Political Protest in Sudan: Reflections Through an Artist’s Pen – A Conversation with Khalid Albaih (København)

The past decade has seen increasing popular protests against authoritarian regimes on the African continent. This began in North Africa with the Tunisian Revolution, spreading to Libya, Egypt and Yemen, and with sustained if less transformative demonstrations in Morocco, Algeria, Oman, Sudan and Djibouti. 

In southern Africa, the mass protests in Zimbabwe in November 2017, alongside an apparently people-friendly ‘not coup’, brought down Robert Mugabe’s rule.

In this special event, Zimbabwean-born Amanda Hammar, Director of the Centre of African Studies, will be in conversation with well-known Sudanese artist and political cartoonist, Khalid Albaih, to discuss both the current intensification of protests in Sudan, and on the use of political cartoons and graphics more broadly.

Khalid Albaih is a Sudanese artist and political cartoonist, born in Bucharest, Romania in 1980. He has been based in Doha, Qatar since 1990, but since late 2017 he has been living in Copenhagen as ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network) artist-in-residence.

He publishes his cartoons on social media under “Khartoon!” – a word play between cartoon and Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.

Albaih has published his cartoons widely in international publications including The Atlantic, PRI, and NPR, in addition to writings on social and political commentaries published in The Guardian and Al Jazeera.

His work has been exhibited in activist oriented group exhibitions in Sharjah UEA (2016), and Zwickau, Germany, 2015), as well as solo exhibitions in Doha (2016), New Delhi (2016), Dearborn, MI (2015), Montreal (2014), and London (2013).

Organizer: Center of African Studies