Africa Is a Country

Zwelethu Mthethwa @ The Studio Museum

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

Zwelethu Mthethwa @ The Studio Museum

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_ri7XJik0&w=500&h=281&rel=0]

Via Todd Johnson: Opening on Thursday, July 15, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, some new work by South African photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa. (For the opening night, Mthethwa will be present for a conversation with curator Naomi Beckwith.  It’s free, but you got to RSVP.)

The works are on display till October 24.

Here’s the description from the Museum:

Zwelethu Mthethwa: Inner Views brings together three series by South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa (b. 1960). “Interiors” and “Empty Beds” document the domestic lives of migrant workers around Johannesburg, South Africa, while “Common Ground” focuses on the shared experience of natural disasters in urban areas, featuring houses in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, after wildfires.”

* The video above is the highlight reel of a fascinating 4-part video conversation between Mthethwa and Okwei Enwezor, hosted recently by the Aperture Foundation. Links to parts one, two, three and four.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.