Issue # 06
Ala Kheir: “It is hard to use my camera as my mind is still fuzzy and in shock.”
Nigeria | Democracy is more than monitoring a ballot box
Khartoum-based photographer Ala Kheir has found shelter at his parents' place in Omdurman, northwest of the capital city. “Surviving,” he said, when we asked him what he is busy with. A brief WhatsApp interview. On your website, there is a quote from Diane Arbus which reads: “Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.” How do you reconcile today’s reality with the world we see in your photographs? Khartoum has always been...
Khartoum-based photographer Ala Kheir has found shelter at his parents' place in Omdurman, northwest of the capital city. “Surviving,” he said, when we asked him what he is busy with. A brief WhatsApp interview. On your website, there is a quote from Diane Arbus which reads:...
Knight in Shining Armour , a new exhibition at CBK Zuidoost in Amsterdam, reappropriates what was once appropriated by suppression and the white gaze. And it’s playful. The ground looks like a chess board, with its black and white tiles surrounded by blue walls that carry the art that claims back the images and the narratives once stolen by colonialists, enslavers, suppressors and those who continue to perpetuate those images and narratives. Reappropriating the appropriated, Knights in Shining...
Knight in Shining Armour , a new exhibition at CBK Zuidoost in Amsterdam, reappropriates what was once appropriated by suppression and the white gaze. And it’s playful. The ground looks like a chess board, with its black and white tiles surrounded by blue walls that carry the art...
From Sudan to the Sahel, Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly attributed a leading role in African conflicts. Unjustified, writes Bram Vermeulen. Moscow is merely an asset for isolated warlords. “There is war in Sudan, but why, I've lost track of that for a while,” the late Dutch singer Jeroen van Merwijk sang. “I no longer understand anything when I look at those images. Why don't we do one war at a time from now on?” I was reminded of this song in recent days, when the wildest...
From Sudan to the Sahel, Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly attributed a leading role in African conflicts. Unjustified, writes Bram Vermeulen. Moscow is merely an asset for isolated warlords. “There is war in Sudan, but why, I've lost track of that for a while,” the...
At Kyotographie, the International Photography Festival in Kyoto which takes place yearly since 2013 in April and May, this year's African section is dedicated to the work of Joana Choumali. The Ivorian visual artist, the recipient of the Pictet Prize in 2019, presents two series, Kyoto-Abidjan and Alba'hian , with embroidery as a red thread connecting her work. The same smell of dried fish. When the photographer Joana Choumali entered for the first time one of the stalls of Demachi Masugata...
At Kyotographie, the International Photography Festival in Kyoto which takes place yearly since 2013 in April and May, this year's African section is dedicated to the work of Joana Choumali. The Ivorian visual artist, the recipient of the Pictet Prize in 2019, presents two series,...
The Western fetishization of elections unintentionally contributes to the erosion of faith in democracy among Nigerian citizens. [ Link naar tekst in het Nederlands onder dit artikel ] Normally, I see few Westerners in Nigeria, West Africa, where I live and work as a journalist. Once every four years, however, when it is time for presidential elections, the international circus shows up. Observers and journalists fly in to cast their sagacious eye over the electoral process–only to leave again just...
The Western fetishization of elections unintentionally contributes to the erosion of faith in democracy among Nigerian citizens. [ Link naar tekst in het Nederlands onder dit artikel ] Normally, I see few Westerners in Nigeria, West Africa, where I live and work as a journalist....
In the 1980s, De Jonge sheltered in the Dutch embassy in Pretoria for two years after being caught smuggling weapons. Years ago, in his home in the centre of Amsterdam, full of masks from Congo, Klaas de Jonge suddenly took off his glasses and tapped his right eye hard. He was recounting the revenge attack by the South African secret service. Pok pok echoed through the room. “That's how I got a glass eye,” he said, dryly. In 1988, in Nijmegen, he had put on a coat that must have been smeared with...
In the 1980s, De Jonge sheltered in the Dutch embassy in Pretoria for two years after being caught smuggling weapons. Years ago, in his home in the centre of Amsterdam, full of masks from Congo, Klaas de Jonge suddenly took off his glasses and tapped his right eye hard. He was...
For 40 years , western governments have entertained ideas of outsourcing asylum processing and refugee hosting to the global south. It is not a new idea. And neither are the controversies that have accompanied it. Denmark and the UK have been in the news over this issue recently. In January 2023, however, after fierce domestic criticism, the new Danish government announced it had paused its negotiations with Rwanda to bilaterally “transfer” all asylum seekers out of Denmark. Instead it suggested...
For 40 years , western governments have entertained ideas of outsourcing asylum processing and refugee hosting to the global south. It is not a new idea. And neither are the controversies that have accompanied it. Denmark and the UK have been in the news over this issue recently. In...
