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...
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...
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....
Knights in Shining Armour (reappropriating the appropriated) is a bold exhibition about re-appropriation, humour as an 'armour' and art as trauma therapy. It opens on May 11th at 6 pm with a talk moderated by Noraly Beyer, between curator Claudio Ritfeld and director general of Culture and Media, Barbera Wolfensberger. From 7 pm creative collective The Gang is Beautiful takes over with music, fashion and drinks. Is there room in the art for a sense of humour, satire or comedy when it comes to...
Knights in Shining Armour (reappropriating the appropriated) is a bold exhibition about re-appropriation, humour as an 'armour' and art as trauma...
Artist Renzo Martens, together with the artists’ collective Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) and curator Hicham Khalidi, will be providing the Dutch entry for the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2024. Khalidi and Martens’ proposal is to involve CATPC in the Dutch entry. An extensive international committee has advised the Mondriaan Fund board to further develop this idea into an internationally relevant presentation. The joint plan by...
Artist Renzo Martens, together with the artists’ collective Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) and curator Hicham Khalidi,...
In Uganda, many of us have for years now become passive about climate change and issues regarding the protection of the environment. Perhaps it is the lack of finger-numbing cold or throat-drying heat, that has us imagining that climate change is a them problem, and not so much an us problem. We have continuously turned a deaf ear to calls from environmentalists when parts of one of the biggest local animal habitats, Mabira Forest, are cut down for commercialization, and, quick to suggest patchy...
In Uganda, many of us have for years now become passive about climate change and issues regarding the protection of the environment. Perhaps it is the...
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...
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...
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...
“Does South Africa have what it takes to reinvent itself?” In this documentary, Sifiso Khanyile presents an inquiry into the country’s socio-political conditions 27 years after the official demise of apartheid. Studio ZAM will host a special screening of Khanyile’s groundbreaking documentary on Wednesday 19 April 2023 . Venue: Studio ZAM, Tussen de Bogen 66, Amsterdam Time: 20h00 (Studio open from 19h30) Q & A: An online conversation with the filmmaker after the screening RSVP to...
“Does South Africa have what it takes to reinvent itself?” In this documentary, Sifiso Khanyile presents an inquiry into the country’s socio-political...
Amsterdam film theatre Kriterion will host the award-winning film about love and resistance in the final years of British colonial rule in Zanzibar. The special screening is organised by Africadelic in collaboration with African Architecture Matters. The film will be introduced by Elisabeth Hesemans, who was involved as an actor trainer in the production of the film, and Franka van Marrewijk, who lives and works in Dar es Salaam and is a member of African Architecture Matters, an organisation...
Amsterdam film theatre Kriterion will host the award-winning film about love and resistance in the final years of British colonial rule in Zanzibar. The...
With record revenue growth of over 34%, Africa was the fastest-growing market for the global music industry in 2022. The viral nature of African tunes is not only creating a broader audience for African artists but also unleashing an unprecedented revenue boom. The fastest-growing market region in 2022 was Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report. Growth in the region, which recorded a 34.7% rise in music sales, was largely driven by a booming music market in South Africa, where sales were up...
With record revenue growth of over 34%, Africa was the fastest-growing market for the global music industry in 2022. The viral nature of African tunes is...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
In 1993 Richard Stengel, who assisted Nelson Mandela in writing his autobiography Long Walk To Freedom, recorded more than 60 hours of audio during a series of face-to-face interviews with the ANC freedom fighter and first president of democratic South Africa. These recordings are now being released on Audible for the first time and can be listened to for free. From discussions around the South African leader’s willingness to embrace armed resistance in the struggle against apartheid, to Stengel...
In 1993 Richard Stengel, who assisted Nelson Mandela in writing his autobiography Long Walk To Freedom, recorded more than 60 hours of audio during a...
De Zuid-Afrikaanse acteur en theatermaker Junior Mthombeni was op 5 februari een van de eregasten tijdens het Face Forward festival en de ZAM Nelson Mandela Lezing. Beeldend kunstenaar patricia kaersenhout, geïnspireerd door Mthombeni’s muziekproductie Dear Winnie, ging met de theatermaker in gesprek en schonk hem bij die gelegenheid een kunstdruk van haar Ode aan Winnie, Portrait of Love and Revolution . Patricia Kaersenhout en Junior Mthombeni © Elzo Bonam Op 6 april en 2 mei neemt Mthombeni het...
De Zuid-Afrikaanse acteur en theatermaker Junior Mthombeni was op 5 februari een van de eregasten tijdens het Face Forward festival en de ZAM Nelson...
Alongside his work as a busy visual artist and cultural organiser, Jamal Nxedlana (1985) is also the founder of the Bubblegum Club , a digital platform and culture agency showcasing innovative new work and creating opportunities for emerging cultural workers. Crossing borders of platforms and media and reaching out to a growing international audience, Bubblegum is inspired by “work that is experimental without being restricted to exclusive spaces. And which is populist without pandering to the...
Alongside his work as a busy visual artist and cultural organiser, Jamal Nxedlana (1985) is also the founder of the Bubblegum Club , a digital platform...
"Haufi nyana?" means "Too close?" in Sesotho, one of South Africa's 11 official languages. The title of the exhibition refers to the nature of the dialogue between viewer and artist: how far can one go in a photographic autobiography on the one hand and to what extent can they share a personal story on the other? In the context of South Africa’s broader traumatic history before, during and in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism, what should we look at? It also refers to the idea of "home" -...
"Haufi nyana?" means "Too close?" in Sesotho, one of South Africa's 11 official languages. The title of the exhibition refers to the nature of the...
In 2019, ZAM launched the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture. It returns in 2023 with expanded programming. Save the date! Sunday 05.02.2023 | Face Forward | Stories for Change ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture | Music - Dance - Film - Arts - Debate 12h30 - 18h00 | International Theatre Amsterdam - Tickets €22,50 Speakers: Marcus Tebogo Desando (South Africa, Netherlands), Jerry Afriyie (Netherlands, Ghana), Panashe Chigumadzi (Zimbabwe, US). Programme includes: Lloyds Company & Soweto Skeleton Dancers,...
In 2019, ZAM launched the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture. It returns in 2023 with expanded programming. Save the date! Sunday 05.02.2023 | Face Forward |...
