RABAT (AFP).- Morocco is hosting a month-long festival to celebrate African art and culture, featuring some of the continent's most prominent artists.

Activities including theatre, exhibitions and concerts are being held around Rabat as part of the Africa in the Capital event.

The festival follows a vast diplomatic, political and economic offensive by Morocco across the continent which culminated in its return to the African Union in January.

"We wanted to celebrate our Africanity and the return of Morocco to the African Union through the universal language of culture," said painter Mehdi Qotbi, president of Morocco's National Foundation of Museums.

Africa in the Capital is giving pride of place to contemporary art, "because we want to try to erase everything that is folklore and talk about Africa in the present," said Qotbi.

Works by artists including Congolese painter Cheri Cherin, Bruce Onobrakpeya of Nigeria, Aboudia of Ivory Coast and Wahib Chehata of Tunisia will be on display at Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art until April 28.

Elsewhere in the capital, graffiti by German artist Hendrik Beikirch adorns a building while a train at Rabat station has been dressed in the multi-coloured works of the Ivorian artist Mederic Turay.


© Agence France-Presse