Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 452

Belafonte and Scorcese plan TV series on Leopold II’s Brutal Rule in Congo

By now, a lot has been written on the history of Belgian King Leopold II’s deadly reign over his own private colony, Congo Free State from 1885-1908 (after which it became a formal Belgian colony and was renamed Belgian Congo). Strangely though, there is not much in the way of films or TV series–well in English at least–of Leopold II’s brutal rule of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Some of the most famous literary examples being Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Crime of the Congo, and more recently, Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost. Under the guise of humanitarianism and philanthropy, the king (and the companies he contracted large tracts of land out to as concessions) began plundering the country’s vast supplies of ivory, rubber, and minerals. In the process, anywhere from 5 to 10 million Congolese were killed, with the failure to meet hefty rubber collection quotas being punishable by death.

A made-for-TV documentary on the subject called ”Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death” was released back in 2003 and is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube. It is by no means a great film, but it does provide a reasonable amount of information, so much so that the Belgian government got upset. Then there’s a 2006 documentary film King Leopold’s Ghost, marketed as based on Hochschild’s book. In Belgium, a number of films have appeared (some that we have covered before): several colonial films, Un Congolais qui dérange, Mémoire belge au Congo, and the recent series Bonjour Congo.

Now Deadline.com is reporting that Martin Scorsese and Harry Belafonte plan on joining forces to produce a miniseries that takes on Leopold II’s notoriously brutal rule over the country now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Deadline reports that Scorcese and Belafonte are “gathering source material and interviewing writers, with Scorsese planning to direct the first installment and secure top talent to helm the rest.” And that the project was born out of Belafonte’s own interest in the horrific history of King Leopold II’s involvement in Congo’s rubber trade. (Belafonte, if you remember, has a long association with African anti-colonial, nationalist and antiapartheid movements.)

We have a sense Scorsese and  Belafonte will do a better job with their miniseries.

A Conversation with the curators of the Angolan Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale

Beyond Entropy works around the concept of energy for producing new forms of spatial practice. It is directed by Stefano Rabolli Pansera, an Italian architect based in London. The Africa projects are co-directed by Paula Nascimento, an Angolan architect who studied and lived in London for over a decade before moving back to Luanda. Stefano and Paula curated the exhibition “Luanda Encyclopedic City”, awarded the Golden Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale (1 June to 24 November, 2013). The following conversation took place in July 2013, between Lisbon, Porto, Luanda and London.

First of all, congratulations for the Golden Lion at La Biennale di Venezia. I would like to start by talking about the formation of Beyond Entropy (B/E). What are the scope and objectives of the project?

Stefano Rabolli Pansera: Beyond Entropy was set up in 2009 as part of the Architectural Association (AA) in London. At the time I was teaching and I was interested in exploring a specific theme: Energy. I believe this is a central issue in contemporary architectural discourse but very often architects reduce the concept of Energy to a technical issue: CO2 emissions, green energy, solar panels, etc. I was interested in Energy beyond the rhetoric of sustainability. I wanted to create an inter-disciplinary cluster, to collaborate with artists, scientists and architects in order to create prototypes for a new spatial understanding of the concept of Energy.

You were part of the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale and then the Milan Triennale. How – and why – did a think-tank jump to such important events?

SRP: The cluster of research was a huge undertaking. We visited CERN in Geneva, we took part at Lecce Energy Festival, we organized lectures and symposia in London. All the participants were incredibly committed and I wanted to offer them a platform for exhibiting their research in a larger stage than the academic framework of the AA. I decided to apply as a collateral event to the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale. The works that we developed were very ambitious and unpredictable: they were prototypes in-between artworks, architectural models and scientific experiments… They were brilliant inventions to understand the relationship between Energy and Space with new eyes. The show was very successful and we were invited to exhibit at the Milan Triennale in the following year.

Pavilion Republic of Angola, 13th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy of Beyond Entropy. Photograph by Paolo Utimpergher.

Meanwhile, B/E expanded to different regions. What motivated the re-definition of the project? How is it structured?

SRP: After the Triennale exhibition in Milan, I wanted to separate Beyond Entropy from the school and transform it into an independent spatial agency. In a way, it was a natural progression. Today, Beyond Entropy operates in Europe, Mediterranean and Africa: B/E Europe focuses on the dissolution of the distinction between city and countryside in a uniform entropic landscape; B/E Mediterranean focuses on the bipolar occupation of the Mediterranean coast, constantly alternating between protection and touristic exploitation, between shrinking urban life and overcrowded seasonal tourism; B/E Africa focuses on the morphology of the African city where huge urban conurbations are built and occupied despite the lack of basic infrastructure. In each territory we propose a new spatial model in the form of a building or infrastructure, exhibition, publication, etc…

Paula Nascimento: It is important to stress the geo-political aspect of the projects, thus Beyond Entropy gradually established itself as an international network. We started by researching Luanda, as the paradigm of the extraordinary urban transformations currently happening in sub-Saharan cities. Since last year, we have been developing this research, supported by several exhibition projects…

…Including the Architecture Biennale in 2012. How does such a young project gain institutional recognition so quickly, becoming the Republic of Angola first official representation in Venice?

SRP: Paula and I met in Venice in September 2010 during a workshop organised by the AA. I had just completed the exhibition “Beyond Entropy, when Energy becomes Form” at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. While chatting in the beautiful gardens of San Giorgio Island, we decided to organize the first participation of Angola in the Venice Biennale.

Yes, but how did you find official support, funding, etc?

PN: I would say we’ve been relentless, above all. Stefano and I discussed potential projects and routes to pursue, and a clear interest in Luanda and its mutant characteristics emerged. By then we began to conceptualize a project for Angola and – why not? – an official participation. It was very important to frame the proposal in such a way that the Angolan authorities – in this case the Ministry of Culture – could understand why it could be important for Angola to have a National Pavilion at the Biennale.

How did you convince the Ministry?

PN: If Angola is on the news every so often because of its economic growth, why not expand this presence in events of such high cultural calibre, especially bearing in mind the strength of its contemporary production? By exporting culture at highest level, we are also making a statement about a young nation that is not just about oil and money but has something else to export.

