PHOTOGRAPHY: Jason Florio: 930km African Odyssey. Portraits of chiefs and elders taken while on a 2009 walking trip of Gambia.

Screen shot from Greg Constantine’s site. © G. Constantine

PHOTOGRAPHY: Greg Constantine: Slum Warriors: Kenya’s Nubians. Kibera’s 100,000 strong Nubian community has lived there for over 100 years on land give them as compensation for fighting in the Kings African Rifles. “Nubian” is not officially recognized as a Kenyan tribe, so unless they are “vetted” at age of 18 to get Kenyan ID cards they become essentially stateless.

PHOTOGRAPHY:: Zwelethu Mthethwa: Inner Visions. Studio Museum in (the sweet village of) Harlem brings together a number of Mthethwa’s large scale images. Go see.

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.

See Also: Talk between Mthethwa and Okuwi Enwezor last year at Aperture gallery at the launch of Mthethwa’s monograph.

Zwelethu Mthethwa and Okwui Enwezor from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

Photography: Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler: Bicycle Portraits

The Bicycle Portraits project was initiated by Stan Engelbrecht (Cape Town, South Africa) and Nic Grobler (Johannesburg, South Africa) early in 2010. Whenever they can, together or separately, they’re on the lookout for fellow commuters, and people who use bicycles as part of their everyday work, to meet and photograph. They’re finding out who rides bicycles, why they ride bicycles, if and why they love their bicycles, and of course why so few South Africans choose bicycles as a transport option.

The two photographers (bike enthusiasts from Cape Town) are using the startup Kickstarter (creative project funding platform) to raise funds to make their project into a hardcover book.

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.

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”

In the 1970s and 1980s, so many promises were made to Liberia and by Liberians. All of them would be broken over the next two decades. As part of a long term project I’m beginning, I plan to document the spaces of these broken promises.

See also: Guy Tillim: Jo’burg Landmark image series from 2005. From Tillim’s artist statement:

The decay of Jo’burg’s centre can be ascribed to many factors but perhaps none more so than the absence of Body Corporates. These had become relics of a more genteel era; the communal responsibilities that are contentious in even the most well-heeled blocks were not marked out. Windows were broken and not repaired. Lifts froze and their shafts became tips.

The relationship between tenants and owners or their agents deteriorated with disputes over the state of the buildings, and in some cases resulted in unpaid rents and dues. The buildings started looking like fire hazards, and the City Council began closing on them for unpaid utilities.

Screenshot of Guy Tillim images from the series “Jo’burg” from the Micheal Stevenson gallery site © Michael Stevenson

See also: Zarina Bhimji: Out of Blue: Zarina Bhimji (Uganda/UK) was a member of the Asian community kicked out of UG in the 70’s; she returned there a few years ago and among other things documented (film/photos) the decay in the public and private buildings that had been abandoned by fleeing Asians during the nightmare that was the Idi Amin years. Some of her images were featured in the landmark International Center of Photography photo exhibition “Snap Judgments“.

Screenshot from Tate Magazine site © Z. Bhimji

ARCHITECTURE: Tanzanian-born star-chitect David Adjaye has a show at London’s Design Museum. Urban Africa contains over 2000 images that he has taken over the last 10 years of the civic/commercial/residential architecture of all of Africa’s 53 capital cities. In a BBC interview [audio: interview starts around 5:40] he talks about how people have strong visual connections to the wild landscapes of the continent, but are a little baffled when told about about how cosmopolitan the cities are. The show’s goal is to redress this situation.

I wish I could go see this show. These days when I go back to Nairobi, I see the architecture in a different way. There are many old buildings that intrigue me (designed to address a certain notion of africanness and local climate needs) and new ones that leave me aghast (designed to mimic some bland, uncreative notion of modernity).

PHOTOGRAPHY: See also: Flickr: Nairobi Architecture

Cine Afrique building, Zanzibar. Photo by your humble servant © K. Mucoki

PHOTOGRAPHY: Dimanche a Bamako by Aitken Jolly One of the legacies of Malick Sidibe’s work getting accepted by the elite art/culture crowd methinks is that it has encouraged fashion/editorial image makers to explore using African models, fabrics, etc. beyond the “safari, wild animals, raw nature” concepts that have previously dominated interpretations of Africa. This is a good thing.

See also: bold constructions by Viviane Sassen “Photographer i like” Sassen is most interestingly incorporating African themes into her fashion/editorial/personal work.

Go see: Speaking of, if you are in the New York area, check out Viviane Sassen’s exhibition of images at the Danziger Projects in Chelsea. The work centers on images she has taken in eastern Africa including from her “Flamboya” series.

Danziger Projects. Photo by your humble servant

PHOTOGRAPHY: Book Review: Malick Sidibe vs Dash Snow. On the occasion of the recent release of Malick Sidibe’s latest book, art photography critique site Conscientious juxtaposes two things that should not go together. Jörg M. Colberg posits that art should transport/transform; it is the unalloyed joy and humanity in Sidibe’s images that are core of the images appeal. Conversely, Dash Snow’s VICE magazine-style party polaroids of the tortured/alienated artist NYC do not. Providence allowing, one day I will own this Malick Sidibe print.

Screenshot from NY Times site of carnaval portraits. © R. Reis

PHOTOGRAPHY: Carnaval: Surreal Selves. In 1987 famed Brazilian documentary photographer Rogerio Reis took portraits of “counter-carnaval” participants on the back streets of Rio de Janeiro. What he found were people who for one day were trying to escape the social/cultural strictures they lived under the rest of the year. It makes me think of the lyrics of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “A Felicidade”.

A felicidade do pobre parece
A grande ilusão do carnaval
A gente trabalha o ano inteiro
Por um momento de sonho
Pra fazer a fantasia
De rei ou de pirata ou jardineira
Pra tudo se acabar na quarta feira

translated…

The happiness of a poor man is like
The grand illusion of Carnaval
People work the whole year long
For one moment’s dream
To play the part of
A king or a pirate or a gardener
And all of that is ended on [Ash] Wednesday

Vodou in Brooklyn: Audio slideshow featuring the images and commentary of photojournalist Stephanie Keith who has documented a series of vodou parties involving Haitian immigrants who live in New York City. [via the never boring boing boing]

Screenshot from Swahili Fashion Week site
FASHION: Suno New York. Clothing line designed and developed in New York City’s Garment District and sewn in Kenya. Previous collections have been inspired by khanga cloth from the Kenya coast.

Screenshot from SunoNY site

FASHION: Jamhuri Wear: Nairobi Style. Speaking of NYC and Kenya, the incomparable Nomadic Wax recently featured Jamhuri Wear’s Jeffrey Kimathi whose street wear designs are inspired by both both places.

FILM: Yinka Shonibare: Threads of Art. Speaking of khangas, I was recently in Washington DC and saw the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African Art HUGE installation of Yinka Shonibare’s sculptures, photographs and video. If you are in the DC area, go see, it is well worth the visit. Narration is a little grad-school dissertation-y but does a good job of putting Shonibare’s work in cultural and political context for me after experiencing the art.

“Yinka Shonibare: Threads of Art”, Short Film by Ali Standish