‘Arizona Project’ by NAIRE and ZAM: Investigating a journalist’s death in Cameroon. What was the story that killed Martinez Zogo, whose mutilated body was found on 22 January in a suburb of the capital of Cameroon? A team of African journalists is set to find out. A team of West-African-based investigative journalists is travelling to Cameroon to pick up the threads of an investigation done by journalist Martinez Zogo, whose mutilated body was found in the country’s capital Yaoundé on 22 January...
‘Arizona Project’ by NAIRE and ZAM: Investigating a journalist’s death in Cameroon. What was the story that killed Martinez Zogo, whose mutilated body was found on 22 January in a suburb of the capital of Cameroon? A team of African journalists is set to find out. A team of...
Dutch theatre-maker and visual artist, Dries Verhoeven, explores a Western audience’s fear of African refugee influx and birth explosion. By bringing Kininso Koncepts, a Lagos-based Nigerian storytelling and performance company, onto a Dutch stage, perceptions of how ‘we’ see ‘them’ are turned around. A live video connection takes us to Lagos, Nigeria. A city by night with more than 15 million inhabitants seems deserted except for a lone man walking the street – as if he is an occupation force....
Dutch theatre-maker and visual artist, Dries Verhoeven, explores a Western audience’s fear of African refugee influx and birth explosion. By bringing Kininso Koncepts, a Lagos-based Nigerian storytelling and performance company, onto a Dutch stage, perceptions of how ‘we’ see ‘them’...
On 8 March 2023, five teenage girls uploaded on social media a video of themselves performing the Calm Down Dance Challenge . This is the choreography for the first verse of the Afrobeats hit Calm Down by Nigerian singer Rema (Divine Ikubor). The girls were following people across the world who’ve made this dance challenge go viral for over a year by uploading videos of themselves dancing to it. With one difference, though: they were dancing in Iran, where it is forbidden to dance in public,...
On 8 March 2023, five teenage girls uploaded on social media a video of themselves performing the Calm Down Dance Challenge . This is the choreography for the first verse of the Afrobeats hit Calm Down by Nigerian singer Rema (Divine Ikubor). The girls were following people across...
At least six African countries have decriminalised same-sex relations in recent years. It seems nonsensical to still frame equal rights for LGBTIQ+ people as ‘Western’. Ugandan President Museveni has said that his country “will not embrace homosexuality and the West should stop seeking to impose its views”. In an article for the organisation’s website, Human Rights Watch’ Director for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program Graeme Reid calls this statement “a false dichotomy” since...
At least six African countries have decriminalised same-sex relations in recent years. It seems nonsensical to still frame equal rights for LGBTIQ+ people as ‘Western’. Ugandan President Museveni has said that his country “will not embrace homosexuality and the West should stop...
Curated by Aindrea Emelife, the exhibition surveys the legacy of Black Women in visual culture. Fetishized in colonial-era caricatures, reclaimed in the present-day rich complexity of Black womanhood. The San Francisco Museum of the African Diaspora hosts this exhibition by 18 artists (of numerous nationalities and with birth years spanning 1942 to 1997). What a celebration of Black beauty, an investigation into the many faces of Black femininity and the shaping of Black women in the public...
Curated by Aindrea Emelife, the exhibition surveys the legacy of Black Women in visual culture. Fetishized in colonial-era caricatures, reclaimed in the present-day rich complexity of Black womanhood. The San Francisco Museum of the African Diaspora hosts this exhibition by 18...
A packed Studio ZAM at the first, exclusive screening of the documentary Murder in Paris in the Netherlands on Friday 24 March 2023. Filmmaker Enver Samuel, who travelled to the Low Countries for the annual Movies that Matter festival, attended the screening and answered questions from the audience afterwards. Murder in Paris tells the story of ANC representative Dulcie September, assassinated in Paris in 1988, and is inspired by Evelyn Groenink's decades of research into the background of this...
A packed Studio ZAM at the first, exclusive screening of the documentary Murder in Paris in the Netherlands on Friday 24 March 2023. Filmmaker Enver Samuel, who travelled to the Low Countries for the annual Movies that Matter festival, attended the screening and answered questions...
As the Church rages against Canterbury, Museveni’s authoritarian regime might be the last guarantor of sexual minority rights. On 1 March, 2023 the Ugandan parliament granted opposition MP, Mr Asuman Basalirwa, leave to introduce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023 . This draft bill prescribes ten years of imprisonment for persons who will be found guilty of homosexuality, aggravated homosexuality, and persons who attempt to commit homosexuality. It also proposes a two-year jail term for those aiding...
