Afrika – Architecture, Culture and Identity (1975)

Exhibition poster from Louisiana's exhibition, Africa - Architecture, Culture and Identity, in 1995. An exhibition in which Louisiana, through a series of precisely selected needlepoints in a cultural here and now, shed light on both the complexity of the great continent and helped to open up a more varied view of the development and future perspectives in this part of the world.

The exhibition, Africa, was the third in a series of exhibitions which examine architecture, culture and identity formation based on a geographical concept.

The idea behind the exhibition came from a rather simple observation: despite the fact that Africa is the world's second largest continent, there is surprisingly little contemporary culture from there that comes our way. The continent is more or less trapped in erroneous notions that it is, for example, one country—and not a continent with many countries.

And unless you have traveled around and experienced the continent with your own eyes, it is the clichéd tales of bottomless poverty, drought, famine, genocide, military coups, Ebola, AIDS and misplaced aid crowns that dominate the picture.