Date: Friday 16th October 2020

Time: 10am - 11am

Location: Online - Zoom

For staff and students of MMU, University of Manchester, Salford University and Bolton University, you can join the event as part of our e-audience and have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session. Please sign up for a 'staff/student' ticket.

Tickets: Free - Available on Eventbrite. Tickets will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.

Afua Hirsch, Guardian columnist, award winning writer of Brit(ish) film producer and presenter of the recent television series Africa Renaissance will be interviewed, by MMU PhD student Khadija Diskin. This In conversation event will be broadcast live and will be followed by a short Q&A session with a select ticketed audience of students and staff from the Manchester Universities collaborating in the PAC@75 event.

Afua Hirsch Biography

Afua Hirsch, https://www.afuahirsch.com/

Afua Hirsch, Guardian columnist, award winning writer of Brit(ish) film producer and presenter of the recent television series Africa Renaissance will be interviewed, by MMU PhD student Khadija Diskin. This In conversation event will be broadcast live and will be followed by a short Q&A session with a select ticketed audience of students and staff from the Manchester Universities collaborating in the PAC@75 event.

PAC@75: Pan African Congress 75th Anniversary Celebrations

Viewing the Past and Looking to the Future

15-18 October 2020

PAC@75 is an exciting four-day celebration led by Manchester Metropolitan University in collaboration with a host of local, UK and international academic, creative and cultural individuals and institiutions, marking the 75th anniversary of the 5th Pan African Congress, held in Manchester in 1945.

The Pan African Congress in 1945 was a precursor to the development of a number of African independence movements which went on to successfully secure self-rule for countries across Africa. It also signified the movement of the intellectual discourse on African self-realisation and solidarity with other causes moving from the Americas and the West Indies to the UK and then on to Africa. The plaque commemorating this event is sited in the recently rebuilt Manchester Metropolitan University Arts Faculty Building facing onto All Saints Square, in what had previously been Chorlton Town Hall where the six day event had actually taken place. The congress had 200 attendees from across the world; including delegations from Africa, America, the Caribbean and Asia, as well as black and white delegates from Manchester and across the UK.

Curated by Professor of Architecture, Ola Uduku, PAC@75 will be a multi-institutional series of creative and academic events, led by Manchester Metropolitan University, with contributions from The University of Manchester, the University of Salford, and the University of Bolton, and in association with See My World, National Black Arts Alliance, and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre, creative and cultural individuals and institutions, including prominent local creatives and the Manchester public.

Join us for activities featuring high-profile international speakers, such as the Ghanaian Princeton philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, Lemn Sissay, and Paul Gilroy as well as students and young people, who represent the next generation of leaders There will also be public-facing sessions including public literature readings , art projections, and theatrical performances by the Manchester School of Theatre and Contact Theatre.

PAC@75 will bring together academics, students and the public, to celebrate how Manchester’s diversity its impact on global history, and how this history relates to today's contemporary challenges in the face of modern racism and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Image credit: Together We Stand United by Saima Rasheed 2020 (MA Fine Art 2021) Watercolour and graphite pencil on paper 20X30cm http://www.saimarasheed.co

PAC banner image credit: Credits: A collaboration by Zineb Berrais (Animation 2018) and Victoria Abigail Rebekah Holland (Fine Art 2023)