Julie Mehretu’s BMW Art Car #20 project is expanding its focus on artistic exchange and cultural infrastructure across Africa through the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC), launched in 2025. Developed with Ethiopian producer Mehret Mandefro and the BMW Group, AFMAC unites artists and filmmakers from Africa and the diaspora in research-driven workshops in historic cities. The final workshop is set for Cape Town in January 2026.
Julie Mehretu’s BMW Art Car #20, unveiled at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on May 21, 2024, is advancing its mission of artistic exchange and cultural infrastructure through the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC), launched in 2025. Co-founded with Ethiopian-born producer Mehret Mandefro and the BMW Group, AFMAC hosts workshops in cities like Lagos, Tangier, Nairobi, Dakar, and Cape Town, emphasizing local knowledge and community histories. Ethiopian filmmaker Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, director of the acclaimed film Difret, leads the Tangier session, highlighting the project's strong ties to Addis Ababa roots.
The initiative culminates in a final workshop in Cape Town from January 27 to 31, 2026, partnered with Chimurenga, a key platform for African cultural ideas founded by Ntone Edjabe. Led by the London-based Otolith Group, the event is titled African Cosmotechnics: Animation, Animism, Abstraction, Automotion, Automation, Aesthetics. It explores animation as a lens for African storytelling, drawing on regional epistemologies rather than conventional industry norms, with participants including artists, writers, theorists, and filmmakers.
The workshop ends with a public screening of the Otolith Group's Infinity Minus Infinity (2019) on January 31, 2026, followed by an art talk. The film weaves dance, music, spoken word, and animation to probe the enduring impacts of racism and colonialism on social and environmental realities, fostering collective dialogue over mere spectacle.
AFMAC's outcomes will feature in the exhibition Scaling Intentions at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) from December 2026 to August 2027. It will showcase new films by AFMAC lead artists alongside Mehretu’s BMW Art Car #20, a BMW M Hybrid V8, forming a constellation of contemporary African media art. During the Paris premiere, Mehretu told Tadias that artists “contribute to the health and well-being of communities... by critically engaging social systems and helping imagine—and propel—paths forward.” She emphasized building lasting platforms, positioning the project as a starting point for sustained African and diasporic creativity.
