King of Africa /Photography

Pieter Hugo has a great fictional series on Nollywood, the Nigerian Film Industry. Said to be the 3rd largest film industry in the world releases approximately 1000 movies a year – mainly onto the home VHS and VCD market.

Key to Nollywood’s explosive success is Nigerian filmmakers’ reliance on video instead of film, reducing production costs. Nigeria has virtually no formal cinemas, with about 99 per cent of screenings in informal settings, such as home theatres.

Movies are produced and marketed in the space of a week: low cost equipment, very basic scripts, actors cast the day of the shooting, “real life” locations. Despite the improvised production process, they continue to fascinate audiences.

According to UNESCO 56 per cent of Nollywood films are made in local languages, while English remains a prominent language, accounting for 44 per cent, which may contribute to Nigeria’s success in exporting its films.

Italian filmmaker Franco Sacchi toured Nollywood and made a documentary. Here’s his talk at TED:

More on the documentary can be found here

Absolutely beautiful collection by German photographer, Hans Silvester entitled “Les Habits de la Nature”, celebrating the unique art of the Surma and Mursi tribes of the Omo Valley, on the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan. Amazing.

http://www.lamaisonpresbastille.com/habit_nature.php?test=1

The Bills were a youth subculture that dressed in cowboy outfits and opposed the current political view of late 1950s Léopoldville, Zaire (modern-day Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo).

They proliferated in the African sections of Léopoldville and based their image of blue jeans, checkered shirts, scarfs, boots, and hats on the American Western movies of the time, especially those of Buffalo Bill, like ‘Pony Express’ featuring Charlton Heston.

From the Bills came a new generation of sounds and bands, such as Zaiko, Bozi Boziana and Minzoto Ya Zaire, which differ from the Congolese rumba known by most. Jef De Laet (who became better known as Pere Buffalo), was a Passionist missionary at the time began working with the youth where the Bills roamed and helped channel their energies into a positive movement and helped start Minzoto Ya Zaire, as well as a cultural centre, Cabaret Liyoto, which featured a recording studio.

The photos are by Jean Depara, an Angolan-born photographer who was living in Kinshasa at the time, where he worked taking photos of celebrations, portraits and families, but at night he hung out in the Kinshasa clubs and here he captured an Africa stripped of conventional social codes. 

More on Depara.

Late posting, but seen recently at Stux Gallery (January 29 – March 21, 2009), new works by Ruud Van Empel.

http://web.ruudvanempel.nl/works.html

Ed Kashi’s engaging photographs of daily life and conflict in the oil rich Niger Delta has recently been published as a book.

Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta takes a graphic look at the profound cost of oil exploitation in West Africa, tracing the 50-year history of Nigeria’s oil interests and the resulting environmental degradation and community conflicts that have plagued the region.

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If you’re in the NYC area, come view the prints at The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn from August 15-September 28, 2008.
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For more on Ed Kashi
http://www.edkashi.com/

For more on the book and powerHouse Books
http://powerhousebooks.com/curseoftheblackgold/

Image from CURSE OF THE BLACK GOLD: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta, Photographs by Ed Kashi, Edited by Michael Watts, published by powerHouse Books.Â

  

The evolution of a soundsystem.

“Chillin in Ghana”… check GHANA MUSIC – My Mankessim Impressions, a Project of the AFRICA YOUTH SPACE Media Club of Mankessim.
By drumghana

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Made In Queens is a short film about a group of imaginative tinkerers from Trinidad were working late into the nights creating something nobody had ever seen before: enormous stereo systems jury rigged onto ordinary bmx bikes.

Travelling together, each behind the handlebars of his or her own massive homemade creation, they treat the neighborhood to an outrageous impromptu music and dance party on wheels. Directed by Randall Stevens, Made In Queens is a documentary film celebrating America’s first stereobike crew.

http://madeinqueensfilm.com/

African Salad is not a new book, but is definitely worth bumping your under utilised Jamie off the kitchen shelf.

Not that you will be cooking too many of these dishes, it’s pages are filled with a salad of South Africans at home, honestly portrayed without any trace of a patronising onlooker. Each person stands proudly in front of their shack, hut, cottage or mansion and with a smile offers a glimpse of their day to day life in their intimate surroundings.

The photographs celebrate a South Africa of today and one of years ago, where saturday afternoon and sunday morning visits to friends, aunts and grannies were being played out.

Published by dayone. Photographs Stan Engelbrecht. Text Tamsen de Beer.
Link to site.

Clayton Cubbitt’s take on skinhead fashions from the early seventies in an Afrikan style.

Link to online gallery

As a literary gent, the King requested his library assistant to acquire some reading matter for the state library or for use as coasters at royal and diplomatic banquets. His assistant’s recent acquisition:

The Beautiful Struggle by Per Englund and Mlamli Figlan
Style and attitude in the townships of South Africa

Swedish photographer Per Englund reflects on a new image of South Africa. The photographs in the book are shining with self-confidence and attitude. They depict life beyond the headlines by providing a glimpse of a young generation who are fusing their traditional African culture with a global youth culture as a means of escaping poverty and apathy.

Published by Dokument Förlag
ISBN: 978-91-973981-5-2

Pingmag interview with Per Englund and Mlamli Figlan.