Then how did you manage to put this in practice?

SRP: After an initial understanding of the logistics and the overall budget, we met in Luanda in November 2011 and, thanks to the Italian ambassador in Luanda, Giuseppe Mistretta, we had a meeting with the Minister of Culture of Angola…

PN: The Ministry considered the project but took almost half a year to give us permission to participate as a National Pavilion. It was a complex process of negotiation – and in fact we are thankful to the extraordinary help from the Italian Embassy, as well as the Angolan Embassy in Rome. In the end, we did get a letter confirming Angola’s first ever participation and Beyond Entropy as curators.

How did you move on from there?

PN: In parallel to this long process, we made proposals for collaborating with local universities and only one – Universidade Metodista de Angola – seemed interested in the idea we presented. At the same time, we started fundraising. We got private sponsoring from Angolan and Italian companies, and also had to investment some of our personal money in order to design and build the installation.

Stefano Rabolli Pansera and Paula Nascimento with Golden Lion. Photograph by Italo Rondinella.

The project presented an approach to Luanda that is often neglected in architecture and urban studies. It acknowledged the infrastructural problems of its complex urban mesh, but it also understood its qualities. Can you describe the model you proposed and reflect on the impact such model could have?

SRP: We developed an initial investigation in Cazenga with a group of students from Universidade Metodista. It was a wonderful experience to try to understand how space is dwelled and inhabited there. Every space performs simultaneously a multiplicity of functions: every house is simultaneously office, warehouse, garage, public space… We proposed to preserve this quality. We suggested a proposal that performs simultaneously as public space and infrastructure, using a plant called Arundo Donax, a shrub whose roots filter naturally dirty waters and whose log contains filters that are ideal to produce bio-mass.

PN: The proposal is a critique to the notion of requalification as it stands and is being implemented in Luanda, a city that is chaotic yet emblematic on many levels. Luanda is changing and growing extremely fast, and between extreme conditions: on the one hand, a city planned according to Chinese and American models; on the other hand, an informal city growing organically in the interstitial spaces; then there is the colonial city, which is slowly being erased… Our proposal somehow negotiates in-between these realities.

You’re raising many interesting topics. I’m interested in the methodology you followed, I know it’s not easy to work in the ‘forgotten’ areas of Luanda. Can you tell a bit more about the workshops with students?

PN: After a few meetings with the local administration and the directors at the University, we started a week-long workshop with 4th and 5th year students in Cazenga. Initially, we visited the neighbourhood to understand its contrasts and complexity, and to make students engage with a reality that is often under-represented or forgotten, as you say. Later, students choose four buildings and examined them in detail, almost like a forensic investigation of each space, looking at the construction details, the living habits, the time passage, drawing everything, understanding the spatial intelligence that exists and is often unseen. In addition to this live experience, we managed to receive some data from the local authorities, which helped us to shape an image of the neighbourhood. Almost simultaneously to this boot-camp work, we did research on the properties and use of Arundo Donax.

The concept seems absolutely suitable for the context. How was the exhibition received in Angola and elsewhere?

SRP: There was an extraordinary interest on the project both from the architectural world and from the art world. For instance, we were invited by Bice Curiger to write an article on Parkett and we had the chance to extend the research with an exhibition in Porto [Luanda de Baixo P’ra Cima].

PN: To be honest, we didn’t get much scrutiny and visibility in Angola. The truth is that barely anyone believed in the project or saw relevance on what we were doing, apart from the academic world. Internationally though, the conversation was different. The fact that Angola was participating for the first time at La Biennale, in such a special location – Isola di San Giorgio –, drew a lot of attention. I believe that the ideas behind the project and the fact it offered a potential solution to a real problem, created an agenda for discussing the city.

These are somehow controversial topics in the context of Angola, where the ongoing strategies of urban regeneration give little attention to a city that is already there, in favour of something else. What were the common reactions you got?

PN: Opinions sometimes reduce the project to a purely academic research, but I think that perspective is wrong. It is obvious that the aim of the installation was to communicate the concept and make a bold statement, but we believe in the implementation of the project, which would require adjustments and deeper on-site exploration. I think that it is a project to be revisited. Perhaps more important than its implementation, is the transversal discussion it can raise. We will present the project in Luanda in the end of the year and I am very curious to see how the Luanda society will react.

Let’s stay at the present for now. The readers want to know about the Golden Lion! It is very clear that Luanda Encyclopedic City emerges as part of your ongoing engagement with Luanda, there is a continuity. Despite being part of an art biennale, there is a strong architectural connotation in it – for sure for both of you being architects, and Edson [Chagas] being a photographer documenting the city. But the exhibition also complies very straight-forwardly with the general theme of the Biennale, very “architectural” itself [Encyclopedic Palace]. Edson’s photographs show a silent Luanda, which seems almost a paradox. I found his images very poetic, beautiful and meaningful. They talk about walls, textures, imperfection… They show a certain kind of Luanda that is certainly not that of a fast growing city full of glazed walls and shiny materials…

PN: Absolutely!

And then your work as curators enabled for a tied relationship between all the different elements, at various scales: the photos in relation to the rooms and its old paintings; the exhibition in relation to the city, as the visitors were able to take the posters with them…

SRP: The work of Edson embodies the encyclopedic modus operandi which is simultaneously a documentation as much as a poetic invention. He does not just simply documents found objects. On the contrary, he finds the objects; he re-locates them in the city and then he documents them. Every time an object is repositioned, it produces a new kind of relationship with the context that affects the surrounding and that changes the object itself. It is the moment when his work becomes a creative act.

PN: Luanda’s downtown, where most of the photographs were taken, is made of colonial architecture which is being left to die to give space for the speculative buildings. There is almost a sense of nostalgia, because soon most of the details captured in Edson’s images will disappear…

Funnily enough, most of the painters present in that room were urban painters… What could be seen as an act of transgression with the placement of the contemporary Luanda against the classical Venice, ended up being a well-balanced coexistence.

