Africa Is a Country

Brussels is Africa

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Brussels is Africa

By
Sean Jacobs

[slideshow]

Our man in Brussels, Tom de Vriendt, sent on information on some Africa-themed exhibitions on this summer (till the end of August) in that city. It’s all part of “The Summer of Photography,” which the organizers describe as “… a program that includes some 30 exhibitions, colloquia, workshops, and other photographic events all over Belgium.” First up is “A Useful Dream: African Photography 1960-2010,” curated by Simon Njami (the author of “Anthologie de la photographie africaine”); then there’s a retrospective–consisting of 200 photographs–of the work of the American-born South African photographer Roger Ballen; and finally, there’s the project “Africa Town” by the artist Vincen Beeckman. In a series of photographs, residents of Brussels went about photographing “… how they see Africa in Brussels.”

I am particularly taken by the “Africa Town” exhibition, which includes photos by residents of Brussels and pictures taken by Beeckman in a mobile studio, mostly in Matonge, the mostly African neighborhood in the city.

You can view some of the “Africa Town” online here. I have also embedded some of the mobile studio images above. It’s fascinating to see how people wanted to see themselves represented, what they chose to wear, how they pose, etc.

You can also read about the “Summer of Photography” on the BOZAR blog. And there’s this video interview with Njami, Ballen and Beeckman (in French and English):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQaz4L3pt2c&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

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In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.