Dynamic Africa
Formerly, "This is Africa/fyeahAfrica".
(Profile Photo by Mama Casset)
DISCLAIMER:
I do not endorse any of the products or opinions shared on this site, nor do I claim any of the work posted here to be my own - except where stated. All posts originally made by me are credited. If no credit is given then the work is either my own/written by me or reblogged from another source.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME:
Student, 24
Based in Cape Town, South Africa
From Lagos, Nigeria
Want to advertise through us? Send an email to dynamicafricablog@gmail.com
(As an unemployed media student, all donations go into ensuring my survival in this cruel world and future projects I hope to embark on).
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(since Oct. 21th 2012)
DYNAMIC AFRICA HOLIDAY GIFT LIST ITEM #3:
If you’re lucky enough to hail from any of these West and Central African cities (more at their store), Fashizblack has you covered (quite literally) with their brand new range of exclusive t-shirts and sweatshirts.
The typography on each shirt/sweatshirt features graphics of a popular fabric print from each of these cities such as Adinkra in Abidjan and Kuba of Kinshasa.
FILM: Moi, un noir (I, a Black Man) - Jean Rouche, 1958
[French dialogue with Portuguese subtitles]
Moi, un noir (I, a Black Man) is a modern, urban film with post-synchronized voice-over narration (i.e. no dialogue or other diegetic sound is heard) set in West Africa during the last decade of French colonisation.
Shot on location, mostly in the Treichville ghetto of Abidjan (Ivory Coast), it focuses on young migrant workers from Niger, particularly Oumarou Ganda, who rename themselves after Western cinema actors and characters and black boxing stars as a way of getting used to what Steven Ungar (2007: 112) has called a ‘“new” Africa’.
Indeed, while forging make-believe identities and attempting to erase their real origins, Tarzan, Dorothy Lamour, Eddie Constantine (also known as US Federal Agent Lemmy Caution) and Edward G. Robinson (also known as boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, fantasising about being Lamour’s husband) recount their joys and pains. Ganda/‘Robinson’ narrates the film, is its visual centrepiece and asks some of its most pertinent questions, such as: ‘[what] the hell are we doing here in the Ivory Coast?’In short, Moi, un noir foregrounds role-play and fantasy interwoven with the real, lived experiences of migration, poverty, xenophobia and disillusionment during the period when African nations were soon to gain independence.
(read a critique of the film)
Further Reading:
A little video to evoke the 1960s in Ivory Coast, West Africa, as brought to light by the photographs of Clic Clac Baby, an 81 year old photographer whose work is only now reaching wider acclaim with his first exhibition, at the Institut Goethe in Abidjan.
