Africa Is a Country

Thrones no one wants to sit on

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

Thrones no one wants to sit on

By
Orlando Reade
Gonçalo Mabunda’s chilling constructions are now on display at the Jack Bell gallery in London. His thrones (above) and faceless masks (below) are made from weapons used in Mozambique’s civil war. These designs make dark mockery of ergonomics: you wouldn’t want to put these masks on your face. There is some uncanny resemblance to Modernist assemblages, and the gallery notes make a connection with Cubists. An instructive comparison is Jacob Epstein’s The Rock Drill (1913-15), a prophetic monument to the horrific potentialities of modern industry. Mabunda’s work suggests a similar comparison, between the intensive wastefulness of war and the difficulties of post-conflict community projects. Above all, it seems a grim satire on the useless objects which adorn bad leadership.

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.