Tag: Ambivalences / Intersections

IDENTITIES / PORTRAITS

backfire

« I’ve been doing this for about a decade and have never once received an invitation to come to the US, so I have to assume there isn’t much interest. When it’s not negative, (…) it’s not as appealing to the public because there isn’t this great story, this very compassionate story. (…) Planets and stars and futurism and time travel – these types of visions aren’t supposed to come from black guys from Detroit. » Jeff Mills, co-founder of the Underground Resistance collective.

Hack for (y)our rights

AFRICA’SOUT! is a creative dynamic space made to initiate + create radical ideas that change the way we all engage with Africa. Highlighting the urgency of pressing social and political issues, they, like us, believe in ‘Imaginative Activism’. And we are more than thrilled they asked us to collaborate on a short art curation format to be also featured through their instagram : @africasout. <3

B(s)ttf x Musée du Quai Branly

Let’s take a big leap into « The Color Line » — a Musée du Quai Branly / Jacques Chirac exhibition — : The first « Before » of the season is featuring Blacks to the Future ! Explore the African- American culture thanks to a varied program, mixing traditions and contemporary creations, in one evening.

B(s)ttf x Quai Branly

« Week-ends » are a new rendez-vous allowing you to discover exhibitions from an exclusive point of view !

Musicians, dancers, plasticians, story tellers and lecturers settle in the museum to make you live a unique moment around the exhibition « The Color Line – African-American Artists and Segregation » and explore no less than 150 years of history of African-American art. Free activities, free access or access with ticket to the museum.

Indigenous epistemologies and ‘bad design’ by Mukhtara Yusuf

Mukhtara Yusuf is a cultural activist of Nigerian Yoruba origin who explores identity making in a post-colonial context through Afrofuturist art. Her media of choice include printwork and collage, but she is especially committed to fashion and jewelry design. To her, dress articulates the unfinished business of self-making as a “3rd culture kid” of the diaspora.

The wearable afro-cosmology of Selly Raby Kane

A man and woman dance to the hypnotic rhythm of synthesized drums and distorted singing, their stomping feet raising clouds of dust from barren earth, their upper limbs drawing elliptic figures against a backdrop of nebulous galaxies. In this depthless void where stars pulsate from the exposed heart of colored clusters, the lone dancers twist under the invisible pressure of the hammering sound. In gravity-defying gymnastics they move under a fluorescent ray of blue light that beams down from the eye of a nebula. They are being summoned. A ladder appears leading somewhere, nowhere. Is this dystopia or utopia? The scene gives no hint as to its history, whether the characters are welcoming or resisting the call.

black, trans and proud

The Black lives Matters movement, term used for the first time in 2013, is an activist movement developped, on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, as a reslut of polician’s violence and blunders among the afro-american community. “Black lives matter” is the motto of the mobilisation, wich is presented not only in the United States or in Canada but also in Africa, especially in Ghana.

Thoughts on the Afrofuturist influence on Afrosartorialism

An article by Laura Havlin that appeared in AnOther Magazine back in September is a good source to get acquainted with the afrofuturist aesthetic and to point to its influence on afrosartorial trends. (N.D.L.R. : This article first appeared on “Afrosartorialism”, Enrica Picarelli’s research blog, on 29 December 2015)