On Festac ’77

The LRB Podcast

London Review of Books

Society & Culture

4.4 • 582 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marilyn Nance was 23 when she photographed Festac ’77, a global celebration of Black and African art that she described as ‘the Olympics, plus a Biennial, plus Woodstock’. In his review of Nance’s book, Sean Jacobs traces a more fraught history of the festival than her photographs would suggest. Sean joins Tom to discuss what Festac meant for politicians, attendees and the proponents of négritude, third worldism and pan-Africanism. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/festacpod Find out more about Serious Readers: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:22.4	You're listening to the London Review of Books podcast. I'm talking to the London Review of Books podcast. I'm Thomas Jones, and I'm joined this week by Sean Jacobs, the publisher of Africa is a country and author of media in post-apartheid South Africa.
1:28.1	He teaches international affairs at the new school in New York. And he wrote recently in the LRB about three arts festivals that took place in Senegal, Algeria and Nigeria in 1966, 1969, in 1977,
1:36.3	respectively, and have since, as Sean writes in the LRB, faded into obscurity somewhat.
1:42.6	The piece is a review of Last Day in Lagos by Marilyn Nance,
1:46.0	edited by Olo Remy C. Onabancho. Hello, Sean, and thank you very much for talking with me today.
	...

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