There is also another aspect which I think is important, the relation with the city. It is not only about the fact that people take the posters with them, but also the fact that we managed to activate another point in the cultural geography of Venice and the Biennale. The Pallazzo is always closed; no one’s allowed to see the Cini collection. It is now open only because of this show. To a certain extent, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli must be thankful to Edson for his photographs allowed them to be seen and revisited.

By the way, how did the relationship with Cini Foundation start?

SRP: We have the privilege of working with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini since 2009. This collaboration has been central in the development of Beyond Entropy. Fondazione Cini is the epicentre of Beyond Entropy Europa, the headquarters of our research on the sprawl and the entropic landscape of the contemporary European territory.

There is another aspect I would like to address, the exhibition’s rationality. The heights of the piles vary due to structural reasons. It is a technical decision, there is nothing random about it… Although, I admit, it makes the exhibition more beautiful. This sort of conjugation between technical and poetic decisions make a project successful…

PN: That is exactly what architecture – or spatial manipulation – should be about: using technique to express poetry in every situation. I like control, and the spatial arrangement was meticulously planned, but I must admit, there were moments of ‘chance’ when for example the colours of Edson’s images matched and complemented the existing paintings…

SRP: The rational aspect that you are referring to is very much in line with the motto of Beyond Entropy: “changing nothing so that everything is different”. The Angolan Pavilion activates a latent Museum in Venice by not changing anything: no painting was moved from the walls, no radical change in the layout of the rooms. We filled the centre of the rooms – which are always empty – with twenty-three stacks of posters. All the decisions were almost pre-determined. It was very important the collaboration with Tankboys, the graphic designers and art directors of the pavilion who played an active role in the definition of the format of the exhibition.

We had to work on a low budget: so the catalogue had to be the exhibition and the exhibition had to be the catalogue. The disposition of the stacks of posters on the floor was determined by the distribution of the load on the beams. The structural load of the posters defined the height of each stack and the position in the room while the number and the distance between the posters was set by the fire regulation.

In this respect, your exhibition is fundamentally different from the Portuguese one, which to me seems almost too extravagant. For instance, a boat is not a building, so why would you cover it in ceramic tiles? Anyway, have you been at Portugal’s exhibition? And, by the way, any comments about the Biennale as a whole?

SRP: I confess I haven’t seen the Biennale yet. We spent all the time at the pavilion…

PN: Honestly Paulo, I haven’t seen it yet! I saw it from a distance, at the Giardini. The time in Venice was so hectic, there wasn’t a chance to appreciate other pavilions, which is a shame. I noticed the Portuguese pavilion had a great program of events. But maybe due to the current political and economic situation that Portugal is living, I feel a slight nostalgia when I see the “old cacilheiro” and the tiles, a memory of greatness that was and will not return.

Image from the series Found Not Taken, 2009-2013, by Edson Chagas, Luanda, Encyclopedic City, Pavilion Republic of Angola, 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Cortesy of Edson Chagas, A Palazzo Gallery.

To the eye of an outsider, the Angola participation in Venice had some unclear situations… I’m talking about the exhibition “Angola em Movimento”, parallel to yours. Can you tell how you co-lived with the other exhibition, and with the coverage it had in the Angola media?

PN: In order to understand this, we must go a bit backwards… and mention the proposal we presented at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. Like we said, it was very successful internationally and generated an invitation for participation this year, at the art biennale, and we decided to engage the Ministry once again. When we presented the proposal to the Minister of Culture, she agreed to support our project in half of the initial budget, but wanted to organize a wider showcase of Angolan arts, and we agreed to help the Ministry doing that. They decided to take a sample of the ENSA collection and organized an exhibition, curated by Jorge Gumbe, titled “Angola em Movimento” which is a more traditional showcase of Angolan arts. This is a parallel exhibition, not the official biennale participation and is installed on the 2nd floor of the Pallazzo Cini. We are in the first floor.

Perhaps because this was the contribution from the Ministry, it was publicised in Angola as being the main exhibition, and very little attention was given to the actual official show. This is also a new process in Angola, and the ambiguity in the communication of what was happening in Venice generated a lot of confusion. There seems to be an understanding that the prize was given to everything shown at the Pallazzo Cini, when in fact, it was given only to the registered project – the jury statement is very clear! We weren’t in Luanda at the time and decided to detach ourselves from any discussion regarding this confusion. But among the international artistic community there is full awareness about the different statuses of the two exhibitions.

Concerning the reactions to the prize, an important German magazine dismissed the Angola participation in an article titled “Angola! Wo ist Angola?”, as if the country had no legitimacy to succeed in the Art World. Among other insinuations, it accused personally Stefano for lobbying among the Venice art circle. Would you like to comment?

PN: I have to say that it was quite sad all this because the criticism wasn’t directed at the artworks of Edson or even the curatorial approach. It was an article from someone who was clearly frustrated that Germany or other country with longer tradition at the Biennale didn’t win and was implying that Angola (and thus Africa) could only win because of lobbying… It is sad that the author did not engage in a conversation about art and state of African arts.

SRP: This is the reason why we decided not to answer publicly to that journalist: there is no point in arguing on the basis of insinuations and cheap gossip. The answers by other curators and by the general public were clear enough to terminate the debate around this mediocre and unfortunate article. Apart from this episode, we are happy to engage in any discussion and we accept criticism based on the curatorial approach and on the artistic contents of the exhibition.

For you, what is the state of Angolan arts? And how do you plan to keep contributing to artistic culture in the near future?

PN: There is a lot of production from young artists and obviously an older generation. However, there are very few proper professional structures that can support those artists. We need more schools, galleries and platforms to support what is being produced by Angolan contemporary artists. The Luanda Triennale gave the starting point, and the several independent studios and projects such as e-studio [Antonio Ole, Rita GT, Francisco Vidal and Nelo Teixeira] are trying to establish alternative platforms for debate. But we still have a long way to go…

SRP: We are setting up an ambitious programme of artists residencies in Sardinia, as part of Beyond Entropy Mediterranean. The open-air gallery of Mangiabarche and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Calasetta will operate as epicentre for the continuous cultural and artistic exchange between artists from Mediterranean and from Africa. In other words: the best is yet to come.

This interview was originally published by Arte Capital in August 2013. Versão portuguesa, disponível aqui.

