Two exhibitions, one in Cape Town and the other 8000 kilometres away in Amsterdam, showcase the works of South African artist Neo Matloga, winner of the 2021 ABN AMRO Art Award. Déjà Vu, Neo Matloga’s first solo exhibition in Cape Town, opened earlier this month at Stevenson Gallery. In this exhibition, Matloga moves away from the cinematic, interconnected narratives that characterised his previ-ous bodies of work. Instead, the artist’s new works are individual scenes that herald a new chapter of...
Two exhibitions, one in Cape Town and the other 8000 kilometres away in Amsterdam, showcase the works of South African artist Neo Matloga, winner of the...
This year's celebration of Africa Day brings you five days of music, talks, club nights, films and networking both online and in real life In a unique collaboration between Omek, Amsterdam’s home for the global bicultural community, and Africadelic, celebraters of all things Afrodisaporic, this event will centre around Africa Day, which marks the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity. Though Africa Day has been celebrated every year since May 25th 1963, its recognition varies...
This year's celebration of Africa Day brings you five days of music, talks, club nights, films and networking both online and in real life In a unique...
African photography is rarely exhibited in Japan. For the past ten years Kyotographie , the largest international photography festival in the archipelago, has been doing its best to reverse this underrepresentation and reveal the continent’s talents in Japan. For a month, until last weekend, Prince Gyasi’s pictures flew over the heads of shoppers in an old-school shopping arcade in the centre of Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan. The young Ghanaian artist took the pictures at his local...
African photography is rarely exhibited in Japan. For the past ten years Kyotographie , the largest international photography festival in the...
Colonial legacies, fundraising difficulties as well as a structural lack of interest from many African governments towards contemporary art and culture still complicate the march towards equal representation of countries in the Venice Biennale. These are the words of Anna Kućma, ZAM's new photo and web editor. In this magazine she guides you through the African share in what is probably the world's leading explosion of contemporary art. The good news: in the upcoming edition, opening on April 23,...
Colonial legacies, fundraising difficulties as well as a structural lack of interest from many African governments towards contemporary art and culture...
The Venice Biennial, officially opening on April 23, is perhaps Europe’s most glamorous international forum for contemporary art. During the opening week of the exhibition there are more artists, curators, collectors, and art critics gathered in one place at one time than seem to exist anywhere else in the world. The biennale format has inherited many characteristics from its forebears, the World Fairs. The event is organised around a format of international competition, with national exhibitions...
The Venice Biennial, officially opening on April 23, is perhaps Europe’s most glamorous international forum for contemporary art. During the opening week...
Started by Thami Mazibuko, the Zondi space is a library, classroom and community literacy centre, built to serve its residents across generations. When Thami Mazibuko moved back to Zondi, Soweto, in 2015 having lived in the Johannesburg central business district for a few years, he quickly realised that there were no bookshops in that part of the township – let alone any Black-owned ones. “People in the townships and previously disadvantaged communities do not have access to books. Books are a...
Started by Thami Mazibuko, the Zondi space is a library, classroom and community literacy centre, built to serve its residents across generations. When...
The winner of FOAM’s 2022 Paul Huf Award recreates the past to imagine a better future. In her debut series Ke Lafa-Kaka: Her Story (2013), the family albums of Lebohang Kganye, winner of the 2022 Paul Huf Award, form the basis for a search for the history of her mother, who died in 2010. Lebohang was 20 when she died. In the family home, three years after her death, she still found the clothes her mother wore. Kganye recognized them from the family photos and put them on. It was 'therapeutic,' she...
The winner of FOAM’s 2022 Paul Huf Award recreates the past to imagine a better future. In her debut series Ke Lafa-Kaka: Her Story (2013), the family...
your support enables African changemakers and creatives to work with even greater vigor to build fair and free societies. To agitate against abuse of power and theft. To shape a just future. In the fifteen years of our existence, ZAM has developed a unique solidarity model that connects internationally renowned artists and African changemakers and creatives. The artists donate work that ZAM offers to its subscribers, followers and sympathizers. The proceeds from sales enable us to move up with our...
your support enables African changemakers and creatives to work with even greater vigor to build fair and free societies. To agitate against abuse of...
In The Dragonfly Sea , Kenyan writer Yvonne Owuor, speaker at the 2022 ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture, explores the deep influence of Arabic and Islamic cultures in many African countries. Prior to winning The Nobel Prize for literature in 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Tanzanian novelist, gave a lecture called Indian Ocean Journeys . In this lecture, as in his novels, he went on to explore the cultural importance of a scattering of islands along the coast of Africa, including his birthplace Zanzibar,...
In The Dragonfly Sea , Kenyan writer Yvonne Owuor, speaker at the 2022 ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture, explores the deep influence of Arabic and Islamic...
On Friday 28 January, 2022, ZAM editor-in-chief Bart Luirink will be in conversation with Fem Comic Artist and activist Maia Matches about her new book-in-the-making on two South African artists: Thami Mnyele and her grandfather Bill Hart. They will discuss subjects around artists in resistance during Apartheid. Maia will also share some of her personal ideals in creating the new work. Out of the wilderness of East York Toronto comes Maia Matches! Her immigrant parents didn't bat an eyelid when...
On Friday 28 January, 2022, ZAM editor-in-chief Bart Luirink will be in conversation with Fem Comic Artist and activist Maia Matches about her new...
On Sunday 6 February, the third edition of the ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture took place at the International Theatre Amsterdam. The lecture, which is part of our #ImagineMandela-Live! programme, was delivered by acclaimed Kenyan author and opinion maker Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor: The Future is a Story we Tell Ourselves. Notes for a Prelude . While the 2020 lecture by Nigerian writer Elnathan John happened only days before the Netherlands went into lockdown, the latest edition came to life when the country...
