

PARTNERS

This project is the result of an international and collaborative co-production. We’re grateful to the partner institutions and collectives that made this event possible at MoMA PS1 during the NYABF.

The Pan-African Library is part of Villa Albertine post-residency program in partnership with Albertine Foundation.

NYABF, Printed Matter, Aalto University School of the Arts, Design and Architecture; Consulate General of Finland in New York; Consulate General of Switzerland in New York; Finnish Cultural Foundation; Frame Contemporary Art Finland; Goethe-Institut, and Silence Please.

CONTACT PRESSE
General & Press Inquiries : contact@africanartbookfair.com
Pascale Obolo : zugas.pascale@gmail.com
Website: https://africanartbookfair.com
Instagram : @afrikadaamagazine @AfricanArtBookFair
Website : https://nyabf2026.printedmatterartbookfairs.org/