BMW, Zeitz MOCAA and AFMAC to open 'Turning Towards the Sun' exhibition anchored by Julie Mehretu's Art Car #20
A Cape Town exhibition running from 11 December 2026 to 15 August 2027 puts Julie Mehretu's BMW Art Car #20 at the centre of a Pan-African film and moving-image project.
- 11 December 2026 to 15 August 2027
- 6
- 5
- #20
What Happened
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) and BMW present 'Turning Towards the Sun', an exhibition on Level 4 of the museum in Cape Town. It brings together six artists and filmmakers to explore moving image and collective learning practices on the Continent, and will be on view from 11 December 2026 to 15 August 2027. The catalyst for the project was Julie Mehretu's nomination as the artist for BMW Art Car #20, which will be displayed in Zeitz MOCAA's Atrium Bowl for the duration of the exhibition. The exhibition is presented in partnership with BMW and is part of the AFMAC project.
- Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, Ethiopian director
- Mati Diop, French-Senegalese filmmaker
- Jim Chuchu, Kenyan multidisciplinary artist
- Wanuri Kahiu, Kenyan filmmaker
- Robin Coste Lewis, African-American poet
- The Otolith Group, British interdisciplinary artist collective
Ousmane Sembène says 'Why should I be like a sunflower turning towards the sun? I, myself, am the sun' in the documentary Twenty Years of African Cinema (Caméra d'Afrique) by Tunisian filmmaker Ferid Boughedir. The exhibition title draws on this line.
Arundhati Roy's reflection that 'the pandemic is a portal' inspires Julie Mehretu's approach to her BMW Art Car #20 commission, which she treated as a way of constructing portals into new worlds shaped by Pan-African perspectives.
'Turning Towards the Sun' opens on Level 4 of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, with BMW Art Car #20 on display in the museum's Atrium Bowl.
The exhibition closes.
Mehretu developed the project with filmmaker Mehret Mandefro and the late Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA Koyo Kouoh, building AFMAC through a series of five inter-continental workshops held in Lagos, Nigeria; Tangier, Morocco; Nairobi, Kenya; Dakar, Senegal; and Cape Town, South Africa, led by artists including several participating in the exhibition. The show's video installations examine cultural manifestations of women's rage, the complexities of Black queer masculinities on the Continent, young people's experiences of complicated political moments, and African cosmo-technics and the expanded field of animation through the literature of Nigerian author Amos Tutuola, alongside a history of cultural institutions on the Continent and figures who championed Africa as a generative site of knowledge production in filmmaking. The title recontextualises Sembène's sunflower line to propose that attention to filmmaking from Africa and its diaspora is a turning towards the sun, the sun being the artistic knowledge and cultural production emerging from the African continent and its global diaspora. The exhibition is curated by Zeitz MOCAA Assistant Curator Khanyi Mawhayi, with support from Dr Phokeng Setai and Dr Greer Valley and assistance from Angela Muritu, Inshaaf Jamodien, Evyn Banawoye and Reem Aljeally, and it forms part of Zeitz MOCAA's ongoing series of research-driven exhibitions; the museum's curatorial and exhibition programming is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and BMW South Africa.
“For me, the idea of a portal is about opening up possibilities - creating space to imagine beyond the worlds we have inherited. African cinema holds an extraordinary history of artists using the moving image to document and reimagine their realities. Through AFMAC, we create opportunities for artists to encounter one another, and to explore what could emerge when these histories and perspectives come into conversation.”
“For more than 50 years, BMW has been committed to culture, with the BMW Art Cars at the heart of this engagement. 'Turning Towards the Sun' demonstrates the catalytic power of artistic freedom: what began with Julie Mehretu's vision for her BMW Art Car #20 has evolved into a wider platform for artistic exchange and collaboration across the African continent. Cultural engagement also has a strong tradition for BMW in South Africa, not least through our partnership with Zeitz MOCAA since the museum's founding.”
“The exhibition asks, 'How do we build sustainable Pan-African social and pedagogical infrastructures between artists and institutions in Africa?' 'Turning Towards the Sun' is an invitation to think expansively about cinema and its related pedagogies; to trace networks of solidarity across Africa and embrace the generosity that emerges when we imagine people as the infrastructure that sustains film and cinema on the Continent.”
Why this matters
The show turns a single BMW Art Car commission into a continental platform, giving six African and diaspora artists and filmmakers space in a major museum in Cape Town. It also extends BMW South Africa's cultural partnership with Zeitz MOCAA, which dates back to the museum's founding, and reflects more than 50 years of BMW cultural engagement. For museum visitors, the Art Car itself is on public display for the length of the exhibition.
Terms in This Story
- BMW Art Car
- A BMW programme in which commissioned artists create one-off designs for BMW vehicles.
- Zeitz MOCAA
- The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, a museum of contemporary African art in Cape Town.
- AFMAC
- The African Film and Media Arts Collective, a pan-African film and media arts initiative.
- Pan-African
- Relating to solidarity and collaboration among African countries and communities of African descent worldwide.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.