African artists recently had an opportunity to show their work in China. As many as 29 African countries took part in the event titled African Culture in Focus, which was held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. The event, sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, featured various cultural activities, including exhibitions, dancing performances and conferences.

"To hold my exhibitions, I go out of the continent much more than inside Africa," says Edward Mwaura Ndekere, a Kenyan painter.

Ndekere and four other artists from Africa will stay in Shenzhen for two months, teaching painting at a financial institute with sponsorship from the Chinese Ministry of Culture.

As a part of the event, China-Africa Joint Exhibition offered visitors multiple perspectives on African art.

"The exhibition by the African Arts Museum of Senegal, a culturally influential country in Western Africa, enables us to witness ingenious art from western African countries," Wang Fengxiang, a middle school student in Shenzhen, says.

The exhibition displayed more than 60 items from the African Arts Museum of Senegal, including masks, sculpture and folk instruments.

"They are not common artistic works," Ndofene Diouf, director of the Senegal exhibition, says. "They reflect the historical and current social life of western African people's in-depth spiritual life."

Gabon, a country in west central Africa with a 1.5 million population, delivered 58 pieces of artistic works to the Shenzhen exhibition, including masks.

Compared with Europe and America, the culture of Africa is still a new concept to many Chinese people. "I watched some of their dancing performances," says Pei Jiangrong from Tianjin.

Compared with the dancing performances by Chinese professional dancers, Pei says he found most of the African dancers were more willing to show the real aspect of themselves through their simple and natural body language.

Meanwhile, many governmental officials of culture sectors from Africa have high expectations of further cooperation of culture with China.

(China Daily November 6, 2008)