Category: uncategorized

While we seem to spend an enormous amount of virtual space at AIAC critiquing the ways that Africa and Africans are represented, we do so because we believe that it is possible to subvert expectations, to create images that shatter myths and ideology and that make people think about why they are surprised by particular representations. It is exciting, therefore, that the journal Cultural Anthropology has used ‘Corpus: Mining the Body’, a photographic essay of West African mine workers by Danny Hoffman to kick off a conversation about visual ethnography and the visual as story telling medium, all things we are into here at AIAC.

Hope Brooks’ Slavery Trilogy is a combination of three series: (from left to right) Kings and Princes,Backra Pickney and Trilogy. The work explores the history and development of racial identities, imposed and self-chosen, in the context of the African Diaspora. Originally the artist presented the work with extended text labels that provided extensive reference material about the slave trade and the experience of the enslaved as well as the verbal vocabulary that evolved from this context. Of particular interest is a list of ethnic slurs taken from Wikipedia, one for each letter of the alphabet.

The grid installation and repetition of the work with its subtle variations in facial expression and colour spectrum also recall the Casta paintings of colonial Latin America. Casta is the origin of the English word “caste”, the paintings were common in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in Mexico, where they were used to…

And now for something completely different: Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with John and Charles Agbaje, the two brothers behind The Elite Comics & Art Studio at Central City Tower. Their now concluded and wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of an 11-minute pilot episode of Spider Stories, the duo’s new ‘action cartoon set in a[n] African inspired fantasy world,’ has been the subject of growing buzz in a variety of internet circles. Through Spider Stories, the two Nigerian-American brothers hope to bring a unique African cultural perspective to the universal narratives found in cartoons, comics and animation – a world where such perspectives have been defined primarily in terms of their glaring absence.

Even though Nigeria didn’t get much love at this year’s FESPACO film festival, some Parisian organizers believe that the francophone world has been ready for Naija cinema. Nollywood, the world’s second largest film industry, produces over 2000 films annually, and now, seven of its best will be screened at France’s first ever NollywoodWeek Paris (and we’re wholeheartedly endorsing this). From May 30 to June 2, 2013, the L’Arlequin Theatre in Saint-Germain-des-Prés will host the festival, which is to include a VIP cocktail with the filmmakers, panel discussions and a crafts marketplace. Here’s the festival trailer: