Issue # 11
Is the Rest of the World a Jungle Outside the Garden of Europe?
Photographs from a Region in Flux
On October 10th Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President, addressed his ambassadors in Brussels. It began most promisingly, with Borrell decrying the number of authoritarian regimes in the world, including those "on our side.” He railed against rising "nationalism, revisionism and identity politics” while acknowledging the presence of more important players on the world stage: Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Mexico. He turned...
On October 10th Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President, addressed his ambassadors in Brussels. It began most promisingly, with Borrell decrying the number of authoritarian regimes in the world, including those "on our side.” He...
The Uganda Press Photo Award shines a light on the thrills and fears of our new realities. The digital era proposes that in order to live a productive life, you must first cater to your mental, physical and spiritual well-being. But what happens when this is not an option for you, your neighbour, and your neighbour’s neighbour? The images featured in this exhibition weave a story of change and the (im)possibilities that result from a time when we can only speak of our dreams of productivity. The...
The Uganda Press Photo Award shines a light on the thrills and fears of our new realities. The digital era proposes that in order to live a productive life, you must first cater to your mental, physical and spiritual well-being. But what happens when this is not an option for you,...
Campaigning to become president of Uganda can be very, very dangerous. The People's President, which documents Bobi Wine's epic presidential run, drew thousands of visitors in Amsterdam. Close to 2000 people welcomed Ugandan pop star Robert Kyagulanyi, more famously known as Bobi Wine, after a screening in Amsterdam’s Carré Theatre, while even more attended other screenings across the city. Many of them voted for the documentary, made by Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp. With 9488 votes, The...
Campaigning to become president of Uganda can be very, very dangerous. The People's President, which documents Bobi Wine's epic presidential run, drew thousands of visitors in Amsterdam. Close to 2000 people welcomed Ugandan pop star Robert Kyagulanyi, more famously known as Bobi...
African countries encountered “COVID refugees,” young Europeans who had temporarily relocated to work remotely from Africa to escape pandemic despair at home. A similar flow of refugees could be caused by climate change. Climate negotiations have repeatedly floundered on the unwillingness of rich countries, but let’s hope their own increasing vulnerability instills greater solidarity. As COP 27 in Egypt nears its end, I find it difficult, almost impossible, to talk to my children about climate...
African countries encountered “COVID refugees,” young Europeans who had temporarily relocated to work remotely from Africa to escape pandemic despair at home. A similar flow of refugees could be caused by climate change. Climate negotiations have repeatedly floundered on the...
Collaboration between artists and local communities in Africa can help initiate a grassroots transition to a more equitable society, case studies show. "Artists in African countries are increasingly organizing themselves into collectives," says Molemo Moiloa in a video interview from Berlin, where she’s in residency until March 2023 as a follow-up to Documenta, the five-year international art arena. "This makes it easier to connect with people in the community and to take action." At Documenta her...
Collaboration between artists and local communities in Africa can help initiate a grassroots transition to a more equitable society, case studies show. "Artists in African countries are increasingly organizing themselves into collectives," says Molemo Moiloa in a video interview...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the last 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined, positioned, memorialised and asserted African and African-descent experiences. It contributes to the critical discourse on African and Black liberation, intellectual and philosophical movements. The title of the exhibition...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the last 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined,...
What a touching gesture! Visual artist patricia kaersenhout (1966, born in the Netherlands to Surinamese parents) has created a work of art especially for ZAM. Ode to Winnie, A Portrait of Love and Revolution is printed in an edition of 60 signed and numbered copies. All proceeds from sales will go to support ZAM's efforts to bring the urgent and inspiring stories of African creatives and changemakers to the attention of international audiences. This is how ZAM builds a world beyond us-and-them....
What a touching gesture! Visual artist patricia kaersenhout (1966, born in the Netherlands to Surinamese parents) has created a work of art especially for ZAM. Ode to Winnie, A Portrait of Love and Revolution is printed in an edition of 60 signed and numbered copies. All proceeds...
When the force isn’t with you: one community’s fight for the light it needs to live and trade. Temitope Meshach, who runs a bakery in South Ondo Senatorial District, Ondo State, Nigeria, has a mixer and oven that can produce four cakes at once. However the heavy equipment requires an adequate electricity supply to function, and she has not been able to use them since the lights went off in her area ten years ago. ‘I have a generator but the capacity is not enough’, she says, adding that the same...
