Black Africans in Renaissance Europe

Prof. Tamar Herzig, director of the Fred W. Lessing Institute for European History and Civilization, in conversation with filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu about his documentary film We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (2024) – which challenges the erasures of history that feed nationalist politics in Europe today, by recovering the presence of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Unveiled at the 60th Biennale in Venice in 2024, the film condenses the lives and stories of notable Africans and how their presence and skills shaped European history and visuals in the Renaissance. Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, winner of the 2025 Dan David Prize for the Study of the Human Past, is a socially engaged artist, filmmaker and scholar, whose work is influenced by his background as a person of African descent. By consistently bridging past and present, seen and unseen, hegemonic and subaltern, Kuwornu's practice emerges as a vital contribution to contemporary visual culture. His work not only recovers lost narratives but also proposes new frameworks for understanding the complex interplay between history, identity, race, power and representation in our globalized world. Fred Kudjo Kuwornu visited Tel Aviv University as a guest of the ERC project FemSMed for a series of screening events in Tel Aviv.__________________Tel Aviv 360, Israel's largest and most diverse podcast about research and innovation• Tel Aviv 360 in Facebook ◄ https://360tau.com/Facebook• Tel Aviv 360 in WhatsApp (Silent group) ◄ https://360tau.com/WhatsApp• Tel Aviv 360 in Spotify ◄ https://360tau.com/Spotify• Tel Aviv 360 official website ◄ https://360tau.com