The House of Nsako is a music venue
in Brixton's High Street. As one fan described the vibe: "it is a cross
between a ganja den, a shebeen, a refuge for leftist intellectuals and
afro-nostalgia". Not that these are bad things. There venue hosts a range
of musicians from the well known to the unknown. It also hosts film evenings
(rather inconsistently). But is a great place to hang out and let your Afro
down. The website is a good way to keep track of their events.
blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswa/
I came across this website
unexpectedly while surfing the net. I was intrigued by what I read and I've
decided without the permission of the author, Zukiswa Wanner, to add her to this
list of interesting sites to visit. www.african-writing.com
Gabeba Baderoon apart from being a brilliant, sensitive poet,
scholar and author but she is also one of the most truly beautiful human beings
you are ever likely to come across. Her is one of the most inspirational places
to visit on the net.
wordinitiate.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
This is the blogg of our
fellow revolutionary, Bandile Gumbi. She is a brilliant writer and I have
enjoyed her posts immensely. Her poetry is thought through and well crafted
unlike much of the poetry that I hear whenever I force myself to go to spoken
word events.
www.swans.com/ Ok, we have to do
www.wsws.org/
www.indymedia.org something for the few lefties
that
www.zmag.org survived the collaps www.marxists.org/
www.thenewpress.com/ of
the berlin wall. So here are a few sites
www.newleftreview.org/ that
help us remember just what is so fucked up with capitalism and how we can get
out of it. www.broadleft.org/africa.htm
This is one of the few websites
dedicated to African art (no not the kind you buy at flea markets and by the
side of the road). It provides really good critical discourse on Modern and
Contemporary African art.
I have
been a fan of Chimurenga ever since I came across it. To a very large extent it
inspired me to conspire with my colleagues to get this webzine going. It is
certainly one of those rare products of culture that is Africa-centred without
being chauvinist about it.
some canonical sites
www.waikato.ac.nz/film/research/thirdtext/thirdtext.html
www.revuenoire.com/
www.artafrica.info/
www.sarai.net/
www.raqsmediacollective.net/
and a must to visit: more
magazines in southern africa:
When I was young and full
of hope I was part of
a collective of artists in Durban that made the establishment sit up and take notice.
Since then I have sold out to the establishment. Fortunately there are people
who remind you of what is still possible. Gugulective is a collective of young
artists based in Gugulethu near Cape Town that has shaken up the Cape Town art
scene recently. Their achievements are made all the more impressive by the fact
that they This is their blog.
It is so cool to see progressive
Africans putting their creativity out there.
criticalartwritingsa.blogs.sonance.net/
This is another blog by
a fellow revolutionary, who goes by the name of Fouad Asfour (if that is his
real name) . In it he tackles the racism in South African art writing or
non-writing. Through omission, slander, lack of analysis many so-called critics
have tended to belittle the work of black artists and keep raving about white
artists.
Apart from the fact that she is such a good
friend she produced interesting writing. A professor at Wits University, she is
a gender activist, a literary and social critic, a creative writer,
historian... shall I go on? This is her blog where you can read some of her
writing. And we like her.
There is was sitting on my bed at 1:30 am saying to myself shut down the
computer and go to sleep you've got work tomorrow but the conversation between
Victor Dlamini and Prof Njabulo Ndebele was just too good. This is one of many
interesting interviews with luminaries of the South African literary world that
you'll find on this podcast. This is a real find.
This is what community
radio should sound like. This is what all radio should be. Whenever I'm in Cape
Town on a Sunday evening around 6pm. My ears are glued to Bush Radio.
The
Alexandra Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF) is one of those organizations that is
pushing contemporary art on the African continent. I am told by Bassam El
Baroni, one of the directors of ACAF, that the old studio-based practice is all
that you will find in academies in Egypt and that things such as video and
performance art are still not considered art. So ACAF is doing something very
important in showing these alternative forms of art and holding lectures and seminars.
