PARIS.- AKAA, Also Known As Africa, will return to the Carreau du Temple in Paris from October 23 to 25, 2026, bringing together galleries, collectors, curators, institutions, and art lovers for the 11th edition of the Art & Design Fair.
Held beneath the historic glass canopy of the Carreau du Temple, AKAA has become one of the key events of Paris Art Week and a major platform for contemporary African and Afro-descendant artistic practices. Over the past decade, the fair has helped shape and expand the visibility of artists from Africa and its diasporas, supporting a market that continues to grow in international reach and critical recognition.
Under the artistic direction of Sitor Senghor, the 2026 edition continues AKAA’s commitment to dialogue, discovery, and exchange. The fair will place a special emphasis on photography, coinciding with the bicentenary of the medium’s invention. Through this focus, AKAA will explore photography as a tool of memory, identity, representation, and visual storytelling.
For Senghor, photography remains more than a flood of images in an era dominated by screens. It is, at its core, an act of attention. In his editorial statement for the fair, he reflects on the way images shape perception, inform public memory, and sometimes blur the line between reality and fabrication. Against this backdrop, AKAA invites visitors to slow down, look closely, and consider the many worlds contained within a single image.
The 2026 programme also highlights works on paper through the section “Histoires de Papiers.” Following AKAA’s 2025 focus on ceramics, this new edition turns to paper not as a secondary medium, but as a space of experimentation, intimacy, and creative freedom. Drawing, ink, collage, mixed media, paper cutting, and other practices will be presented as autonomous forms of artistic expression.
Within contemporary African and Afro-descendant art, paper often becomes a place where memory, identity, language, territory, and belonging intersect. The medium’s immediacy allows artists to reveal process, thought, and emotion with unusual directness, offering collectors and visitors a closer view of the artist’s hand and imagination.
A central feature of the fair will be a monumental installation by Senegalese photographer Gabriel Dia, centered on his series Mother’s Heritage. Conceived as an immersive installation, the work will feature large-scale photographs printed on fabric and suspended throughout the space, evoking garments hanging from clotheslines.
Born in Rufisque, Senegal, in 1985, Dia draws on childhood memories of the traditional garments made by his mother in her sewing workshop. Revisiting these fabrics, patterns, and silhouettes, he explores family history, gender, cultural inheritance, and self-reconciliation. The installation also celebrates the richness of African textiles and craftsmanship at a time when globalized fashion trends increasingly threaten local traditions.
Alongside the fair’s gallery presentations, Les Rencontres AKAA will once again provide a cultural platform for talks, performances, screenings, and debates. Artists, curators, thinkers, and art market professionals will gather to address the major questions shaping contemporary African creation and its expanding influence on the global art scene.
The fair’s selection committee brings together voices from several major cultural centers. Members include Elana Brundyn, a Cape Town-based fine art and cultural consultant involved in the launch of Zeitz MOCAA and the Norval Foundation; Frédérique Chapuis, a Paris-based journalist and photography specialist; Mamadou-Abou Sarr, a Chicago-based financier, philanthropist, and arts patron; Eve Therond, a New York-based art advisor, writer, and curator; and Ousseynou Wade, a Dakar-based specialist in cultural policy and arts management.
AKAA’s 2026 main section will feature an international roster of galleries and artists from Africa, Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Participants include Alejandra Topete Gallery from Mexico, ARTBASE from Wiesbaden and Berlin, Arte de Gema from Maputo, BACKSLASH from Paris, Ceysson & Bénétière, Galerie Vallois, Primo Marella Gallery, OpenArtExchange, Umoja Art Gallery, and many others.
The AKAA Photo section will bring additional attention to lens-based practices, with exhibitors including Arts Design Africa Studio, Atelier 9, FILAFRIQUES, Fisheye Gallery, Galerie Carole Kvasnevski, in camera galerie, Les Filles du Calvaire, and THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE. Featured artists include Gabriel Dia, Delphine Diallo, Paul Kodjo, Zanele Muholi, Angèle Etoundi Essamba, Maya Inès Touam, Dagmar Van Weeghel, and others.
With its 11th edition, AKAA continues to position itself as a meeting point for artistic discovery and international exchange. At once a fair, a cultural forum, and a space for reflection, the 2026 edition aims to deepen conversations around contemporary African art while opening new paths for artists, galleries, collectors, and audiences across continents.
AKAA will take place from October 23 to 25, 2026, at the Carreau du Temple, 4 Rue Eugène Spuller, 75003 Paris. The fair will be open from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on October 23 and 24, and from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on October 25.
