Congratulations Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi and Sana Na N’Hada, two of six winners of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award! Va-Bene is a multidisciplinary artivist and curator from Ghana. She is also a transwoman in a country where the LGBTQIA+ community faces significant challenges. Sana Na H’Hada, from Guinea-Bissau is a filmmaker. Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi , known as crazinisT artisT, is a multidisciplinary artivist, curator, mentor, and philanthropist from Ghana. Raised in a deeply religious community, she...
Congratulations Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi and Sana Na N’Hada, two of six winners of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award! Va-Bene is a multidisciplinary...
An increasing number of African stand-up comedians are touring Europe and the US, often satirising misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa and Africans still prevalent in many Western minds. South African Trevor Noah has become an established international celebrity, but others, such as Noah’s fellow South African Loyiso Gola, Captain Khalid from Tanzania, Learnmore Jonasi from Zimbabwe, and Maira Santos from Mozambique, are rapidly joining him in claiming the world’s stages. These comedians...
An increasing number of African stand-up comedians are touring Europe and the US, often satirising misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa and...
Breyten Breytenbach (1939 - 2024) The South African poet, writer, and visual artist passed away in Paris on Sunday, 24 November 2024. A video of his poem Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan was produced as part of the ATKV Filmverse Project, with music by Laurinda Hofmeyer. The video includes English subtitles. Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan Wellington toe met lang bene blink in die lig waar die kamers swaar en donker is waar sterre soos seemeeue sit op die nok en engele vir wurms spit in die tuin,...
Breyten Breytenbach (1939 - 2024) The South African poet, writer, and visual artist passed away in Paris on Sunday, 24 November 2024. A video of his poem...
The impact of climate change is devastating but communities find ways of surviving despite corruption and governmental planning. Wata Na Life (Krio for ‘Water is Life’), is a phrase photographer Ngadi Smart heard time and again in Sierra Leone, a country where water is very much a currency. Smart spent three months in the country of her heritage in 2021 exploring the link between water and our changing climate. What she found were communities adapting as best they could to the fall-out from a...
The impact of climate change is devastating but communities find ways of surviving despite corruption and governmental planning. Wata Na Life (Krio for...
Amsterdam, November 2024 Onlangs verschenen: The Complicit Camera [English text below] Zodra een foto het publieke domein betreedt, lijken de oorspronkelijke intenties van de maker uit het zicht te verdwijnen. Zo ontstaat een beeldeconomie, meer dan een beeldcultuur. En die cultuur wordt nog steeds gedomineerd door witte en westerse percepties. De verbeelding van het Afrikaanse continent is een ‘goed’ voorbeeld van veelvuldige vertekening. In het fotoboek The Complicit Camera onderwerpt Pieter van...
Amsterdam, November 2024 Onlangs verschenen: The Complicit Camera [English text below] Zodra een foto het publieke domein betreedt, lijken de...
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging. While her mother earned a living as a domestic worker in Johannesburg, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi was raised in the countryside by her grandmother, from whom she learned the traditional crafts of mural painting and pyro engraving of calabashes. As a teenager...
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential...
This exhibition features (diasporic) artists from Somaliland telling their own story, unobscured by a colonial gaze. The Anarchist Citizenship: People Made of Stories explores the possibilities of visual storytelling, imagination, and self-determination. In doing so, it offers an alternative approach to understanding this self-declared independent region of Somalia. It places the agency of Somali(land) people at the centre. As a result, we are presented with an approach that overrides Eurocentric...
This exhibition features (diasporic) artists from Somaliland telling their own story, unobscured by a colonial gaze. The Anarchist Citizenship: People...
Both tender and melancholic, the French-Cameroonian photographer series interrogates the ideas of love. Naam Na La , takes its name from the Wolof expression which translates to "I long for you". “Love is undeniably common and universal, but also overused and overrepresented in our visual cultures,” begins the photographer Charlotte Yonga. “As a feeling, it’s capable of great amplitude and density, but also exists in its deficiencies, flaws, ambiguities and vanities.” With these musings in mind,...
Both tender and melancholic, the French-Cameroonian photographer series interrogates the ideas of love. Naam Na La , takes its name from the Wolof...
The International Theatre Amsterdam celebrates the annual event with two amazing shows. Eight years after leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama are looking for their place in society. Michelle is a bestselling author and one of the most influential Americans today. Barack travels around the world giving lectures while campaigning. But in a world of extremism and centre-right thinking, their relevance and influence are declining. Duizend aanslagen op de Obama’s is a biopic that is made...
The International Theatre Amsterdam celebrates the annual event with two amazing shows. Eight years after leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle...
The 8th satellete edition of the iAfrica Film Festival (iAFF) is set to take place on October 17, 2024. This special event will feature a thoughtfully curated selection of inspiring feature films, documentaries, and short films, showcasing the vibrant tapestry of contemporary African culture. The iAFF serves as a platform to highlight the immense contributions of the African continent to the world. Beyond its well-known role in providing raw materials, agricultural products, and natural resources,...
The 8th satellete edition of the iAfrica Film Festival (iAFF) is set to take place on October 17, 2024. This special event will feature a thoughtfully...
In this exhibition visual artists Amado Afdani (Sudan/Egypt) pays homage to the Sudanese soldiers who served in European colonial armies (‘askaris’). They are martyrs rather than sell outs. Askari Soldiers is one of Alfadni’s socio-political art projects on the history of the Askari (Arabic and Swahili for a military soldier). The Askari refers to the enslaved Sudanese soldier who served in the European colonial armies in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. During both world wars, Askaris also...
