Interview with Johny Pitts

AFRØPEAN

"There are so many stories, stories that need to be told. I don’t think anyone should be out of the conservation."

"I don't go around telling people 'Hey, I'm afropean'. I use afropean more as platform, a suggestion to insert complexity to the idea of Europe"

"I think you can tackle (the rise of nationalism) by transcending the borders of your own country, of your own nation, connecting your local and personal experience to something larger, something transnational"

Biographical Note

Johny Pitts sees himself as having been born out of a happy union of two cultures: his father is an. African American, from Brooklyn, New York and his mother a white woman from Sheffield. He is a published writer (Penguin Books) and a photographer and he spent ten years working in TV as a writer and presenter (with MTV, Sky One, ITV, Channel 4, Discovery Channel and currently the BBC). He is the founder of the AFRØPEAN–Adventures in Black Europe , an online multimedia, multidisciplinary journal exploring the social, cultural and aesthetic interplay of black and European cultures, and the synergy of styles and ideas brought about because of this union. In 2013 he won an ENAR Award for his contribution to a racism-free Europe. In 2014 Afropean was invited to be part of The Guardian Newspaper’s Africa Network . His new book, a travel narrative and photo essay about black Europe, is coming out in June 2019.