0:41 What is your relation to Conciencia-Afro
0:53 In the media, you are called Afro-Conciencia but now you use Conciencia Afro. Can you explain this change?
1:52 Legal structure
2:38 The idea of creating a Conciencia-Afro Cultural Center was born as a result of the first Afroconciencia Festival held in 2016 in Matadero (Madrid). Can you explain how the idea of organizing that first Festival was born? Who or what promotes it?
3:44 What do you remember from this first festival? Why was it central in your own constitutive process as the organizing group of subsequent Festivals and the Conciencia-Afro Cultural Center project?
4:54 Relation between 15M and Conciencia-Afro
6:21 Is this only in Madrid?
6:44 What was different about what the Conciencia-Afro Festival was proposing from other processes that had been working on raising awareness in Madrid about the historic exclusion of Black and people and communities of color in a predominantly white society?
7:59 You have been circulating a crowdfunding campaign on social media in order to build a Conciencia-Afro Cultural Center in Madrid. What activities and processes might be housed in this center?
9:41 In addition to direct support from citizens, what sources of funding are you seeking to be able to open the Center, and subsequently maintain its activity?
10:31 Since the 2016 Festival, Conciencia-Afro has been consolidating itself as a space of confluence where different associations, projects and African, Afro-descendent and Black entities have encountered one another with the goal of adopting a collective identity within the framework of a heterogeneous community. Who makes up this community? What are the ideas that link together these different communities and what are their goals?
14:08 Can you explain how the Conciencia-Afro group is located in this triple need to denounce the oppressive colonial system, recognize an “Afro-Spanish” identity and elaborate on and communicate traditions, concepts, ways of thinking/creation with those who contribute to the development of a heterogeneous and equitable model of society in eco-social terms?
16:54 Conciencia-Afro’s participation in debates on recovering historical memory in this country
19:18 It seems that the creative tension guiding the path of the Conciencia-Afro group also applies to the way you approach your double mission: which is on the one hand to denounce Spain’s colonial amnesia and on the other to celebrate an Afro-Spanish collective identity, and a whole series of new creative processes and lines of thinking within the Afro cultural tradition. Would it be correct to think that this creative tension is key to your process?
21:04 In your proposal for cultural celebration and action, there seems to be a pre-existing idea of a politically committed culture with political work that is yet to be done? Is this true?
23:41How does Conciencia-Afro explain the lack of visibility, representation and participation of people of African descent in the coordination of cultural agendas or in the design of public policy?
28:07 Have you seen changes at a social, structural, or cultural level?
31:58 Is there a desire to occupy a seat at the table when it comes to policy?
34:33Since 2016 you have commissioned five festivals, each one serving as a space to link together politics, aesthetics, music, entrepreneurship and pedagogy in a way in which the organizers and people who are protagonizing this are all community residents in the context of Spain. The festival revolves around the structuring concepts of negritud, community, history, knowledge and reencounter and the future. Can you share some of the lessons gained in the context of these festivals?
38:34 Rubén, you published a book titled And why are you Black?, illuminating the process of becoming aware of an identity linked to the Black, African and Afro-descendant community in the context of a white Spanish family. Some media outlets have considered it a pioneering book within this genre. What is your opinion? Can you explain the reactions that this book has provoked?
42:05 Yeison, in the articles you have published, as a columnist for el Salto, you talk about a diversity of needs that range from the construction of an anti-racist historical memory to the need to normalize migrant populations. From your point of view, how do you explain a lack of emphasis on the ethno-racial axis in public policy?
44:22 reactions to articles
47:04 Why are racist attacks not reported in Spain?
47:33 Thinking now about the explicit denunciation of systemic and structural racism, what happens when all this is publicly denounced in this country?
52:05Have you developed activities and workshops for the field of formal education?
54:04are you invited to universities?
56:07 Has Black Lives Matter had consequences in Spain?Is there a dialogue between Conciencia-Afro and this movement?
1:03:16 How is Afro-Conciencia tied to the LGTB-Afro and Afrofemale movements?
“Conciencia-Afro is an artistic, cultural and political proposal focused on claiming our Afro realities.” The Conciencia-Afro group is located in this triple need to denounce the oppressive colonial system, recognition of an Afro-Spanish identity and elaboration and communication of traditions, concepts, forms of thought and own creation with which to contribute to the development of a model of heterogeneous and equitable society in eco-social terms.
