Igniting public space at the Chale Wote street art festival in Accra:

For the past eight years at the end of every August the James Town suburb of Ghana’s capital Accra has been taken over by the Chale Wote street art festival. During the festival, thousands of people, including local celebrities, artists, musicians, boxers and everyday revellers, move up and down the streets mostly by foot and at times on roller skates or unicycles

David Kolaone fought for the right to define himself and his art:

Dr David Nthubu Koloane, who was born in South Africa in 1938, was an extraordinary pioneer in the visual arts who fiercely defied any form of categorisation. As an artist, teacher, mentor, curator, arts administrator and author, he fought for the human right to define oneself and to determine one’s own future

Capturing the Soweto Uprising: South Africa’s most iconic photograph lives on

Sam Nzima, the photographer who captured the iconic image of the 1976 Soweto Uprising passed awayon May 12, 2018. The photograph was one of six frames showing Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying 12-year-old Hector Pieterson who was shot by police, and Hector’s sister, Antionette Pieterson (now Sithole) running alongside

Installation view: Chale Wote Festival 2018

The Chale Wote festival opened on the Day of Re-Membering (20 August), when the Nai Priest poured libations at Brazil House in order to invoke the ancestral spirits. Core events took place on the streets and at various public spaces in James Town from 25 – 26 August. A number of artists including Kiffouly Youchaou, Kresiah Mukwazhi, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT), Charlotte Brathwaite, Percy Nii Nortey and the Ubulungiswa/Justice collective created works inside Ussher Fort and James Fort, which were built as slave forts by the Dutch and the British

Installation view: Chale Wote Festival 2018

The Chale Wote festival opened on the Day of Re-Membering (20 August), when the Nai Priest poured libations at Brazil House in order to invoke the ancestral spirits. Core events took place on the streets and at various public spaces in James Town from 25 – 26 August. A number of artists including Kiffouly Youchaou, Kresiah Mukwazhi, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT), Charlotte Brathwaite, Percy Nii Nortey and the Ubulungiswa/Justice collective created works inside Ussher Fort and James Fort, which were built as slave forts by the Dutch and the British

Rise and fall of apartheid: photography and the bureaucracy of everyday life

The exhibition catalogue Rise and Fall of Apartheid is a valuable collection of photographic images that create, according to Enwezor, “a critical visualization and interrogation of […] [apartheid’s] normative symbols, signs and representation” (18). The catalogue focuses on African subjects as “agents of their own emancipation” (18), and contextualises South Africa’s anticipation of the end of apartheid within broader global changes in the late 1980s. Essays by Okwui Enwezor, Michael Godby, Achille Mbembe, Darren Newbury, Colin Richards, Patricia Hayes, Andries Walter Olifant, Rory Bester and Khwezi Gule are included in the catalogue, and are interspersed between photographic images that are grouped in chronological clusters: 1948–1959; 1960–1969; 1970–1979; 1980–1989; and 1990–1995

Pushing against ‘China-Africa’ slowly, and with small stories:

the new focus on african arts and critical thought

AmaNdebele, Peter Magubane and Sandra Klopper: book review

AmaNdebele is a very attractive book with beautifully reproduced colour photographs taken by the renowned photographer Peter Magubane, who secured enormous credibility as a photojournalist during the violent years of apartheid. While some South African readers who browse through the glossy portrayals of ceremonial attire and homestead decorations may recall Magubane's earlier books such as Soweto speaks (1981) and Soweto: The fruit of fear (1986) in which the photographer laid bare the ferocious violence of apartheid rule, many readers will skip over the nuances of both Magubane's disrupted career and the contentious relationship between the Ndebele people and the South African apartheid government

Dialectics of dance and dress: the performative negotiation of Soli girl initiates (Moye) in Zambia

During a 2005 dance rehearsal in Nkomeshya Village near Lusaka, Zambia, a group of Soli girl initiates (moye) entered a clearing, slowly moving towards the drummer who beckoned them with her rhythmic eats. The girls per-formed a polite curtseying step, reflecting the meek modesty they are taught to display when they humbly greet elders or their future husbands with downcast eyes

Walking into Africa in a Chinese way: Hua Jiming’s mindful entry as counterbalance

Book abstract. The links between Africa and Asia are at the very heart of globalization. Understanding its richness and complexity requires a study carried out from various points of view. Particular attention to culture is essential. Centered on the work of visual artists and performers, on town planning, literature and spirituality, the essays gathered here call on many disciplines: art history and history, anthropology, sociology, geography, architecture, comparative literature, visual and culture studies. They constitute a network of crossed views on a subject which no serious reflection on globalization can do today