Unseen Art Scene (mirror)

Source:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pq946/Lost_Kingdoms_of_Africa_Nubia/ Four-part series in which British art historian Dr Gus Casely-Hayford explores the pre-colonial history of some of Africa's most important kingdoms. The African continent is home to nearly a billion people. It has an incredible diversity of communities and cultures, yet we know less of its history than almost anywhere else on earth. But that is beginning to change. In the last few decades, researchers and archaeologists have begun to uncover a range of histories as impressive and extraordinary as anywhere else in the world. The series reveals that Africa's stories are preserved for us in its treasures, statues and ancient buildings - in the culture, art and legends of the people. The first episode looks at Nubia, in what is now northern Sudan, a kingdom that dominated a vast area of the eastern Sahara for thousands of years. Its people were described as barbarians and mercenaries, and yet Nubi

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hkb0z/The_Lost_Libraries_of_Timbuktu/?from=r Aminatta Forna tells the story of legendary Timbuktu and its long hidden legacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts. With its university founded around the same time as Oxford, Timbuktu is proof that the reading and writing of books have long been as important to Africans as to Europeans. The books that are being found in and around Timbuktu are amongst some of the most important on earth and Universities from Oslo to Chicago and South Africa are busy documenting, archiving and translating the Arabic into English. This complicated and laborious mammoth project will certainly take several decades to shed more light on the true importance of these newly rediscovered West African Academic Islamic manuscripts but the truth is that West Africa has a far rich history of academic thought, which clearly dates back centuries. Libraries of Timbuktu | http://www.sum.uio.no/timbuktu/index.html

Check out BBC iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s3bmx/Welcome_to_Lagos_Episode_1/ Three-part observational documentary series which explores life at the sharp end of one of the most extreme urban environments in the world: Lagos, Nigeria. Today, more than half the world's population live in cities, and this eye-opening series shows what life is really like in some of the toughest parts of the world's fastest growing megacity. The first episode uncovers life in the Olusosun rubbish dump. Here, around 1000 people live on top of the rubbish in houses built from scrap. The film follows the daily lives of two men who have become skilled at turning rubbish into gold. Eric, aka Vocal Slender, is a musician, and every bit of scrap he finds brings him one step closer to his dream of launching his music career, but a serious fight nearly ruins his chances. Joseph is a trader who works hard to provide for his wife and two small children, and who has filled his house with thi

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s8lp8/The_Tutu_Talks_Are_Women_Strong_Enough_to_Lead_Africa/ Archbishop Desmond Tutu brings together Africa's leading contemporary thinkers in a series of discussions exploring major issues and changes affecting the future of the continent. Tutu asks his guests - Patricia De Lille, Pregs Govender, Mbuyiselo Botha, and Nomboniso Gasa - why women in Africa, despite years of struggle and hardship, still do not possess the same freedoms and rights as men. Are arguments about cultural difference and tradition allowing brutal acts of oppression against women to be ignored or excused? Do men in Africa fear their identities or power will be eroded if women have greater equality? What does the political victory of Ellen-Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia tell us about the possibilities for real change? Broadcast on: BBC Four, 10:00pm Tuesday 27th April 2010 Duration: 30 minutes Available until: 10:29pm Thursday 6th May 2010 Categories: Factual ,  Politics

Take a look at the beauty Justin Fiske has created with pebbles and string. Art can be so powerful and the simpler the better but it's clear that Justin has taken an age to come up with his own beautiful solution: The joy of movement as he creates his Kinetic Sculptures down in Cape Town. Check out his works: http://www.justinfiske.com/videos/suspension/suspension-long.html http://www.justinfiske.com/videos/trans-show/ Here is a poem Justin wrote that I like a lot: Frame of Reference There are days  when water feels like cream on your lips & others when you have to try so hard feeling only follows blood or chipped tooth. & it's not just a question of money or love, or ....how the light falls as if those would be easy to accept an answer from  even if they offered but it's in the line & the cadence & depth of the gasp; how much slack the strings take for themselves before life takes it up wrenching us back into orientation  & dragging us deeper into memor

