With a focus on documenting and critically examining African participation in international art history, MOWAA presents Present Tense, a research-led residency supporting emerging African writers, curators and cultural producers to investigate the histories, representations and narratives surrounding African participation in international cultural contexts.

Using the Venice Biennale as its primary site of research, the residency traces the history of African participation in the Biennale, from 1895 to the present day. The inaugural edition, Africa at the Biennale, takes place in the context of the 61st International Art Exhibition, In Minor Keys, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh. Appointed as the first African woman to curate the Biennale’s International Art Exhibition, Kouoh marked a landmark moment in the institution’s history. Her appointment and the exhibition provide an important contemporary context for the residency’s wider enquiry into African participation and representation, and the histories of Black artists and curators at Venice.

Centring critical writing, historical inquiry and experimental approaches to research, the programme traces the history of African participation in the Venice Biennale, from 1895 to the present day. Through archival research and engagement with the Biennale’s contemporary art landscape, it examines how African artists and practitioners have participated, how their work has been presented and interpreted, and how these histories have been recorded.

Through research in Florence and Venice, the residents will engage with the histories, institutions and cultural networks that have shaped African participation in international art contexts. In Venice, this includes research at the Archivio Storico della Biennale di Venezia (ASAC), where they will have access to historical documents, periodicals, photographs, posters and film. These materials offer a means of tracing how African participation in the Biennale has been documented and represented over time. 

Alongside archival research, they will explore how African art and artists are presented in Venice today, engaging with exhibitions, national pavilions, galleries and members of African art communities.

Each resident will develop a long-form critical essay grounded in their research, combining archival enquiry, contemporary observation and critical reflection. The essays will contribute to wider discussions about African art, its histories and its presentation within international cultural contexts, with publication outputs expected in early 2027.  

Awa Konaté is a Danish-Ivorian curator, writer, researcher, and founder of Culture Art Society, a research-led curatorial platform focused on African and Afro-diasporic visual culture. With over a decade of international experience, her curatorial practice centres the perspectives of modern and contemporary artists from Africa and its diaspora. Her work draws on archival research, black feminist approaches to knowledge and learning, and memory work, with a particular focus on photography, cinema, and the moving image.

Awa is Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and has worked across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East on exhibitions, acquisitions, commissions, collection strategies, and public programmes. Her work has included projects with institutions such as the Serpentine Galleries, Barbican, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kunsthall Trondheim, and Raven Row. Through Awa’s curatorial and research practice, she works to expand knowledge and exchange around African and diasporic art histories and contemporary practices.

A native of Ghana, Lauren-Loïs Duah is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer, and spatial designer based in London. Her practice explores how creativity, craft, and design can serve as tools for social justice and community-building. Working across textiles, illustration, and printmaking, her work draws on diasporic storytelling and West African craft traditions.

Lauren holds a Master's in Architecture from the Royal College of Art (2022) and is a member of RESOLVE Collective, a London-based design collective working across architecture, engineering, technology, and art to address social challenges. In 2025, she was a fellow of RAW Académie at RAW Material Company in Dakar.

Her research, 'Obroni Wa'awu': Cross-Continental Clothescapes, was selected for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. The project traces the journey of second-hand clothing from cotton production to Kantamanto Market in Accra and, ultimately, to landfill.