As the Church rages against Canterbury, Museveni’s authoritarian regime might be the last guarantor of sexual minority rights. On 1 March, 2023 the Ugandan parliament granted opposition MP, Mr Asuman Basalirwa, leave to introduce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023 . This draft bill...
Ticket sales for the upcoming edition of Movies that Matter have begun! The festival will take place in The Hague and a series of satellite cities from March 24 through April 1. The program includes many dozens of feature films and shorts that really matter. A must go for lovers of stories that make you think and get you moving. Especially for you, our editors selected 5 productions that are more than worth watching. 1. The Blue Caftan Delicate, visually gorgeous. By Maryam Touzani, Morocco. Halim...
Ticket sales for the upcoming edition of Movies that Matter have begun! The festival will take place in The Hague and a series of satellite cities from March 24 through April 1. The program includes many dozens of feature films and shorts that really matter. A must go for lovers of...
Once a vital space for illegal political discussions and drinking, the South African shebeen is revived on a Brussels stage. Starting with South African jazz singer Miriam Makeba’s exile from her own country in the early 1960s, Alesandra Seutin’s VOCAB Dance Theatre takes their audience into the depths of a deconstructed shebeen and on a journey full of life, struggle, perseverance and determination. Based on lyrics by Lebo Mashile and Lisette Ma Neza and music composed by Angelo Moustapha and...
Once a vital space for illegal political discussions and drinking, the South African shebeen is revived on a Brussels stage. Starting with South African jazz singer Miriam Makeba’s exile from her own country in the early 1960s, Alesandra Seutin’s VOCAB Dance Theatre takes their...
Confidential damage payments mean new problems for abused farm workers. Emily Gondwe was walking home from another day of picking tea on the plantation where she worked in Thyolo, Malawi when some friends approached her. There was a meeting, they told her, at the local Chief’s house, for women who had faced abuse on the tea estate. Gondwe, like many in Malawi and indeed in East Africa , knew all about abuse on the tea estates. Besides the long working hours in the hot sun, little pay, and the...
Confidential damage payments mean new problems for abused farm workers. Emily Gondwe was walking home from another day of picking tea on the plantation where she worked in Thyolo, Malawi when some friends approached her. There was a meeting, they told her, at the local Chief’s...
A documentary on the murder of South African freedom fighter Dulcie September sparked a conversation between a white student and her black professor. Part 1: The student Josephine Trilling As a female jazz guitarist, I have experienced considerable misogyny. I know what it’s like to have men look you in the eye and tell you with a smug expression: ‘you don’t belong here.’ In this male-dominated profession I have never felt at ease. Their scoffs were a silent demand for me to leave, and their locker...
A documentary on the murder of South African freedom fighter Dulcie September sparked a conversation between a white student and her black professor. Part 1: The student Josephine Trilling As a female jazz guitarist, I have experienced considerable misogyny. I know what it’s like to...
A live film performance directed by renowned Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven. Straight from the heart of the African film industry in Nollywood, Lagos, Kininso Koncepts’ incandescent performers enact European nightmares of refugees flooding into the continent as they directly address their European audiences via a live internet connection. Provocative, disruptive and inescapable, like the future itself. Watch this space for a review soon! In theatres around the Netherlands- reservation is required....
A live film performance directed by renowned Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven. Straight from the heart of the African film industry in Nollywood, Lagos, Kininso Koncepts’ incandescent performers enact European nightmares of refugees flooding into the continent as they directly address...
The Dutch Praemium Erasmianum Foundation has awarded the Erasmus Prize 2023 to South African comedian Trevor Noah (b. 1984). He receives the prize for his inspired contribution to the theme ‘In Praise of Folly,’ named after Erasmus’s most famous book, filled with humour, social criticism and political satire. With his sharp-minded, mocking yet inclusive political comedy, Noah, in the eyes of the jury, upholds the ‘Erasmian Spirit.’ Trevor Noah is a South African comedian of international stature....
The Dutch Praemium Erasmianum Foundation has awarded the Erasmus Prize 2023 to South African comedian Trevor Noah (b. 1984). He receives the prize for his inspired contribution to the theme ‘In Praise of Folly,’ named after Erasmus’s most famous book, filled with humour, social...
On a misty spring morning in Paris, 29 March 1988, Dulcie September had just visited the post office to collect mail for her office in France, where she served as a Chief Representative of the African National Congress. As she pressed the lift button to the fourth floor, an assassin was lurking in the shadows. The news of the murder of Dulcie September sent shock waves across the world, the ANC and the international solidarity movements with the struggle against apartheid. In France, thousands of...
On a misty spring morning in Paris, 29 March 1988, Dulcie September had just visited the post office to collect mail for her office in France, where she served as a Chief Representative of the African National Congress. As she pressed the lift button to the fourth floor, an assassin...
