Photography: Rape Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide and Their Children

An estimated 200,000 children were conceived as a result of mass rape during the genocide in Rwanda in mid-1994. The Interahamwe, the Hutu militia, went around deliberately raping minority Tutsi women. Photographer Jonathan Torgovnik–working with editors and a cameraman–chronicled the experiences of some of these women (they now face rejection from fellow Tutsis) in his project, “Intended Consequences”. The multimedia project that resulted–first put online in 2008–was awarded a prestigious duPoint Columbia Journalism Award this past week.

It was the first web-based production to win a duPont Award.

The video, above, is an excerpt from a video slideshow that you can watch in full (14 minutes) here.

The Help is Cheap

South Africa’s cheap private hospitals (if you have Dollars, Euros and Pounds, of course and if you’re not a black and poor local) have made it a sough after destination for plastic surgery tourism. Serious. Now Cape Town is one of 10 best places to retire for Americans, according to Globalpost.

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Rumble in the Jungle

Revisiting the Muhammed Ali-George Foreman fight in the then-Ziare in 1975 as performance art.

Tonight in Brooklyn.

Homophobia in Africa

“…. In the last six months we have seen the expression of homophobia with the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill; the arrest of gay Malawian couple, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, for getting married;  most recently the appointment of homophobic journalist,  Jon Qwelane as South Africa’s ambassador to Uganda,” writes Black Looks.

How to make sense of it all?

* The photograph–one of my favorites–is from Zanele Muholi’s series “Being”

African Soldiers

OBC & Konkret 53 from Burkina Faso.

Another Magee Films production.

Journalism

Peter Beard’s Africa

I have written elsewhere that I am not sure how I feel about the work of photographer Peter Beard.  He thinks of Africa as a spoilt Eden, muse is Isak Denisen (Karen Blixen; he loved her “Out of Africa“) and half the time the photographs look like Europeans who are on safari.

But do people still care about his work?

Kamau, blogging over at Africa.Visual_Culture, wrote last month about Beard’s “contraditions.” He writes: [Read more...]

Yinka Shonibare on Being An Artist

Short video interview with the Nigerian artist whose work explores race colonialism and also insists on the MBE behind his name.

His work is currently on show at the National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C.

Mos Def, ‘White Drapes’

Preview of new video. He got his game back.

Dennis Brutus

I have always admired the giant South African poet and activist, Dennis Brutus, who passed away on Christmas Day last year. and was fortunate enough to have met him.  I found him warm, uncompromising, brilliant and generous with advice.

I have been wondering what to say about his legacy for a while, but I could not find the words so I’ll let one of his poems speak. It appeared online on December 21, 2009, days before his passing:

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