The paintings of contemporary visual artist Julie Mehretu hang in some of the world’s most prestigious art institutions. Renowned for her large-scale abstract and multilayered landscape pieces that explore the themes of history and globalism, Mehretu has earned international acclaim.
Yet, the Ethiopian-born, US-based artist is quick to acknowledge those who paved the way for her success. “We’re here standing on the shoulders of giants, as we always are, and hopefully we can also create more of that space for so many others that deserve to be a part of it,” she told CNN’s Larry Madowo during a visit to Nairobi.
Creating space for others is exactly what Mehretu is doing. Right now, she and her team at the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC), a pan-African artists network, are concluding a series of workshops held across Africa. “We’re doing these workshops throughout the continent in five different cities, working on media arts, media and film and trying to really kind of interrogate that space in the kind of deeply mediated world we live in now,” she explained.
The goal, she added, is “to be able to create a kind of cross-disciplinary, intergenerational conversation between countries and between artist spaces, so we can … not just amplify our voices, but also invent new forms that are just as rigorous and challenging.”
The idea for the workshops originated from a project with BMW in 2018, when the carmaker selected Mehretu to create its 20th Art Car. Since 1975, the initiative has allowed famed international artists to transform BMW cars into “rolling sculptures,” giving them complete creative freedom.
In participating, Mehretu joined the ranks of artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. As with her other projects, Mehretu wanted this one to stand out, so she proposed an idea that would connect with her home continent. “One of the proposals I said to BMW was what if … we went from Cairo to Cape Town on this old idea of this Pan-African highway, and through that use the car as the common link between these places to then work with filmmakers in each country, to use the road and the car as the protagonists, and then be able to really have Africans tell their own stories?” she said.
With this vision and BMW’s financial support, Mehretu and her AFMAC co-founder, filmmaker Mehret Mandefro, partnered with local cultural institutions across Africa to conduct workshops aimed at “connecting and strengthening the artistic community within Africa.” The first stop was Lagos, Nigeria, in April 2025. The team then traveled to Tangier, Morocco; Nairobi, Kenya; and Dakar, Senegal, and will arrive in Cape Town, South Africa, next month.
Each workshop will produce a new film, and at the end of the series, the films will be compiled to showcase contemporary African filmmaking. The compilation will debut alongside the BMW Art Car exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town next year.
“The African continent is this place that has always drawn me back,” Mehretu said. “It’s a place that I was born in. I’ve lived in Zimbabwe and Senegal, and I’ve traveled extensively throughout the continent. And so there’s this immense possibility of what can happen but also what can happen with the pan-African kind of possibility, especially in the creative space.”
As Mehretu wraps up the workshops, she is preparing to unveil another major project, one unlike anything she’s done before. In 2024, the Obama Foundation announced that Mehretu had been selected to create a unique artwork for the presidential library in Chicago. Mehretu described the project as “exciting,” but also “unique” in its challenges.
“I’ve never worked with glass before. The proposal was to make an artwork in this enormous glass window that goes up 34 stories of the building along the escalator,” she said. But with hard work, ingenuity, and perseverance, Mehretu and her team succeeded. When former President Barack Obama asks you to do something, “you say yes and you say, ‘OK, how fast?’” she jokes. The public will be able to see the work next spring.
Mehretu’s work is in prominent museums such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in Washington, DC, the Met in New York, and the British Museum in London. But when asked about her legacy, Mehretu brings the focus back to working with others.
She said she wants to be able to “participate in a bigger collective of many makers, painters, and creative artists, sculptors, video artists, media artists, filmmakers (and) musicians.” Mehretu added, “There’s this other form of cultural reverberation; there is a collective we are all a part of, and hopefully that creates space for more of that possibility. And I’m excited for what the future holds.”