Review of the film version of “Half of a Yellow Sun” (Chimamanda Adichie’s novel)

Talented novelist, playwright, and screenwriter Biyi Bandele’s adaption of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel “Half of a Yellow Sun” is a valiant attempt at making visible not only Adichie’s epic but heart-wrenching story of Nigeria’s Biafran War. Yet despite a well-rounded and talented cast and genius source material, the film lacks a center—and ultimately a heart.

One of the strengths of Adichie’s bestselling novel is that the story is told from the perspective of three different characters: Olanna, the London-educated daughter of a nouveau-riche businessman and the “illogically pretty” lover of Odenigbo, a university professor of mathematics and a vocal armchair revolutionary; Richard, a white Englishman and struggling writer, whose travels have brought him to Igboland where he is quickly infatuated with Olanna’s headstrong twin sister Kainene; and Ugwu, the teenage houseboy who works for Odenigbo.

Bandele (this is his debut as a film director) had previously adapted Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece “Things Fall Apart” for the stage, so must be highly attuned to the challenges in bringing great literature to performative life. During the Q&A following the world premiere of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Bandele stated he decided to focus on the relationship between twin sisters Olanna (Thandie Newton) and Kainene (Anika Noni Rose)—rather than attempt to follow the stories of the many rich characters who texture Adichie’s novel.

However, his decision most starkly marginalizes the rich and dynamic stories of Adichie’s novel, most particularly those of Ugwu (John Boyega) and Richard (Joseph Mawle), who in the literary text along with Olanna anchor and offer diverse breadth to the complex tale of war, family, romantic love, voice, and the paradoxes of postcolonial life in newly independent Nigeria. Entirely left out is Ugwu’s violent yet endearing coming-of-age-story and Richard’s down-spiraling struggle as a writer, lover, and peripheral British-Biafran, is suggested but not centered.

Purist book-to-film arguments aside, not only will fans and students of the novel miss these characterizations, but in the absence of these stories of masculinities in struggle, much of Olanna and Kainene’s motivations and responses are simplified as well. For example, with Ugwu as muted houseboy, Olanna’s transformation from upper-class socialite to war-traumatized yet fortified mother-wife is flattened without the mirror of Ugwu’s movement from subaltern domestic servant to politicized writer of the Biafran story. And without Richard’s precious and unfinished book manuscript to burn, Kainene’s tough-love forgiveness of his infidelity exists in a vacuum. Indeed, it is these very crucial transformations of subjectivity that are carelessly tossed outside the frame of the film (although some appear in the film’s awkwardly summarized epigraph “Ugwu is now a writer”).

Largely absent too is Odenigbo’s (Chiwetel Ejiofor) descent into silence and alcoholism as he is unable to reconcile the arbitrary violence and corruption of war and his well-noted revolutionary bravado. Thus, Kainene’s and Olanna’s everyday activism in the refugee camp cannot serve as an ironic contrast to Odenigbo’s disappointing apathy. Strangely, Bandele instead decides to redeem Odenigbo’s mother (Onyeka Onwenu) who after proclaiming her potential daughter-in-law, Olanna, a witch, later begs the young woman she so fervently disapproves of to marry her son. While Adichie’s Mama dies, stubborn, prejudiced, manipulative, and yet, loved all the same.

It must also be said that if Bandele chose to eliminate the complexity of “supporting” characters in order to focus on Olanna and Kainene’s complex relationship as sisters—here too he undersells. A central undercurrent to the twin’s ongoing tension is that Olanna is seen as the beautiful one, and Kainene is often made to feel—even by their parents—overlooked and unattractive. Indeed, living in the shadow of her gorgeous and unabashedly non-identical twin has hardened her heart, and as such, she seeks to balance things through her feministic business acumen and sarcastic tongue. Yet again, Bandele merely hints at these issues, leaving Rose’s Kainene condescending and bitchy for no apparent reason outside of seemingly classist sense of entitlement. While Newton and Rose have a strong chemistry in their play as sisters, the intensity of their twin bond is not fully explored in the film. This is made especially clear when the hustle-wise Kainene disappears and Olanna’s poignant worry and grief is hardly palatable in Newton’s performance.

Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun’s strengths lie in the on-location cinematography, the costumes, the economic use of archival footage, and the music. Especially it is the use of the era’s pro-Biafra songs and Nigerian highlife tunes, which create a vibrancy in the film that is not always present in the script.

Film adaption from an epic novel is a fine and difficult art; one that Bandele despite his previous successes does not master here. The demand of telling such a complex story appears overwhelming. While Bandele does a fine job drawing forth much-needed humor in what could have easily been a macabre envisioning of a brutal civil war, and in this regard, Onyeka Onwenu’s Mama steals the show and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the passionate and charismatic professor Odenigbo shines. On the other hand, the tragic continuance of the war seems rushed. While the bomb-laced wedding scene is the film’s most powerful, the only clue that years of violence, starvation, and displacement continue to pass and wear down the bodies and spirits of the characters is Baby’s move from infant to toddler in a one beat. In this regard, Bandele and his editor Chris Gill could have exploited a myriad of cinematic motifs to signify how many years the war continued to plod on.

Like many in the TIFF packed auditorium at the premiere screening, I greatly anticipated the film adaption of a book by admittedly one of the most exciting and dynamic African young writers. Consequently, I read the audience’s standing ovation after the screening more as a heart-felt recognition of a largely Pan-African effort to tell an often-silenced history. (On a more superficial side-note it must be said the Black star-power in the house gave quite a thrill with the director, the majority of the very good-looking cast present, along with the always lovely Adichie, sitting amongst the well-heeled Toronto crowd of multiple Diasporas.)

Ultimately, however, Bandele’s film reflects a cliff-note-style adaption of the novel, in that much of the narrative’s nuance, like the enigmatic Kainene, remains missing.

