For a long time, only a limited number of voices have held the power to think about and define the world, and the frameworks they established continue to shape much of our understanding today. Felwine Sarr, one of the most influential thinkers on the African continent, argues for broadening and pluralising knowledge by recognising as agents of thought voices and places that have often been excluded. How can we think about the world from Africa and with others? What new horizons might emerge if we broaden the actors and categories through which we interpret reality? This challenge requires a critical examination of the narratives and systems of knowledge that continue to shape our view of the world, what the Congolese philosopher Valentin-Yves Mudimbe called the "colonial library". It also means asking new questions, opening up new frameworks of thought, and recognising forms of knowledge that extend beyond academic discourse, including objects, practical knowledge, the arts and the imagination.

In a world marked by global crises and increasingly conservative and exclusionary responses, Sarr proposes shifting the centres of thought beyond the colonial framework in order to imagine other possible futures and rethink key issues such as relationships and ways of inhabiting the world. Author of Afrotopía (Catarata, 2018) and La fabrique du présent. Pour des utopies en actes (Philippe Rey, 2026), he also pursues this vision through the Ateliers de la pensée, the gatherings he founded with Achille Mbembe, which bring together thinkers and artists from Africa and its diaspora to reflect not only on the continent's transformations but also on the major global challenges.

This activity is part of the CCCB’s ‘Talks for Secondary School Students’ sessions and requires advance registration.

Session with simultaneous interpretation.

Free admission. Limited capacity.