On Sunday 6 February, the third edition of the ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture took place at the International Theatre Amsterdam. The lecture, which is part...
DeLovie Kwagala is the winner of this year’s East African Photography Award. His series Through the Cracks depict intimate partner violence in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Kwagala is a non-binary, queer, self-taught photographer and social activist from Kampala, Uganda, and currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa. In their words: ‘A queer project to be winning means the world to me. It means that our stories are finally being heard and our voices are finally being given a platform...
DeLovie Kwagala is the winner of this year’s East African Photography Award. His series Through the Cracks depict intimate partner violence in the...
African photographers on the continent or elsewhere beware: the 2022 edition of the annual Pride Photo Award is now open. This year’s theme focuses on those in the vibrantly diverse LGBTQIAP+ communities who deserve more visibility. ‘In the queer community, things are shifting’, the organisers write in this year’s call for entries. “Decades of emancipation (…) has improved the position of the white, cisgender lesbian and gay community. (...) However, what about other members of the LGBTQIA+...
African photographers on the continent or elsewhere beware: the 2022 edition of the annual Pride Photo Award is now open. This year’s theme focuses on...
If I had stayed in Sierra Leone, I would undoubtedly have become a doctor. And had I, like my father, been married to three women, had many children. I would have become a traditionalist, a profound believer in the Islamic faith and my life put wholly to the service of society. Like my father, I would no doubt have been a happy person who would find satisfaction in serving my people. But destiny had chosen for me a different direction. I moved from the WE to the I. Or say uprooted from A to B. My...
If I had stayed in Sierra Leone, I would undoubtedly have become a doctor. And had I, like my father, been married to three women, had many children. I...
I Am Samuel , an LGBTQ+ documentary about a Kenyan man struggling with his sexuality, has been banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board. In a statement, the board described the film as 'a clear and deliberate attempt by the producer to promote same-sex marriage as an acceptable way of life'. The board went on to claim that the film was ‘demeaning of Christianity as two gay men in the film purport to conduct a religious marriage invoking the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’, The...
I Am Samuel , an LGBTQ+ documentary about a Kenyan man struggling with his sexuality, has been banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board. In a...
The novels of Abdulrazak Gurnah offer a running commentary and a skepticism toward the cultural politics of packaging African stories for global circulation and consumption. The news that Abdulrazak Gurnah had won the Nobel Prize for Literature was met with joy as well as surprise. The first black African author to receive the award since Wole Soyinka 35 years earlier, Gurnah is not entirely a familiar name among readers on the continent and much less so outside it. The announcement set off a...
The novels of Abdulrazak Gurnah offer a running commentary and a skepticism toward the cultural politics of packaging African stories for global...
This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will be interviewed online by Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste at the upcoming edition of the Nigeria based Aké Festival. The event will take place on 30 October between 17h45 and 18h55 West-African Time. Read an excerpt from Gurnah novel Desertion here . Review of his latest novel After Life here . This year’s Aké Arts & Book Festival 2021 theme is 'Generational Discordance'. Dozens of online sessions with as many writers and opinionistas are...
This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will be interviewed online by Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste at the upcoming edition of the Nigeria...
Afrovibes x ZAM: how we made it – African artists center stage from De Balie TV on Vimeo . Like what you see? Support us in creating exceptional stories for change. Scan the QR code and become a friend of ZAM! * Forget about borders, visa restrictions and Fort Europe! Join us on Friday 8th of October for a special ZAM / Afrovibes festival programme. How We Made It – African Artists Centre Stage With hosts Ikenna Azuike & Ms Aba. Participating artists: Trixie Munyama, Lisette Ma Neza, Jelili Atiku...
Afrovibes x ZAM: how we made it – African artists center stage from De Balie TV on Vimeo . Like what you see? Support us in creating exceptional stories...
On Sunday 5 September, the Nelson Mandela Memorial was unveiled in the South East district of Amsterdam. With over 170 nationalities, the South East is the most multicultural neighbourhood in the city. The creator of the work is South African artist Mohau Modisakeng. The memorial differs from all other Mandela monuments in the world. It is not a statue because, in the words of Modisakeng in an interview with Dutch daily Trouw 'a larger-than-life Mandela does not make one think'. His memorial...
On Sunday 5 September, the Nelson Mandela Memorial was unveiled in the South East district of Amsterdam. With over 170 nationalities, the South East is...
Reluctantly, South Africans are coming to terms with the fact that in the same way that no condition is permanent, no euphoria is permanent either. The innocence of the 1990s and early 2000s, when the country moved from apartheid to post-apartheid, has given way to a gnawing unease about the future of the democratic experiment. Two camps are emerging — there are those whose disenchantment expresses itself in the desire to burn everything, destroy everything, declaim everything. There are, on the...
Reluctantly, South Africans are coming to terms with the fact that in the same way that no condition is permanent, no euphoria is permanent either. The...
In July 2021, Julie Kretzschmer and Jay Pather presented a three-day programme full of multimedia installations from the field of contemporary dance, performance and visual arts to conclude the Here Comes Africa, Africa 2020 in the La Friche Belle de Mai centre in Marseille. Before Julie Kretschmer—who specialises in making projects in the Arab world, including Algeria and develops new contemporary cultural programmes on the spot—and Jay Pather—curator of Afrovibes and Infecting the City...
In July 2021, Julie Kretzschmer and Jay Pather presented a three-day programme full of multimedia installations from the field of contemporary dance,...