Two responses to Mindy Budgor, “Maasai warrior princess”

Yesterday we reluctantly posted on Mindy Budgor, memoirist and professional attention-seeker who’s telling anyone who’ll listen that she’s the first female Maasai warrior. Really we wanted to hear from readers. Here are two of the responses we received:

First off, @aerofloatbo writes:

I am a Maasai woman (from Kenya) and we have seen these (white) women come and go. We have Maasai women members of parliament, doctors, lawyers, professors, civil servants, teachers, nurses, business owners etc., but of course, we don’t exist in the eyes of fools like this Mindy woman whose sole purpose always appears to be to fetishize Maasai men (our sons, brothers, fathers and husbands) in one way or another. How many books are going to be written by white women about how they came and fell in love with a Maasai man, gave up everything for him, helped poor ignorant Maasai women, taught Maasai men how to behave etc, etc. We are sooooo fed up! I’m surprised it was an American this time because usually, the British are the WORST culprits. I can’t tell you how many British women troop through our villages every month with the express purpose of ‘teaching’ Maasai men something (or sleeping with them). And the problem with this Mindy fool is that she doesn’t realise that the men (whom without a doubt she spent money on by either buying them meals, clothes etc.) took her for a ride and laughed all the way to the bank while doing it. What a fool.

And here’s “Leah”:

As a Maasai woman I feel very offended by Budgor’s attempt to gain fame at the expense of Maasai culture. There is nothing unique she has done that a regular Maasai woman hasn’t done and/or experienced and we don’t call ourselves warriers for a good reason. It’s like me coming to America and claiming I am the first female football player because I spent two weeks at training camp! Her assertion is so ridiculous and really offensive to the Maasai people, the community was not involved, just a few selfish individual who are out to get a buck!

Thanks to @aerofloatbo, Leah, and the rest who joined in the discussion.

Artifact Restitution and the Silken Gag of Co-operation

It was so successful it had to be hunted down, packed up and sent out again. The travelling exhibition Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria (tiresomely renamed “African Masterpieces” — but that’s another story) has come to Stockholm after it was already disassembled and back in Nigeria, having successfully toured nearly a dozen cities across Europe and the United States. It has by all accounts been a rip-roaring success of Nigerian (and Yoruba) nationalist PR, with journalists ladling on the justified hyperbole (“an exceptional exhibition … artworks that rank with the Terracotta Army, the Parthenon or the mask of Tutankhamun as treasures of the human spirit”) — made possible through close economic and social co-operation between some of the biggest, most powerful historical museums in the former colonizing powers and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria. The latter owns the artifacts in the exhibit, packaged it, co-selected and co-organised it, and sends two officials to participate and learn throughout each exhibition period. The co-operation is to its significant benefit.

And yet — the shadows of the flames still flicker.

On February 18th, 1897, the British army perpetuated one of the greatest premeditated crimes against the world’s cultural heritage, well comparable to the burning of the library in Alexandria. In a pre-planned move, an army unit entered Ife’s huge successor city-state Benin and utterly destroyed it, wrenching its artworks off the walls and piling them as scrap, systematically burning down each palace in turn before reducing the king’s palace to rubble. Of the largest pre-colonial walled city in West Africa remained a burnt-out husk, and thousands of invaluable artworks were irrevocably lost. Others, some 2500 objects in total, were sold and now form a crucial part of the collections of African artworks at every European museum. All of the institutions involved here (including the Swedish Museums of World Culture) have, directly and indirectly, benefited enormously from the looting of 1897.

It is no wonder, then, that the exhibition has received significant criticism from inside Nigeria. How can the Nigerian government be willing to lend treasured objects to an institution that, just a few hundred meters away, still keeps the shameful products of colonialism’s crimes? The answer, from the government perspective, is quite sensible in some ways: it’s working, but silently.

“We’re using this exhibit to share Nigeria’s past with the rest of the world, modifying Nigeria’s image,” Yusuf Abdallah Usman, Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, told me at the press showing. “For institutions, we’re showing that even if the artifacts were returned, we’re still able to lend them out, they can still come back, they’re not disappearing inside Nigeria forever.” And they’re working quietly behind the scenes, co-operating, trying to find common ground: “We’re talking among our colleagues, holding a series of meetings. It may not be earth-shattering, but dialogue is really the only way that works in these matters. I firmly believe that one day, all the artifacts will be returned to Nigeria.”

The Nigerian government is using the co-operation built up during exhibits like this in order to try to get the desired results.

Fair enough.

But goodwill is a fragile hope indeed, and to an extent the co-operation is a two-edged sword: push too forcefully, and the exposure, the profitable exhibits and the training exchanges are going to disappear. Considering the power structures that prevail in the post-colonial world, perhaps this lucrative self-gagging is indeed the best use of a limited freedom of action for now, but will it really have the desired effect in the long term? It may be that the former colonial powers have too much of their conceptual position invested in the idea that they have the right to retain these objects. As art historian Jonathan Harris writes with respect to the British (p. 275, quoted in the article above):

To return [the Benin artefacts] would imply the belief, on the part of the British authorities, that the peoples of those parts of the world were now capable of competently looking after artefacts … Their return would also imply admission of their illegal possession by the British. Both implications remain largely unthinkable because post-imperial racism continues to be a highly significant aspect of British foreign policy.

* The exhibition Afrikanska Mästerverk (African Masterpieces) is shown in the Skeppsholmen Caverns in Stockholm until February 2014.

Futuristic Folklore in James Town, Ghana

The streets were dense. Thick with heat from bodies and the sun, as crowds of people gathered in James Town, Accra last week to take part in this year’s Chale Wote street art festival.

It is often said that you can’t know where you are going until you look at where you came from. That is to say that if you want to create or re-imagine your future consider your past and what could be changed for you to achieve the desired future.

This was the sentiment behind the theme of this year’s festival, re-imagining African folklore by creating exciting and futuristic versions.

“Complex history” and “free” are a phrase and word oft associated with James Town, which is a long established fishing community. To walk along High Street in Central Accra past the grandeur of Supreme Court and Bank of Ghana is to take a walk into Ghana’s past. Once you enter James Town the pace changes. Two old slave forts, Ussher and James stand on the main road whilst Brazil House sits snuggly in the back streets among old-colonial farmhouse-looking structures. Now a museum, the house was built by freed African slaves that came to Ghana from Brazil and in turn became slave traders. An underground tunnel that transported slaves to the ships that left for the Americas lies beneath these streets.

