Footsak: No time for extra time

Credit: Durban Art Gallery

A visual artist, an architect and a photographer kick a ball from Durban to Algiers across the African continent in the build-up to the World Cup Football tournament in 2010 which is hosted in Africa for the first time in history.

En route the team catalyze on location collaborative artistic processes with the personalities they encounter. In each place (Algiers, Tifariti, Ouagadougou, Douala, Maputo, Johannesburg and Durban), the artists initiated encounters with those who ‘make it where they are,’ local supporters, artists, intellectuals, philosophers, musicians, activists, poets, kings and queens…

This exhibition uses the metaphor of football to question contemporary Africa.

What is the ball? Who’s kicking, at what? Who do we want to pass to? Are there other ways to play the game when the goal posts are continually moving? What game plans do people draw up to confront challenges, to confirm life through innovation?

What are the environmental concerns, socio-economic circumstances, cultural dynamics and political enigmas that influence this game of life; how are the rules determined, off-side flaged, the red cards given and why?

Footsak on the Ball 2010 is a game of discovery, a field of exploration, in which the FOOTSAK team aim to explore alternative thoughts, build portraits of people and celebrate the creative strategies that communities bring into play when considering local challenges.

No time for extra time is one of the final realisation of the project Footsak on the ball next to:

Series of 20 short magic reality films or fillers (2010) for television • broadcast and web
• Series of six short documentaries (7 to 13 minutes), one per country, for television broadcast
• Book publication: The Forward Football Fans
• Full feature documentary 52mn – Diffusion in festivals
• In 2011, the exhibition will be showed in other African countries and later in Marseilles and other European towns.

Leave a comment