The Unofficial Posters by Joe Pollitt I wanted to take elements that I found interesting from various themes, ideas or parts of Contemporary African Art and add them all together in order to make up as series of 3 posters for the Unofficial South African World Cup, 2010 Poster Campaign I am unofficially running. I remember reading a story by Laurens van der Post about the 'Bushmen' of the Kalahari Desert down in South Africa. I was fascinated by the way they put each other into an altered state of mind in order to paint on the cave walls. They would gather together in the sand and collectively clap their hands and one member of the group would stand in the middle and shuffle his feet vigorously in the sand to stimulate his endorphins in his brain; after a short while he would collapse in a heap in the sand and be taken off by his friends to sleep and enjoy the journey of going into a deep trance. When he woke out of his deep slumber he would tell stories of half-human animal mo

Take a look at how advertising/commercials can create a great sense of identity for those without a strong sense of identity. Advertising could play an enormous role in defining who, what and how African countries  would like to define themselves as. Globalization has already taken shape and commercialism and capitalism could be a great way to define nations as they create their sense of self. Products will be bought regardless but there is a great opportunity that is being lost, maybe on purpose in order to shape the world as one large vision of America or maybe because of budget restrictions or maybe because of laziness but regardless of all that the opportunity is there and countries should cease these opportunities. If people are prepared to buy the products on sale it seems only right that in the selling of the products the visual imagery should echo what is seen every day. I think every country in Africa should have an exciting "Prop Shop" for those interested in shooti

I read this article last weekend and enjoyed the way in which it was written. It has a pace that is African and a rhythm that echoes slightly. For anybody who has been touched by the Continent you can hear or see in Mariella Frostrup's writing a sense of honesty about what she is writing about. Please read: Source: Times Online:  http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article7095281.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1 From  The Times April 17, 2010 Mariella Frostrup:  the women who changed  my life Mariella Frostrup's life changed when she heard  the stories of women transforming their lives  in poverty-stricken Mozambique Photo by Nick Aldridge It’s only a two-hour drive from Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, to Manica Province, but it feels like travelling back centuries. Children in third-generation hand-me-downs run barefoot between the mud-based, corrugated iron-topped huts. But it’s when I hear more about the lives of the village women that I realise the e

Article by Simon Njami, 21 January 2010 Source: Revue Noire |  http://www.revuenoire.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=131:walk-in-holy-land&catid=5:editos&Itemid=14〈=en BILI BIDJOCKA (Cameroon), Enigma #1, 2009 Collective Diary, exhibition. Curators Simon Njami and Mikaela Zyss, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel, January/April 2010 Every time I go back to Israel, I find myself torn between a host of complex feelings. This piece of land holds so many contradictions, so many absurdities and dreams. And God! Even the idea of God seems beholden to the contingencies of contemporary geopolitics. Just walking through the narrow streets of the old city of Jerusalem provokes an ontological unease. The omnipresence of the divine is asphyxiating. And its various manifestations, which are so frequently if not always conflicting, restore a doubt that has actually never gone away: how could a higher being with the slightest scrap of lucidity be the

I thought this article interesting and wanted to bring to your attention as President Hosni Mubarak has been in power for 28 years in Egypt and wants to pass the Presidency down to his son, Gamal. The Democratic Republic wants to become more of a Monarchy and this trend is being repeated throughout North Africa with other Leaders such as President Ben Ali of Tunisia and Colonel al-Gaddafi in Libya but the people of Egypt are calling for change and using the Internet to call for the President of choice - Mohamed ElBaradei to take office instead. This is Internet Power at it's best....let us see what happens next. I am interested to see how the elections go after the article written by  Saad Eddin Ibrahim in The Wall Street Journal on 17th August 2009 about President Obama and how it was high time America turned their back on tyrants. Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1966922,00.html   Will ElBaradei Run for President of Egypt by Abigail Hausl