Johny Pitts, author of the multiple award-winning Afropean: Notes From Black Europe (Penguin, 2020) teams up with award-winning production company Reduced Listening for a six part series exploring major European cities and the art, politics and history of their Black communities.
Europe is at a crossroads. For centuries, the continent has been built by the intercultural exchange of people and ideas, often under exploitative conditions. In recent years, public debate has become dominated by culture wars which has stifled discussion. Now, with far-right politics on the rise, it is time to reflect on the cultural impact and resilience of an African diaspora that has redefined the major metropolitan centres of Europe.
Afropean Podcast sheds light on a Europe often missing from tourist guides and official national narratives. Each episode dives deep into a different European capital: Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Lisbon and Paris. With on-the-ground recordings it is an immersive listening experience, featuring Decolonial canal rides in Amsterdam, Black history walking tours of Brussels and Paris, architectural wanderings from the hinterlands of Stockholm, musical journeys to the Buracas of Lisbon, and psycho-geographic strolls along the former fault lines of the Berlin Wall.
Interviews
The series also features interviews with some of Europe’s leading black scholars, artists, activists and musicians, such as Gloria Wekker, Sibo Kanobana, Zap Mama, Les Nubians, Joy Denalane, the Black Archives in Amsterdam, Stephen Simmonds, Olivette Otele, Bonaventure Ndikung, Kalaf Epalanga, and many more.
Afropean Podcast will be released by Reduced Listening and available on all major podcast platforms. Produced and sound designed by Femi Oriogun-Williams. This project was made possible with the kind support of National Geographic.
- Episode 1: Brussels
- Episode 2: Amsterdam
- Episode 3: Berlin
- Episode 4: Stockholm
- Episode 5: Lisbon
- Episode 6: Paris
Website: Afropean
Facebook: Afropean Culture
Photo Book
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| Photo of Afropean Journal |
To coincide with the release of the podcast, a definitive new high quality 300-page analogue photobook; Afropean Journal, published by Mörel, will be launched at Paris Photo 2024, bringing together twenty years of Pitts’ photographs, notebooks and ephemera for the first time, adding a complex and atmospheric rendering of the Black experience in Europe.
Reduced Listening Managing Director Joby Waldman says “we are super excited about teaming up with Johny Pitts to facilitate the Afropean podcast. A long time in the making, this revisionist history series sheds light on the cultural richness, and social inequities stemming from Africa’s long and complex relationship with Europe.
Johny Pitts: Home is Not a Place
In 2021, photographer and writer, Johny Pitts, and poet Roger Robinson travelled around the British coast in search of an answer to the question 'what is Black Britain?' Their collaboration became Home is Not a Place (2023).