When the force isn’t with you: one community’s fight for the light it needs to live and trade. Temitope Meshach, who runs a bakery in South Ondo Senatorial District, Ondo State, Nigeria, has a mixer and oven that can produce four cakes at once. However the heavy equipment requires...
R!ot by Design, Sindiso Nyoni’s first solo exhibition, opens in Amsterdam. Hundreds of visitors attending the first shows of the annual Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam were granted an exclusive preview of this hotly-anticipated exhibition. The opening, which followed the next day, was very well attended and many more people have passed through the doors since. On Thursday 13 October the exhibition moved to its next location at the festival’s second venue, De Balie. R!ot by Design at De Balie....
R!ot by Design, Sindiso Nyoni’s first solo exhibition, opens in Amsterdam. Hundreds of visitors attending the first shows of the annual Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam were granted an exclusive preview of this hotly-anticipated exhibition. The opening, which followed the next day,...
A new exhibition with the works of Mohau Modisakeng, Ishmael Armarh and Kwadwo Amfo opened last week at Gallery Ron Mandos in Amsterdam. Ishmael Armarh's (Ghana, 1986) exhibition Possibilities shows us a series of paintings about the constant dialogue between the Western gaze and the heterogeneous African identity. It is the result of a collaboration with the Noldor Residency, Ghana’s first independent artist residency and fellowship program for contemporary African artists on the continent as well...
A new exhibition with the works of Mohau Modisakeng, Ishmael Armarh and Kwadwo Amfo opened last week at Gallery Ron Mandos in Amsterdam. Ishmael Armarh's (Ghana, 1986) exhibition Possibilities shows us a series of paintings about the constant dialogue between the Western gaze and...
The use of Marxist-inspired arguments, often distorted, to support racist or nationalist political positions, is known as "rossobrunismo" (red-brownism) in Italy. Those following immigration politics in Europe, especially Italy, may have noticed the appropriation of the words of Marxist and anti-imperialist heroes and intellectuals by the new nationalist and racist right to support their xenophobic or nationalist arguments. From Samora Machel (Mozambican independence leader), Thomas Sankara...
The use of Marxist-inspired arguments, often distorted, to support racist or nationalist political positions, is known as "rossobrunismo" (red-brownism) in Italy. Those following immigration politics in Europe, especially Italy, may have noticed the appropriation of the words of...
Ten years after the massacre, Marikana - The Musical is once again staged in Pretoria. The production builds on a rich history of protest theatre. On the 16th August 2012, 34 striking mineworkers were killed by the South African Police Service at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, in the North West province of South Africa. Their deaths, and the events leading up to them, were broadcast live on television. This tragedy, which has come to be known as the Marikana Massacre, is the deadliest act of...
Ten years after the massacre, Marikana - The Musical is once again staged in Pretoria. The production builds on a rich history of protest theatre. On the 16th August 2012, 34 striking mineworkers were killed by the South African Police Service at the Lonmin platinum mine in...
The Dutch and UK governments spent millions on sponsoring the rehabilitation of a crucial road in eastern DRC. Thirteen years after the project was launched, very little has happened. “We are a misery-cliché of decades-long wars, hunger and rape. The world is used to us dying here.” [Text in Dutch below] When I first met Byombe in 2010, he had been taken under the wing of Jules, a human rights activist and entrepreneur. Byombe had been working in the illegal mines in Walikale and Jules tried to get...
The Dutch and UK governments spent millions on sponsoring the rehabilitation of a crucial road in eastern DRC. Thirteen years after the project was launched, very little has happened. “We are a misery-cliché of decades-long wars, hunger and rape. The world is used to us dying here.”...
Growing up poor and queer, and loved, in a South African township. The memoir Boy on the Run by Welcome Mandla Lishivha is “destined to be a classic”, says acclaimed South African author Mark Gevisser. ‘It’s tough and fragile, tragic and resilient, and utterly compelling. Welcome Lishivha has broken new ground in South African literature.’ South Africa’s cultural wires are abuzz about Lishivha’s debut. Readers have found themselves moved by lyrical lines like: ‘It is the godly feeling of dancing...
Growing up poor and queer, and loved, in a South African township. The memoir Boy on the Run by Welcome Mandla Lishivha is “destined to be a classic”, says acclaimed South African author Mark Gevisser. ‘It’s tough and fragile, tragic and resilient, and utterly compelling. Welcome...