Ussher Fort former slave fort and prison. Photo by Mantse Aryeequaye

Considering James Town’s weighty history, which played a huge part in shaping Ghana, it seems only right that when re-imagining a future Accra we start at the place where the city began.

Sionne Neely, co-founder of ACCRA [dot] ALT, the festival’s organisers, said that the idea behind the theme was to “recapture these narratives of trauma, pain and survival and creating a different kind of interpretation of our destiny.”

For many people when it comes to African folklore tales of Kwaku Ananse, the mischievous spider-man and Mami Wata, the female water spirit come to mind. These stories spread far and wide across Africa and its diaspora. But walking through James Town they somewhat pale in comparison to the very present and very real stories of slavery, colonialism and independence.

For many these stories of slavery in particular are not discussed at great length in Ghanaian schools. “History stops at the forts,” says Mantse Aryeequaye, the other ACCRA [dot] ALT co-founder. “The teaching is set up in a way that disengages you from your own history.”

So when I sat in Ussher Fort with a 9-year-old boy, trying to explain to him the reason for the fort’s being, surrounded by an artist’s photographic depictions of colonial masters and traditional leaders, it felt like sharing a different type folklore.

A performance piece juxtaposing Kwame Nkrumah’s struggle for independence and Ghana’s current economic situation over 50 years later was played out in front of Ussher Fort. Less than a kilometre away is James Fort where Nkrumah was imprisoned before becoming prime minister and then later the first president of Ghana.

GoLokal’s portrayal of how Ghana has failed to continue Kwame Nkrumah’s vision. Photo by Mantse Aryeequaye

Men on stilts about 10-feet tall stalked through the streets like giant spiders, towering over canopies that had vendors selling t-shirts, books, jewellery and herbal remedies beneath them.

Stilt walkers and the lighthouse. Photo by Selorm Jay

A flying angel on a unicycle conducted extreme bike stunts, sending the children into a frenzy.

Abrakoah cycles ahead of excited children. Photo by Selorm Jay

UK dubstep and heavy South African, Angolan and European house music blared through the Old Kings Way building, where the Nima Muhinmanchi Art organisation alongside German graffiti artist David Bethmann filled the walls with bright murals, their interpretations afro-futurism. Reminiscent of an old colosseum, the building was a department store built in 1914. The space has become a hotspot for Ghanaian musicians to shoot music videos.

Cash machines dispensing fish were painted along the walls of the old Sea View hotel. Hanging gardens that swung next to an open-air living room fell under the watchful eye of the James Town lighthouse.

Hanging gardens in front of Otoblohum Square. Photo by Selorm Jay

In front of the chief’s palace, the Mantse Agbonaa — which is often used as an informal football pitch — was transformed into a high-life cafe where local groups performed and food and cocktails served for the festival’s more well-off visitors.

Some of James Town’s residents live in shacks on the beach, at risk of losing their homes to the rolling tide, others still live in crowded houses along dilapidated alleyways.

In a country where the arts barely feature on the government’s agenda, it was all the more important to the ACCRA [dot] ALT team to make local citizens feel part of the festival. Rita Esionam Garglo, a James Town resident who runs a charity to send vulnerable children to school, led the children’s art workshops and said those who attended were already looking forward to next year’s event. The parents of these children stood side by side with Accra’s art-appreciators, expats, returnees and visitors as they all oversaw dance rituals and theatre performances.

Local kids draw in a crowd during a boxing match. Photo by Selorm Jay

While Ghana’s conservatism is famous –- straying from society’s norms is strongly discouraged and therefore avoided -– alternative living is not new to James Town. The area is the birthplace of many of Ghana’s most renowned boxers. In James Town, girls train with and fight the boys. Smokers don’t feel ostracised when lighting a cigarette, while fetish priests and christian church-goers joke and share gossip along the streets.

In this sense James Town already is the future. And perhaps its readiness to accept differences and showcase art will spread across the city, and indeed Ghana.

More images by Selorm Jay in the slide-show below:

Click to view slideshow.

The #Bullshit Files: Mindy Budgor, ‘the first female Maasai warrior’

Loads of our readers have been badgering us to blog about Mindy Budgor, a young white, middle class American from Southern California (her site comes with a health warning) who traveled to Kenya for a PR campaign for Under Armour sports clothing prior to starting an MBA degree and disguised the trip as a white feminist cause to end sexism among the Maasai. Budgor predictably published a book (Warrior Princess: My Quest to Become the First Female Maasai Warrior) and goes on about her “tribe” of Maasai. She now gets  interviewed by glossy women’s magazines and even suckers The Guardian and the BBC (both of whom should be ashamed of themselves). The Guardian have chosen to indulge this sort of drivel plenty of times before despite always considering themselves better than other British newspapers, and we have to wonder why Mindy’s piece wasn’t posted to the Guardian Africa Network page if they really thought it was a piece worth publishing. It’s one thing to talk about getting past the bad old way of writing about Africa, quite another to show that you are really serious.

It’s incredible to us that editors have fallen for Budgor’s vapid attention-grab, as her prose reads like an Onion parody.

It’s like there’s a conveyer belt of this bullshit. Remember last week when England’s demented Prince William told CNN about how he relaxes with “African animal noises”? Not surprisingly, many of you have not been impressed by Budgor’s writing and have said so on our Facebook page (Andrew Hanauer: ”Is UnderArmour a traditional Maasai clothing?”). So, this is an invitation to hear more of your thoughts. Just post them in the comments below. Maybe you have a message for Mindy? What’s the appropriate response to this kind of tired-ass trolling? If we just ignore it will she just go away eventually? We’ll feature some of the responses.

 

It’s not rugby

Sport in South Africa is like a lightening rod for racism. No matter how many people trot out the age-old argument about sport being a unifying element in South Africa, the truth is South Africans are just as divided in sport as they are in the rest of their lives, perhaps more so. If you want proof of this do a google news search on race quotas in South African rugby.

You see in August this year the South African Rugby Union (Saru) announced that it was introducing race quotas in the Vodacom Cup, the developmental rugby competition that runs parallel to the Super Rugby competition in the first half of the year in South Africa.

