Screen shot from National Geographic site of James Nachtwey photo essay. © J. Nachtwey
PHOTOGRAPHY: South Africa: Mandela’s Children National Geographic photo gallery by James Nachtwey focusing on South Africa post-independence.
Thanks to a post on Kate Bomz’ lovely tumblrlog I happily obliterated a recent Friday evening discovering the culture of the Swenkas of South Africa. Swenkas?:
The swenkas are a small group of Zulu working men which formed in South Africa following the abolishment of Apartheid.
These well-dressed men are proud and considered to serve as an inspiration to others. On Saturday nights, these men leave their work clothes behind and don highly fashionable quality suits to impress a judge, who is a randomly picked. Traditionally, the prize for the most stylish suit is cash, but on special occasions such as Christmas, the winner may receive a goat or a cow. This traditional fashion show still happens today, but it is unclear as to precisely when it was instigated. The men follow certain set values of Swanking, such as physical cleanliness, sobriety and above all self-respect.
It is not clear what the precise roots of the swenka culture are. There is the acapella Iscathamiya music, where the performers, inspired by African-American ragtime/jazz fashions took a sense of formality and elegance. Also like migrants everywhere else the workers needed to buy swanky outfits for their return home to show those they had left behind that they had made it in the big city, regardless of what the daily reality was (is) of life in the mines, the construction sites, and white homes where they worked. Regular competition seems to have raised it all into an art form and a subculture.
The three video clips below highlight the various threads that make up Swenka.
Mini-feature on the Zulu ISICATHAMIYA choir competitions in Johannesburg
“artsworld” feature on Iscathamiya choral and Swenka fashion competitions in Johannesburg
Trailer for 2004 documentary “The Swenkas” by Danish director Jeppe Ronde. Synopsis here
Screen shot from Vice magazine site featuring the Swenkas. © M. Shoul
See also: Vice magazine: Swanky Swenkas Snip from article from Adolphus Mbuyisa on swenking:
I am one of the organizers of the Joburg swenkas. I don’t know how many suits I own, maybe 20 or 30. If I see a suit I like, I simply must have it. I also have lots of shoes, ties, and shirts. It is important for everything to match if you want to win a competition.
….
I live in a room in Soweto. My family is very supportive of me and my clothes. They don’t mind that I spend so much money on suits—they are proud of me and they like it when I look smart.
Screen shot from designer Paul Smith’s web site
Speaking of Swankiness, See Also: Underscoring the power of the imagination in subcultures like the Swenkas and sapeurs, fashion designer Paul Smith has a new fashion line for spring/summer 2010 called “Mainline” influenced by Congo Brazzaville’s sapeurs:
See Also: Through all this I can’t help but think of Hugh Masekela’s song “Coal Train” (aka “Stimela”) about a train carrying men from the hinterlands of southern Africa (all of Africa these days?) who uproot themselves from their homes, lands and loves in the pursuit of dreams of wealth and comfort. The dreams that crash into the reality of migrant life and that are rekindled in Swenka fashion and Iscathamiya music/performance.
Hugh Masekela: “Coal Train Live”
“The BLK JKS homecoming slideshow” audio slide show from the Mail & Guardian site.
Music: BLK JKS are back in the States to tour in support of the debut album “After Robots” out now. Rolling Stone has called them “Africa’s best new band” and artists to watch in 2009. Here is a sampler track from their new album:
Photographers I Like: Speaking of BLK JKS, you’ve probably seen a tall gentleman on/back stage at their shows taking pics of the performances. Said gentleman would be Kwesi Abbensetts, an art photographer who beautifully captures the creative vibe of Brooklyn. He posts his work on the photoblog “Spaceship George“.
Screenshot from “Oroma” a photo essay on Mike Schreiber’s site. © M. Schreiber
Photography, more: Mike Schreiber, Oroma Speaking of photographers, here as some cool images of Oroma Elewa the editor and creative force of nature behind the magazine/site pop’africana (which site I have been criminally silent about). Mike Schreiber is another Brooklyn-based photographer with great work, check out his esays on M.I.A. as well as other music portraits he has shot on his site.
Promise of Africa Collective at New York Fashion Week
FASHION: Speaking of fashion, herewith highlights from the Arise: Promise of Africa Collective Spring/Summer 2010 show at the recently completed New York Fashion Week. It featured togs by David Tlale, Eric Raisine, Tiffany Amber and Jewel by Lisa.
Samuel Fosso’s image series “African Spirits”. Screen shot from Foam magazine site
The current issue of Foam Magazine includes a portfolio of Samuel Fosso’s current work, “African Spirits“, wherein the chameleonic portraitist takes on the form of a variety of African despots and African-American icons (the image of Malcolm X looks like the original). Peeped a copy of the magazine at the newsstand; the images are printed in gorgeous black and white, although at $30 a pop, looking is all I can afford to do in these times.
