Photographer Thapelo Motsumi is one of many young South Africans who has worked with the Umuzi Photo Club to develop his artistic skills and engage his community. Now this “drop out” has had two exhibitions in London and has been entrusted with Mandela’s football jersey. By GREG NICOLSON.
WACENA, was established in the year 2008 by a number of concerned mothers together with women students from Makerere University Kampala with a purpose of addressing and alleviating the acute and long-term consequences of violence against the women and children of Uganda.
On August 14th 2014 several prominent statues within the city centre and the southern suburbs of Cape Town got redressed in green blankets, equipped with miner gear or carrying grocery bags. The statues – mainly of which represent colonial figures – were redressed in light of what has come to be known as the Marikana Massacre: the shooting of 34 miners by the local police force of Marikana, South Africa on August 16th, 2012.
The work of South African artist Mary Sibande tells the tale of her alter-ego Sophie, a domestic worker who finds refuge in dreams where she emancipates herself from the ghoulish realism of an ordinary existence, cleaning other people's homes.
Exploring the construction of identity within post-apartheid South Africa, Sibande's work probes the stereotypical contextualisation of the black female body.
“Most people can’t imagine a futurist Africa,” says Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh. She challenges this in her project, Water Life, exploring real-world issues with an otherworldly twist.
Muluneh went to Dallol, Afar, Ethiopia, an extreme landscape where it is dry and hot to capture the essence of water to life. Through her work, Muluneh highlights how water scarcity is mainly a burden on women.
The “Perceiving Freedom” glasses sculpture on Cape Town’s Sea Point promenade looking towards Robben Island, commemorates late President Nelson Mandela and the values of freedom and equality.
In a lively room in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, a group of women have gathered to discuss how to keep the upcoming Kenyan election free from violence. The women are not politicians, election officials or campaigners – they are grassroots activists, working with their communities to keep the peace on August 8.
The term “Afrofuturism” was coined in the 1990s by the cultural critic Mark Dery, who recognized a preoccupation with the future in the work of a number of black artists. Ever since, it has remained a term that is retrospectively applied to seemingly disparate artists, from Missy Elliot to Toni Morrison. What unites the movement is a shared fascination with the black experience, particularly in America.
"Puppets Against Aids was launched by Gary Friedman on 1st December 1988 in time for 'World Aids Day' in Johannesburg, South Africa. During 1987, Friedman had been studying with Muppet master, Jim Henson, in Charleville-Mézières, France. Henson provided the initial financial contribution to launch the African Research and Educational Puppetry Programme 'Puppets Against Aids'.
An exercise that used drama/and audio visuals to engage with with all election partners, especially the political parties especially the political parties and their candidates/leaders, Electoral Commission, Musicians Association of Ghana, etc to push for a free, fair and peaceful Presidential and Parliamentary election and hand over of power to who ever won the elections peacefully.
Zanele Muholi, the self-proclaimed visual activist and photographer, investigates the fraught relationship between post-apartheid South Africa and its queer community, who, despite being constitutionally protected since 1996, remain a constant target of abuse and discrimination.
In Women Are Heroes, JR introduces women who sometimes look death in the face, who go from laughter to tears, who are generous, have nothing and yet share, who have had a painful past and long to build a happy future.
A video that was first posted on X (formerly Twitter) on November 8, of a Congolese man setting himself on fire has gone viral. The gruesome clip has started a discussion on whether a genocide is occurring in the DRC and is being ignored by both Africa and the rest of the world.
As local rapper Naty says, a group of young people are intent on making their mark in Madagascar's cultural history. From gifted slam poet Caylah to inventive visual artist Temandrota and a crew of entrepreneurial skateboarders, a generation of young Madagascans are making space for creative projects.They are inspiring in their enthusiasm and hopeful for the future despite the poverty in their country and its colonial past.
The collective Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle, a group of Kinshasa street performers turn their bodies into living sculptures, and use them to political ends. Among the artists is Jared, who regularly takes to the streets dressed as Robot Annonce. The costume, made from broken radio parts, is designed to raise awareness of fake news. “People receive so much incorrect information and many inaccuracies are spread. I want to fight this,” says Jared.
I am a visual activist. Most of what I have done over the years focuses on black LGBTQIA+ and gender-non-conforming individuals from South Africa and other neighbouring countries. It’s about making sure we exist in the visual archive. I call myself a visual activist — or, rather, a cultural activist, because this work is not only about the arts; I’m focusing on education, I’m dealing with culture in a way that confronts a number of issues.
In Cape Town, South Africa the design firms Design Indaba Trust and Thinking have teamed up with artist Faith47 to help raise funds to bring more light to their urban city. Their goal is to raise funds to light up 700 meters of Manwabisi Park, which will ultimately reduce the crime rate in the area through more light. In order to get the community involved in the project, they have combined street art with community engagement.
Fespaco is a meeting place put to good use to promote the development of black cinematography. From 1973, topics of discussion are introduced at each edition.
Joseline de Lima was wandering the dusty alleys of her working-class neighborhood in the capital of Togo one day last year, when a disturbing thought crossed her mind: Who would take care of her two boys if her depression worsened and she were no longer around to look after them?
The Women Are Heroes project has various steps in Africa, in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Sudan.
In January 2009, 2000 square meters of rooftops are covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera, in Kenya. Most of the women have their own photos on their own rooftop and for the first time the material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season.
This series of protests began on the UCT campus in an effort to remove the bronze statute of Cecil Rhodes in the center of campus due to the belief that Rhodes represents the oppressive colonization of South Africa that eventually led to apartheid.
Drama Queens Ghana's “MoonGirls” is an Afrofuturistic graphic novel series. Through an Afrofuturistic lens, “MoonGirls follows the adventures of 4 African "supersheroes" with varying superpowers to save the world from a diverse range of forces; from patriarchy, rape culture to pollution and global warming.
Born in Nigeria in 1975, Péju Alatise, is a multimedia artist focusing on the experience of women and girls, particularly in her native country but with resonance across the world.