Anna-Alix Koffi

Image provided by Anna-Alix Koffi.

This piece was written over a year ago.

The evening was full of designers, artists, gallery owners, and cultural workers. Everyone was dressed in their Sundays’ best. Bissap and alcoholic drinks were served the entire night. I held my disposable camera  in one hand and a cold glass of bissap in this juggling act, I stood in my orange patent leather kitten heels in circle of very cool people as I spoke about my work. While I was holding my camera, Zhedy Patchouli (whom I just met) “You need to meet Anna-Alix! She just opened up a creative space.” We both were introduced through Zhedy at the opening of Romeo Mivekanin “Effractions” and Thibaut Bouedjoro Camus “Bonne Nouvelle” at the art gallery Cécile Fakhoury.  Anna-Alix, is a creative director, and publisher. She is the founder and creator of the new art space in Abidjan titled “Something.” Two days before we met at the opening, she celebrated the opening of Something with an exhibition titled The Power of My Hands and a live set by the Ivorian DJ ASNA.

Senzeni Marasela, Waiting for Gebane, 2013-2019.

Something is situated in Blockhauss, Abidjan. Something is under Anna-Alix Koffi’s project Something We Africans Got  which is an independent Black owned journal founded in 2017. The Power of My Hands featured work by eight women artists from English and Portuguese speaking African nations. The exhibition consisted of video, and digital art that reflect on the themes of feminism and gender. The exhibition engages with the second-wave feminist essay “The Personal is Political” by Carol Hanisch. In her essay she challenges the idea of the nuclear family and emphasizes women’s private and personal issues as being one that is political. We sat right outside of the gallery space on a silver metal bench that matched the colors of the exhibition space. The smell of delicious cooked meat and pasta wafted in the air as we began our discussion about Anna-Alix’s career. She has worked as a creative director and publisher for ten years. We began our interview with a collection of publications she has spearheaded such as Off the Wall. Off the Wall is a publication about emerging artists and archival images from established photographers. As she spoke about her independent publication she then speaks about the process of curating “This is how I started curating.”

She began thinking about the ways images lay flat on pages and how it can be re-imagined in a physical space. There has been another ideation of The Power of My Hands in Paris at The Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris in 2020. She continued, “Things have been done here already but I wanted to have a special place that is dedicated to video. I wanted to establish that and to invite artists to come and to also help put Abidjan on the artistic map more than it is already. Dakar has the biennale, Bamako has its biennale, and Capetown, and Marrakech with 154 but we need something here. We are lucky because we have a brand-new minister of culture Françoise Remarck.” Anna-Alix is one of the leading Ivorian women in Abidjan that are celebrating, highlighting and creating spaces for African artists, and particularly African women artists. Similar to Gazelle and Simone Guriandou, Anna-Alix Koffi is intentional about artistic spaces that support African art and African artists within the continent.

The exhibition is no longer on view. Currently on view is AfricaNFT October 3, 2023- November 3, 2023.