My thesis focuses on cultural relations between a constellation of socialist countries during the Cold War: the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Cuba, and two African socialist countries (Ethiopia and Mozambique).

My aim is to initiate a comparison between the African cultural policy of a highly industrialized European socialist country (the GDR), which can be attached to the "Global North", and the African cultural policy of Cuba, a formerly colonized socialist country that can be attached to the "Global South". The "socialist island of the Caribbean" has in fact attempted to establish privileged links with the African continent with a Third Worldist objective. This thesis underlines the importance of cultural exchanges in the plastic and graphic arts between socialist countries during the Cold War. Far from being incidental, the cultural field, and in particular the visual arts, were particularly invested by the socialist camp: in a Cold War context, they enabled the defense of a worldview and had a strong propaganda dimension, but were not limited to it. Original art forms were born, and cultural relations also paved the way for the establishment of economic and diplomatic relations, or served to maintain ties in the case of difficult political relations.

Through the analysis of these cultural exchanges, this study aims to shed light on the tensions and complex dynamics that animated an "Eastern bloc" that was far from homogeneous, between solidarity and rivalry, anti-imperialism and the persistence of colonial dynamics. The socialist camp was thus characterized by the persistence of North-South dynamics, which superimposed themselves on the bipolar logic and were able to blur the boundaries between the blocs.

In this context, I'm interested in different types of circulation, part of an alternative socialist globalization that Matthias Middel has described as "red globalization": the exchange of art exhibitions, artists' travels and the mobility of art students between these countries.