April marks the springtime festival of fertility and harvest, Holi, which is celebrated throughout northern India. Because Holi is a yearly event that includes a large amount of revelry, without the obvious presence of the sacred, it’s become adapted by some odd pockets of people. I even saw a “Festival of Colours Run” race recently: […]
Since Valentine’s Day everyone has been talking about the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, although rarely in those terms. We know that her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius, shot her four times and killed her while she was behind a locked door in their bathroom in a gated estate. We know that he has a history of domestic […]
This weekend marks the 2nd year of the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival, an event that seeks to present the “multi facets of South Africa’s electronic music scene” with a weekend of performances and workshops. Judging from the promo video (below), the festival seems to be punting diversity and breaking down racial barriers under the […]
By Melissa Levin The next time Peter Beinart, who wrote a post on “The Israel Debate in South Africa” for The Daily Beast, visits South Africa, he ought to spend more time, with more people, getting a deeper sense of the complexities of the country and its struggle history. He may learn then, for starters, that […]
On a recent trip to Johannesburg (which is in Gauteng Province), a couple of friends decided to invade a Congolese restaurant in Yeoville; Kin Malebo on 31 Raleigh Street in Yeoville. The game was between DR Congo and Niger; I had access to a camera and decided to tag along. Good times were had by all.
Aaron Kohn’s African Lookbook interview with David Goldblatt covers a wide swath of subject matter—from childhood experiences, how he began working as a photographer after his father’s death, and why he was never cut out to be a “political” photographer (because “I am a coward,” he says, and because “I’m interested in the underbelly” of […]
“YOU might call me a catalyst. A catalyst changes everything, but it remains unchanged” — Sun Ra In just under a year, 79 Buitenkant Street in central Cape Town (around the corner from the country’s Parliament) has become an address synonymous with hosting the best jazz events in South Africa. It’s home to the The […]
Guest Post by Asanda Kaka In 1986, the South African photographer Santu Mofokeng decided to document “train churches” — the culture of mobile worship by working class black South Africans on the country’s commuter trains that continues till today. Mofokeng was traveling daily between his home in Soweto and his work as a dark room […]
Stencilled on the white walls of the Iziko Gallery ‘Annexe’ in Cape Town, a bell hooks quote from Black Looks: Race and Representation: For some time now the critical challenge for black folks has been to expand the discussion of race and representation beyond debates about good and bad imagery. Often what is thought to […]
Good on The New York Times for publishing an article on South African culinary options…I suppose something is better than nothing in this case. For those without a subscription, an article entitled “A Culinary Gateway to Cape Town” appeared on the travel section of The New York Time’s website on Wednesday morning. The composite image above […]