The 19th edition of Afrovibes presents the first solo exhibition of graphic designer, artist and activist Sindiso Nyoni. His work fits perfectly into the wider festival, whose packed schedule of more than 15 theatre productions from 10 countries explores the synergy between rapture and rupture. A poster featuring South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela holding his trumpet like a weapon sets the tone for Sindiso Nyoni's exhibition Riot by Design. There is wit, but there’s also a dedication to art as...
The 19th edition of Afrovibes presents the first solo exhibition of graphic designer, artist and activist Sindiso Nyoni. His work fits perfectly into the wider festival, whose packed schedule of more than 15 theatre productions from 10 countries explores the synergy between rapture...
Huge amounts of capital were accumulated through colonial trade. So what happened to it? How many generations of families have benefited from these terrible histories, and at the expense of what and who? Returning the Gaze is the latest site-specific performance by Amsterdam-based Sites of Memory . It's about whose voice is heard, ignored or acknowledged, whose face is seen, or erased and covered up. The dominant gaze, often white, versus the suppressed perspective from which colonial history is...
Huge amounts of capital were accumulated through colonial trade. So what happened to it? How many generations of families have benefited from these terrible histories, and at the expense of what and who? Returning the Gaze is the latest site-specific performance by Amsterdam-based...
Gulu, the de-facto capital of Northern Uganda, looks a lot better than it did twenty years ago when Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army was ravaging the region. A World Bank-aided roadbuilding programme and sudden booms in investment bring new possibilities for development, revenue collection and funding sources. If managed well, Gulu City will continue to become a metropolis. But the city’s administration continues to frustrate progress, threatening future development and sometimes even claiming...
Gulu, the de-facto capital of Northern Uganda, looks a lot better than it did twenty years ago when Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army was ravaging the region. A World Bank-aided roadbuilding programme and sudden booms in investment bring new possibilities for development, revenue...
Senegalese film director and screenwriter Alain Gomis, Moroccan visual artist Hassan Darsi and Egyptian architectural engineer May al-Ibrashi are among the six winners of the Prince Claus Impact Awards, which were announced on Tuesday September 6 2022. Other winners include Brazilian indigenous leader, poet and writer Ailton Krenak, Cuban performing artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, and Argentinian writer, poet and activist Maria Medrano. The Awards recognise artists, creatives and inspirational...
Senegalese film director and screenwriter Alain Gomis, Moroccan visual artist Hassan Darsi and Egyptian architectural engineer May al-Ibrashi are among the six winners of the Prince Claus Impact Awards, which were announced on Tuesday September 6 2022. Other winners include...
Inside the Brain Drain Destroying Zimbabwe's Health System After Zimbabwe reached independence in 1980 the state introduced free health care for citizens, with new clinics and immunisation available countrywide. But then training of doctors and upkeep of hospitals stalled, and three decades of neoliberal reforms and widespread corruption, in concert with sanctions targeting the ruling ZANU-PF party, have left the health system ravaged. Now many medical workers are voting with their feet. Zimbabwe’s...
Inside the Brain Drain Destroying Zimbabwe's Health System After Zimbabwe reached independence in 1980 the state introduced free health care for citizens, with new clinics and immunisation available countrywide. But then training of doctors and upkeep of hospitals stalled, and three...
The festival opens with JUWAA, a film by Congolese filmmaker Nganji Mutiri. Shot in Belgium and the DRC, Juwaa is a subtly powerful drama portraying African characters with a complexity rarely seen on screen. An award-winning artist born in Bukavu and currently living in Belgium, Mutiri works in theatre, film, poetry and photography and is always looking for connections and perspectives between the special and the universal. JUWAA is his first feature film as a writer and director. Each year, a...
The festival opens with JUWAA, a film by Congolese filmmaker Nganji Mutiri. Shot in Belgium and the DRC, Juwaa is a subtly powerful drama portraying African characters with a complexity rarely seen on screen. An award-winning artist born in Bukavu and currently living in Belgium,...
The recent eleftion of Colombia’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, and first black vice-president, Francia Márquez, creates a new opening to revitalise ties with Africa. Colombia is often overlooked as a nation of interest because of its reputation of violence. Its negative standing results mainly from the decades-long armed conflict between previous governments and the Marxist-Leninist group FARC. The conflict has been linked to the production and export of illicit drugs. It ended with...
The recent eleftion of Colombia’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, and first black vice-president, Francia Márquez, creates a new opening to revitalise ties with Africa. Colombia is often overlooked as a nation of interest because of its reputation of violence. Its negative...
