Black Urbanities. Black Politics in the City | Activity

MACBA and CCCB present Black Urbanitiesa three-day conference convening voices from across a variety of disciplines, geographies and political histories to explore collective experiences of Black living in the city.

“Blackness entails a mode of existence subject to repeatedly diverse forms of incarceration and enclosure, yet always beyond it…simultaneously as a dwelling in the unknown, a leap, to use Fanon’s terms, without guarantee or map…a ​​virtual plane populated by all of the struggles, compensations, sufferings, voicing of “Black people”…implicitly existent but not always or ever actualized way(s) of inhabiting the earth.” Abdou Maliq Simone

Considering the singular and unparalleled ways in which Black folks continuously prototype new and possible forms of being urban, this conference plays with the notion of black urbanism as a method for engaging the urban in a different key, a different modality – a portal through which the city can be told. Through discussions of everyday urban tactics, global struggles for autonomy, and the practice and potential of Black imagination, we ask what sorts of emergent futures are held in Black districts across the globe, especially in the face of unprecedented political and ecological instability?

in collaboration with

_{Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.}

exhibition

From 6 November 2025 to 6 April 2026

Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica