FLASHBACK – APPEAR Edutainment & Networking Event brought to you by Fashion Africa Now. The event took place for the first time on the 11th & 12th of May 2018 in Hamburg. Amazing speakers and guests were part, celebrating contemporary African art, fashion, design and literature.
We kicked off the show with the *Expose Yourself workshop featuring talks with artist and lecturer Our Mbengue Atakosso. The themes we mainly discussed were creativity and aesthetics through the African gaze as well as cultural diversity. It was wonderful to get such deep and enriching exposition and exchange of ideas and doubts with the participants.
Following our thoughtful conversations on cultural diversity, designer Emmanuel Bagwana held a presentation and spoke of his latest developments with the label Eguana Kampala, based in Uganda. Kids of the Diaspora by Leni Charles was also held their talk and presented their brand. To bring us to the next day, we had a final networking and music by Azo Guys to close off the evening and the event for the day.
Day Two was again just as much of a success as Day One. We started off the day on a sustainable note; having a workshop and artists talk with designer Buki Akomolafe. It’s amazing how simple changes can give our clothes new value. This is what we learnt – with simple embroidery a simple T-Shirt can be given a new life. We loved the Fashion Exhibition and the Networking Event to be able to meet all these fabulous designers!
The afternoon of the second day was packed with insights from a variety of different designers! We had Ngozi Schommers a Nigerian visual artist based in Germany, Oumar Mbengue Atakosso gave us further insights from his talk on day one, and finally, Diana Ejaita also participated in our panel. We would also like to acknowledge our wonderful moderator, Emu Eugene.
After this Artists talk, we were not done yet for the evening! We had the presentation of THE SEEED by founder Martina Offeh and the presentation of Rich Mnisi. We are created a space for cultural exposure and abstracted thoughts! APPEAR stands for Contemporary Creativity from an African perspective. APPEAR combined Design, Fashion and Literature.
We empowered, connected and educated our guests. An amazing photo shooting with Rich MNISI and Kids Of The Diaspora was the immediate turnout of the APPEAR event. A big shout out to the wonderful participants: Armah, Diana Ejaita, Wearyourmask, Gabriel Selassie, Daniel Obasi, Ngozi Schommer, Oumar Mbengue Atokosso, Eguana Kampala, BUKI AKOMOLAFE, Kids Of The Diaspora, RICH MNISI, The Seeed.
We thank our sponsors: Sufferhead Beer, House of Resources, Freie Hansestadt Hamburg / Behörde für Kultur und Medien und Bezirksamt Nord!
This event was a success and we look back on it with joy and pride. We hope to facilitate future events like this again in the future. Stay tuned!