Screenshot from Snapped web site © M. Parr
Snapped: A Quarterly Magazine of Photography from Africa. Will be highlighting more from this great site anon.
screenshot of website image, “Blue Print, Rio” © The Sartorialist
Herewith, a randomly ordered year end list of stuff of note from 2008 here at casa forota.
1. MUSIC: Post everything music: BLK JKS, Esau Mwamwaya, Santogold, Vampire Weekend, Radioclit, Diplo, et al found new ways to mash up musical, cultural, epochal influences to create music influenced by everywhere, but of nowhere. Brilliant soundtracks for our rootless time.
2. PHOTOGRAPHY: Most Favorite Image: “Blue Print, Rio” at Sartorialist. Not sure why but I kept coming back to this image.
3. PHOTOGRAPHY: Second Most Favorite Image: “Kwaito in the streets of Alexandra” by Krisanne Johnson from FADER 52. Another image I cannot get enough of.
4. POLITICS: Obama vs Palin. A vote for the open, interconnected, inclusive future vs the insular, backward looking, divisive past. Choice was pretty clear.
5. MAGAZINES: Vogue Italia: A Black Issue. Proved it is still an issue to be black in the beauty business if one needs an issue for black people. Intriguing step forward, though.
6. BOOKS: Chemise by Malick Sidibe. Hipsters, on perusing Sidibe’s images: “Oh look, African hipsters from long ago!”
7. RACE: Black but not Black: Rising Black American middle class, emergence of “Afropolitans” or second generation African immigrants, growing awareness among Afro-latinos is rendering the label “Black” and its connotations pretty obsolete. See also: The End of the Black American Narrative by Charles Johnson.
8. ART/MUSEUMS: “Flow” at Studio Museum of Harlem. Nicely curated collection of Afropolitan art. Also cool: Exhibitions of works by Kehinde Wiley and Barkley L. Hendricks.
“Kwaito in the streets of Alexandra Township” © Krisanne Johnson
FADER 58: Andrew Dosunmu: Off the Wall. Dosunmu and stylist Mobolaji Dawoudu head out to Malaysia during Ramadhan to shoot a fashion spread. Dosunmu is one of my greatest inspirations photography-wise, but sometimes he makes me want to put my camera down instead of pick it up … his images/concepts are so good.
TRACE: Black Girls Rule! Issue. Lately, Claude Grunitsky’s has moved Trace towards upscale fashion and away from the underground “transcultural” scene that originally made the magazine so unique. However, I still like their annual “Black Girls Rule!” issue for showcasing, um, Black women in positions to inspire or lead in other areas of life away from the runway or studio. I haven’t been able to track down a physical copy of this year’s edition (guest edited by Spike Lee), but there’s a link to a free downloadable PDF copy of the magazine right here
SHOOK: I still miss Straight No Chaser that brilliant magazine that chronicled the global underground music scene from “ancient to future”. Shook picks up where it left off (including the hard to read typography). I am yet to see Shook on the newsstand, like SNC, it is hard to find (although one can mail order it from Dusty Groove). Downloadable PDFs of Issues 1 and 2 are available right here.
Curated by the editors and contributors of Chimurenga Magazine, the Chimurenga Library is an online archiving project that profiles independent pan African paper periodicals from around the world. It focuses on cultural and literary magazines, both living and extinct, which have been influential platforms for dissent and which have broadened the scope for print publishing on art, new writing and ideas in and about Africa.
“Is Anyone Reading in Kenya?”: Africa Journal report on the culture of reading in Kenya in the context of the recent Kwani? Litfest.
Detail of the July issue of Italian Vogue
I recently picked up a copy of the July Italian (”A Black Issue”) Vogue to see what the big deal was. There are few places better than the fashion rags to see the current state of fashion/editorial art, so at the newstand I occasionally reach over the Economist or Fader to crack open a Vogue to see what photographers like Annie Lebowitz or Steven Meisel are up to.
The editorial images in Vogue.it/07 feature many African diaspora models past and present (including Somali/Canuck Yasmin Warsame and Ugandan/Angelino Kiara Kabukuru). The concepts are not self-consciously ethnic, they are of beautiful women who happen to be Black (personal fave is an homage to Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude). There are are features (in Italian, natch) about Black women of note (Donyale Luna the first Black cover model, Michelle Obama, Ebony editor Linda Johnson Rice, South African Afro-soul diva Simphiwe Dana, and art from Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu). However, as has been pointed out elsewhere, it is hard not to notice that most of the ads feature non-Black models. Unsurprisingly, the August issue of Vogue Italia is bereft of Black models a reversion to form, even on a mock tribute to Yves Saint Laurent who was one of the first designers to feature Black models on the runway as well as being the first to use a black woman as a fashion muse (Martinique born, Paris resident Mounia).
Ugandan-born model Kiara Kabukuru is among the models featured in the July issue of Italian Vogue
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