Eight films are brought together by 'Exhibition Histories and Afrofictions' at the Michaelis Galleries. Together they invite reflection on how different public contexts have shaped, or sought to shape, notions of 'African art' historically and around the world. They further give pause to consider what cultural practice in the present and future might learn from these histories, or how we might challenge them.

Part 1 of the show starts out with early films attempting an experimental take on museological and exhibitionary practices in Europe relating to cultural objects pillaged from Africa. The famous French film Les Statues meurent aussi [Statues Also Die], with its 1950s mix of both radical thinking and lingering imperialism, is paired with George Hoellering's Shapes and Forms.

Part 2 of the exhibition looks askance at the Parisian exhibition of 1989 that problematically proclaimed itself 'the first worldwide exhibition of contemporary art': 'Magiciens de la Terre'. Two films are paired that convey the working practices of two contributors to 'Magiciens'.

Part 3 of the exhibition unites filmic representations of mid 20th century Pan-Africanism, affirming cultural production as seen from Ghana, Senegal and Algeria when they were recently independent from British and French colonial rule. Three documentaries from the 1960s are juxtaposed, while a recent essay-film by The Otolith Group offers a complementary retrospective take.

'Exhibition Histories and Afrofictions' is co-curated by Nkule Mabaso, of the Michaelis Galleries, with Lucy Steeds, who is Senior Research Fellow in Art Theory and Exhibition Histories at Afterall Art Research Centre, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.