Teams will be forced to field seven players of colour in their 22-man squads, with at least five players in the starting team.

At least two of the seven will also have to be among the forwards.

Naturally this announcement caused a fair amount of controversy and the comment and opinion pieces started hitting the newsstands.

Race quotas are not new in South African rugby; they were introduced in 1999 and done away with in 2004.

You’d think that they were no longer needed back in 2004 and that is the reason they were done away with, so naturally you have to ask yourself why are they coming back in 2013?

The answers lie on the rugby field, week in and week out.

Take a look at the Springbok side that trounced Australia last weekend, two black South Africans and One Zimbabwean.

Coach Heyneke Meyer is expected to select an unchanged side this week.

But it’s not like the lack of transformation is at National level, take a look at the Vodacom Cup, Currie Cup and Super League, they are all still very white.

The reason, plain and simple, is that the rugby fraternity in South Africa has not transformed and black players are not being given the kind of opportunities they deserve, by the mostly white male coaches and administrators.

If you want to read some recent writing on these issues, you can read these two pieces below that were published in the Mail & Guardian.

In November last year I wrote an article titled “Why are the Boks so White?” where I argued that black players were being picked in the Springbok squad but were not being empowered to play a role in the starting fifteen.

Then the following week I followed it up with a piece asking the questions “Is South African rugby racist?”

But let’s get back to quotas.

I am a fairly thick-skinned individual.

I feel I can handle most things, but a recent piece I read on the new race quotas made my blood boil.

In a published column debate in various Independent Newspapers Afriforum’s CEO Kallie Kriel and Pretoria News Sport Editor Vata Ngobeni took on the race quota issue.

You see what really made me angry, was the way that Kriel attempted to frame his argument.

“Under a quota system, the presence of every black rugby player in a team is, by default, suspect – and black players have to work harder than their white peers to validate their inclusion,” argued Kriel. “This is tragic, as many of these players are hugely talented and committed individuals, and they deserve to be selected.”

“They definitely do not deserve to have their credibility undermined by Saru,” added Kriel.

This argument had been made recently by former Springbok coach (2008-2011), Peter De Villers, a black man who knows all too well how racist the rugby fraternity in South Africa can be.

“It’s the worst decision they could make,” he told the BBC of Saru’s decision. “I don’t think Saru understands its purpose in life. “

“Everybody will believe that these players will be picked because people are looking out for them,” he added.

“It will only ever work if there is a transformation period in people’s hearts,” said De Villiers. “If there isn’t, I think they are wasting their time.”

Similar arguments you see.

However the one is coming from a black South African rugby coach, who has given his life to the sport and development of young black talent, the other is coming from an NGO that represents “minority rights” read Afrikaner rights.

Obviously the fact that rugby has to be shared with all South Africans and it can’t be Afrikaans dominated terrain no more, riles the members of Afriforum up.

Which is their opinion and they are entitled to it.

It’s not like we are not well versed as a country in reactionary anti-transformation arguments.

But to pretend that Afriforum is protesting the decision to reintroduce race quotas in rugby, because it cares about the careers of black rugby players is disingenuous and bloody infuriating to say the least.

Where has Afriforum been all this time as young black rugby players struggled against a loaded racist system?

Was it just me?

Because I didn’t see any published missives on the failings of transformation in the rugby fraternity from Afriforum.

No they don’t exist, which is why Afriforum’s argument should be dismissed with contempt.

Vata Ngobeni meanwhile in the responding column made some good points.

He argues that although a lot of the criticism of race quotas is “overflowing with racial overtones” fuelled mainly by the “right-wing thinking” of its authors, he doesn’t think quotas are ideal.

Who does?

“But the truth is rugby in this country has always been used as one of the weapons to defend apartheid while, post-democracy, some of our compatriots are using it to hold on to the ideals of a past utopia that almost sunk our country into a civil war,” says Ngobeni. “Rugby should first stop denying that it is still entrenched in the principles that kept apartheid going in this country for decades and it must also admit that a change of administrators and coaches is needed for the game to be transformed.”

Amen.

“The truth of the matter is that most of our school teams are transformed as coaches at that level almost have an equal number of black players to select from as white players and within a small community of players it is rather easy to see the best from the rest.”

“Unfortunately this is not the case at junior interprovincial and national level with many of the black stars from schools rugby bought but never given opportunities to flourish by the unions, especially the big four, Western Province, KwaZulu-Natal (Sharks), Blue Bulls and the Golden Lions.”

“Until rugby shows meaningful change the quota system will have to be enforced.

The time for change has come and all of us need to embrace it, whether we think it is right or wrong,” argued Ngobeni.

A few days later in the Cape Times, Western Province’s Vodacom Cup coach John Dobson insisted the quotas were introduced because South Africa’s rugby unions had tested the government and Saru’s patience with the lack of transformation.

Western Province is the only union that currently meets the requirements of the new race quotas.

In 2013 Western Province fielded nine black players in their quarter-final team.

The Bulls and Eastern Province each had six.

The worst offenders were Pumas, Golden Lions and Griquas, often only having two black players in their squads.

“I’m sorry that we have to count to show that we have the high ground,” said Dobson. “The other unions are testing everyone’s patience”

Dobson argued that the Vodacom Cup was about “tomorrow’s Springboks today” and unions that were fielding one or two black players were failing the sport.

In the same article Saru President Oregan Hoskins argued that the claim that there was no black talent good enough was just no true.

“Ninety percent of the black players in the Craven Week are out of the system,” said Hoskins referring to the schools provincial competition.

Hoskins argued these players need to get back into the system and the quotas for the Vodacom Cup will assist this.

“If you look at all the black players who are now being given a chance at Currie Cup level who have come from the Varsity Cup,” said Hoskins, “…they shouldn’t just be coming out of the Varsity Cup, they should be coming out of the Vodacom Cup.”

Hoskins is talking about giving young black players developmental opportunities to see if they can make the jump to professional rugby.

What we are talking about here with race quotas is real transformation, no matter what the reactionaries say, because soon some of these players will make the jump to Currie Cup or Super Rugby squads and perhaps then we wont need quotas to make that a reality.

