Le Savoir Est L’unique Fortune Qu’on Peut Donner entièrement Sans En Rien La Diminuer. Amadou

Fantasma - Eye Of The Sun (Official)

Architecture of Independence - African Modernism

Vitra Design Museum Gallery

"When many countries in Central and Sub-Saharan Africa gained their independence in the 1960s, experimental and futuristic architecture became a principal means by which the young nations expressed their national identities. The exhibition in the Vitra Design Museum Gallery is one of the first presentations of this remarkable period of more recent architectural history. This exhibition was researched and curated by architect and author Manuel Herz, with a substantial contribution by photographer Iwan Baan. The exhibition documents more than 80 buildings in five countries; Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, Ghana and Senegal. The often heroic and daring designs of parliament buildings, central banks, stadiums, conference centers, universities and independence memorials mirror the forward-looking spirit that was dominant in these countries at the time. However, this architecture also represents the difficulties, contradictions and dilemmas that the young nations experienced in their independence process, as building designs and architects were often imported from foreign countries, if not from one of the former colonial powers.”

Video out now on www.Nowness.com #64bitsandmalachite

THE SWEET FLYPAPER OF LIFE

Roy Decarava & Langston Hughes, 1955

Currently at @cccadi “Mulheres de Axé: Celebration of the Sacred Power of Women of Spirit” event in #Harlem This is The goddess Iemanja. #brazil #spirituality #orixas #iemanja #candomble #africandiaspora #africanspirituality

NGUVA by WANGECHI MUTU (2014)

For her new exhibition Nguva na Nyoka (Sirens and Serpents)at London’s Victoria Miro gallery, Mutu looked to mythologies from Africa and the Arab world, exploring the troubling spirit of mermaids and the abyssal mystery of the sea, where sailors are seduced and annihilated. The accompanying film Nguva, previewed here, opens with an unsettling scream, moving to ghostly images of veiled women on a sandy shore. The artist appears as a hysterical beast whose menacing force slowly dissipates. Through this magical metamorphosis, Mutu creates a surreal landscape between life and death, reality and dreams, the female body transforming into site of geo-political and sexual violence.”

Watch the film in full 

Chaque fois que les liens familiaux se défaisaient, chaque fois qu'on se dressait contre son semblable, l'Histoire se répétait. Douloureusement, impitoyablement, dans un entre-soi subsaharien. La traite négrière était à inscrire au patrimoine tragique du genre humain. Parce qu'elle avait impliqué des régions différentes du monde. Parce que les bourreaux n'avaient pas été que d'un seul côté. Parce qu'elle était, à cette échelle-là, le premier crime contre l'humanité dont on ait gardé trace. Celui qui trop longtemps ignoré, avait engendré les autres. Une fois qu'on avait réduit des humains à cela, qu'hésiterait-on à commettre? Devant quoi reculerait-on? Aux quatre coins du monde on se surpasserait pour défier l'horreur. La zone subsaharienne du Continent était concernée au premier chef. Elle avait été la source unique du trafic. On ne s'étaient pas servi ailleurs. Et depuis, les rapports de cette région avec le reste du monde demeuraient les mêmes. Elle était le puits sans fond d'où les autres tiraient leur croissance. Et, comme par le passé, il se trouvait toujours une main autochtone pour participer au crime. Les soulèvements populaires observés çà et là, loin du regard de la Communauté internationale, ne venaient jamais à bout des régimes scélérats. Le mal venait de loin.

Léonora Miano, Les aubes écarlates. Sankofa cry. Plon, 2009.

The Sirens, 1956, by Haitian artist Rigaud Benoit

Chester E. Macduffee and his newly patented, 250 kilo diving suit, 1911.

If Not Now, When? Models for Resistance in SF

Both fantasy and SF present alternative visions of the world; but some of these visions are helpful, and others are not. Some are dystopian, some are utopian. Some are hierarchical, some are egalit…

“In science fiction novels and dramas, the evil or oppression to be resisted is often systemic, and identifiable as a human construct, the outcome of a complex web of causality…”