In this exhibition visual artists Amado Afdani (Sudan/Egypt) pays homage to the Sudanese soldiers who served in European colonial armies (‘askaris’)....
Based on the theme of Belonging, Afrovibes has shaped this year’s festival programme with performances that focus on North Africa and the (north) African diaspora in the Netherlands. Northern African countries are often seen as ‘non-African’ but as belonging to the Arab world. How do artists who identify with this part of the world look frames that continue to divide us? How do we connect, engage and live in solidarity? Afrovibes opens on October 2, 2024, and runs until October 13 in Amsterdam,...
Based on the theme of Belonging, Afrovibes has shaped this year’s festival programme with performances that focus on North Africa and the (north) African...
During the last decade of Apartheid in South Africa, William Matlala (1957) made photographs of and for the people around him. William and I met because of his contributions to a research project about cultural responses to the consequences of mining in the Witwatersrand. He took me on a tour through his life, captured on a hard drive, containing scans of negatives. I instantly fell in love with the photographs, in which the people posing present themselves as they wished to see themselves and be...
During the last decade of Apartheid in South Africa, William Matlala (1957) made photographs of and for the people around him. William and I met because...
African artists from the continent and the diaspora imagine utopian dreams of abundance and well-being beyond geographical hierarchies. According to the curators, the works on display show a fusion of specific features of African culture with other cultures and other geographical spaces, revealing the “original energy of the itinerant fate of exile and settlement, demanded by the context of slavery, or of voluntary or forced migration. ”Many of these phenomena result from the current global...
African artists from the continent and the diaspora imagine utopian dreams of abundance and well-being beyond geographical hierarchies. According to the...
“Collecting goes beyond the artist – it is building a universal archive of culture”. With this mission in mind, Musoke Nalwoga (Uganda, 1994) who founded MOTORMOND in 2021 aims to create an impactful Black Queer community within the African Diaspora, operating from Amsterdam. At Unseen, MOTORMOND will showcase the latest portrait series featuring Errant Black Girlhoods by Burundi born and Amsterdam based photographer Nella Ngingo (1992). Nalwoga: “At Unseen we want to shed light on the idea of...
“Collecting goes beyond the artist – it is building a universal archive of culture”. With this mission in mind, Musoke Nalwoga (Uganda, 1994) who founded...
In his book The Complicit Camera, photographer Pieter van der Houwen investigates how his images contributed to a (mis)understanding of Africa. This is his preface to the book. As a photographer, I have had the privilege of working in approximately twenty-five countries on the African continent. During a period of nearly thirty years, my approach to photography on this vast and complex landmass has changed as much as the continent itself: from a naïve and youthful photographer fuelled by a “white...
In his book The Complicit Camera, photographer Pieter van der Houwen investigates how his images contributed to a (mis)understanding of Africa. This is...
World renowned South African poet James Matthews has died at 95. His was the last great voice of an era of writers who worked against South Africa’s repressive and racist system of apartheid, which resulted in him being relentlessly harassed, detained by police and his work banned. In February, 2020, a special video with James Matthews reading his poem Freedom Child was screened at the ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture at the International Theatre Amsterdam. South African singer Melanie Scholtz sang the...
World renowned South African poet James Matthews has died at 95. His was the last great voice of an era of writers who worked against South Africa’s...
In August and September, Nigerian photographer Stephen Tayo will be staying at the BijlmAIR studio in Heesterveld at the invitation of the Amsterdam Buro Stedelijk. Tayo is a self-taught fashion, art and cultural photographer who uses his work as a platform for social commentary on wealth, class, race, gender and identity. The artist occupies his surroundings as his photo studio, a method he will also use in the Bijlmer. BijlmAIR (Bijlmer Artist-in-Residence) is the residency program of CBK...
In August and September, Nigerian photographer Stephen Tayo will be staying at the BijlmAIR studio in Heesterveld at the invitation of the Amsterdam Buro...
The internet is awash with descriptions of the space that South African documentary photographer and journalist Gopolang Ledwaba set up at 9737 Cemetery Road, Braamfischerville, Soweto, earlier this year. The Mandebele Photo Gallery, we read, is a space for education, “incubatorship”, and upliftment; a resource centre; a project space; a cultural hub; and a café. Ultimately, the space, not much bigger than a garage, is a community centre . Multi-purpose spaces are not unique; you find them in...
The internet is awash with descriptions of the space that South African documentary photographer and journalist Gopolang Ledwaba set up at 9737 Cemetery...
Read the Dutch version below [We] begin to expand that archive with the aim of ensuring that it will no longer be what it was,” says artist/photographer Andrea Stultiens about the impressive exhibition and publication in which, in collaboration with numerous African creatives, the work of colonial photographer and anthropologist Paul Julien is re-viewed. It began with the discovery of one of Paul Julien's books at a second-hand market. Images of a trip through an African country. One of the...
Read the Dutch version below [We] begin to expand that archive with the aim of ensuring that it will no longer be what it was,” says artist/photographer...
The highly anticipated second volume in the widely acclaimed and celebrated self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness by Zanele Muholi, which it's first book won the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation award as the best photography book award and the second edition is here. In Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II, Zanele Muholi explores and expands upon new personas and poetic interpretations of personhood, queerness, blackness, and the possibilities of self. Since the...
The highly anticipated second volume in the widely acclaimed and celebrated self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness by Zanele...