But if we do, then that is what must happen.

It’s interesting that one of the least transformed unions is The Lions, who are replacing The Southern Kings in Super Rugby next year.

Considering the Kings showed a real commitment to transformation in the last few years, bringing through some potential future Springboks and that their support base is probably the most racially integrated in the country, this seems like a blow to real transformation in South African rugby.

To take it back to De Villiers comments earlier, we need a transformation of the heart of rugby, the culture of rugby and the Kings represent that in a significant way.

For more on The Kings and whether Saru cares about transformation you can read this article I wrote here.

But let’s get back to Afriforum again.

To add insult to injury Afriforum have written to Saru insisting that it revoke its decision or it will call for a boycott of the Vodacom Cup.

To be honest, the attendance at Vodacom Cup games is very small and the television audience is also tiny compared to Currie Cup, Super Rugby and International Rugby.

Afriforum’s grandstanding is not in the interest of the sport and all players as it claims, but is about maintaining the status quo and ensuring that rugby remains a minority sport.

Rugby lovers the country over should stand up and say not in our name.

Review: Andrew Dosunmu’s “Mother of George”

From the opening moment of Andrew Dosunmu’s magnificent new film, ”Mother of George” (we’ve talked about the film before here and here), the viewer is immediately transported into a dream space – one of deep indigos, radiant golds, and vibrant reds. Dosunmu and his cinematographer, Bradford Young, are masters of aesthetics. And unlike Dosunmu’s previous film, Restless City (reviewed here by Neelika), which was mostly stylish and beautifully filmed, he uses Darci Picoult’s script to craft an engaging story with deeply developed characters. Indeed, Andrew Dosunmu readily admits that he made Restless City because he was frustrated and searching for a way to raise awareness and money to produce “Mother of George.”

Mother of George tells the story of Adenike (the brilliant and stunning Danai Gurira–better known as Michonne from The Walking Dead) who is brought to Brooklyn from Nigeria by Ayodele (Isaach de Bankolé) to get married. The couple is very much in love, but as time passes and Adenike still does not become pregnant, the pressure begins to mount on her to do something about it. The story is all about the lengths she is willing to go for the person she loves.

The film’s languid pace and breathtaking sensuality offers stark contrast to the heartbreaking urgency of Adenike’s situation. Many have already noted how visually arresting the work is, but there is also something to be said for the way Dosunmu uses sound to create a level of intimacy that, at times, can feel so invasive as to give the viewer the sense of being a fly on the wall. Whether it be the sizzling of oil in the deep fryer of Ayodele’s restaurant, the heavy breathing and moans during the couple’s love-making, or Adenike’s snot-filled sobbing, sounds play a pivotal role in the affective power of the film.

Visually, the film is so spectacular that it draws comparison to director Wong Kar Wai’s mastepiece, In the Mood for Love. This is not only due to the movie’s rich cinematography and editing, but also the costumes. Gurira’s bright and elegant dresses, have a point of reference only in that of the dresses worn by Maggie Cheung in Wai’s tragic romance.

The film’s sole weakness is in some of the dialogue. At times, the lines and their delivery can feel a little unnatural. Most of the time, the actors are talented enough to overcome this issue. The one exception being Yaya Alafia, who plays Adenike’s close friend and confidant, Sade. However, this is just a minor flaw since their is so little dialogue. The reason for this being, as Andrew Dosunmu put it during the pre-screening, “dialogue kills cinema; it’s an easy way out.”

Overall, Mother of George is a glorious film that should be seen while it is still in theaters so you can fully bask in its aesthetic and sensual splendor. It premiered last night–Friday, September 13–at the Angelika in Manhattan’s West Village. For those of you not in New York, check here to see if and when it will be opening near you.

Weekend Music Break 54

Flex Boogie, featured on this song by producer/radio deejay The Prince, is a Pretoria-based hip-hop artist who was part of the pioneering hip-hop group Ba4za at one point. He has undergone numerous changes since then – from an overhaul of his image, to recently appearing in a liquor advert on national television (Flex Boogie’s real name is Hakeem, and he’s Muslim). But he doesn’t rap this song. Instead, he provides fillers over sparse house beats, hollering “tsokotsa” (dance) every so often.

In the lead-up to her new album entitled “Ticket to the world”, German-Ghanaian vocalist Ayo collaborates with Congolese-French emcee Youssoupha for a bit of social commentary. “The city’s burning down/ but there’s no water” she sings before her rap/spoken word crusade. It must be pointed out that Youssoupha’s verse is very similar in structure to this song of his. (P.S.: Her facebook page is somewhat of a gem.)

“My new album is more involved. It takes you on a spiritual trip. It is about good and bad, about body and soul, and about finding the balance. It takes you out of your comfort zone and makes you feel part of the music” says vocalist Ntjam Rosie. This music is the perfect backdrop for the Southern Hemisphere’s transition into Spring.

A Professor song has become standard in any house club in South Africa. He ropes in kwaito artist Brickz for yet another club-friendly heater.

Lesotho’s Charles Alvin possesses an effortless flow which is expertly complemented by the music. The video, shot around the surrounds of Maseru by upcoming director Sehlabaka Rampeta, is not half-bad either.

Fredy Massamba was in South Africa in September last year. That is when him and Tumi (formerly of Tumi and the Volume) linked up to record this song.

Big FKN Gun enlist the help of Cuss Group co-conspirateur Ravi Govender to direct this stark look into the realities of a drug currently causing turf wars in Durban. The video features an appearance by artist Evl Jon, whose exhibition “Ward 56” opened this past week.

Johannesburg party rap comes to the fore on this club banger-assured collaboration between DJ Switch and Reason.

This Starz-produced collaboration between surefire Nigerian heavyweights follows hot on the heels of Shank’s victorious Music Video of the Year nod at the Nigeria Entertainment Awards. Expect beautifully haunting visuals courtesy of Patrick Elis.

And straight from Belgium to the world, the duo of Joy Adegoke and Wim Janssens (better known as Joy Wellboy) makes exquisite electronic funk for outstanding music connoisseurs and occasional listeners alike. We dig it!