Bisi Silva is one of
Africa's hardest working curators. Instead of contenting herself with jetting
around the world where her insights are in high demand she has taken the
courageous step of establishing what I suspect is Nigeria's only contemporary
arts centre and in the process nurtures a whole generation of emerging Nigerian
artists. If you find yourself in Lagos make a pilgrimage to the CCA LAGOS.
Another dude doing similar things this time in Morocco is Abdellah
Karroum. He also has a radio station broadcasting from his apartment in Rabat.
NKA journal is
simply one of the most informative and interesting journals on Contemporary
African art. But after 23 editions you would think that Salah Hassan and the
rest of the NKA board could afford to make at least one essay in the previous
edition available online for those who cannot afford to purchase the whole
edition of NKAs.
www.politicallyincorrect-genie.blogspot.com/
This
is the blog of one of our dearest friends Dino. Intellect, humour and
incisive social commentary are the order of the day. And just because we like
her. And even if she 'swims imperfectly'.
All of you who look for some really good and
exciting writing, "Kwani?" it is! This magazine offers the most
brilliant and edgy texts to read, and we ask all of you who can afford it to go
and buy, subscribe, import and export and pass on copies of KWANI!
Another site we recommend
to you all:
Pages was started in 2004
by artists Nasrin Tabatabai
and Babak Afrassiabi: a
magazine, an ongoing project, a forum for discussion… and issue 7 on
“translation” is out just now.
A very interesting project (if I do say so
myself) that one of our editors Khwezi Gule was part of.
The South Project, do
we need to say more?
Khatt Foundation, Center for Arabic
Typography. Advancing Design in the Middle East and North Africa & Building
Cross-Cultural Networks.
Thanks to Drew Lindsay for hosting
the Sunday lunches where ever
changing meals are prepared by
celebrities such as DJ Sanza!
Spaza Art Gallery
19 Wilhemina Street
Troyeville
Tel: (011) 614 9354
This is the
website of a collaboratively run gallery in Brunswick, Melbourne, which we
would like bring to your attention. Since late 2003 it is run by a committee of
practising artists (founding members are John Abbate, Damiano Bertoli, Sandra
Bridie, Julie Davies, Raafat Ishak, Sean Loughrey, Sally Manall, Tom Nicholson
and Alex Rizkalla) using the space to initiate dialogue and experimentation,
outside the mainstream of rented and institutional spaces. Apart from members a
number of invited artists contribute to the artistic practice, making the art
space a place to be, with dinners, exhibitions, and a series of publications.
William Wells is hosting this
space in the heart of the old town of Cairo since ancient time, highly
respected by the community and internationally, now all together:
"We Love The Townhouse
Gallery!"
A
recommendation to all of you who happen to visit Turbo Capitalistan, check out
this website of Romanian artists maria crista, anca gyemant, rodica tache, who
worked toghether as h.arta group since 2001, when they founded h.arta space, a
not-for-profit space in Timisoara.
Société Réaliste is a Paris-based cooperative
created by Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy in June 2004, experimenting with
the development of structures of research and economical organisation in fields
such as territorial ergonomy, experimental economy, political design and
counter-strategies.
GAWLAB est une plate-forme de recherche, de
création et d’application sur les produits culturels et technologiques de
l’association GAW, basée à Dakar, Sénégal.
www.theselection.net/zeitschrift
A nutty group of Viennese artists and
writers make this magazine which is named after the font used for print. Let
them eat Sachertorte.
Prelom (Break) is a periodical for
images and politics. It consists of two permanent columns: "Ideology and
it's Discontents" and "Reading the image".
Since 2001, when magazine is
established, it grew up to become a discussion forum of it's kind, those discussions
defining, by it's volume, new models of interacting between theory, art and
politics in the broader social field.
What, How & for Whom' (WHW) is a non-profit organization
formed in 1999 for visual culture and curator's collective based in Zagreb,
Croatia. WHW projects encompass different formats of lectures and public
discussions conducted by international artists, curators and cultural
theoreticians, publications and a book edition on contemporary curatorial
practice and cultural theory, radio and Internet broadcasts and interventions,
screenings and live acts. Since June, 2003, WHW has been running a city-owned
gallery in the centre of Zagreb.
ALERT!! You Will Have Noticed
Certain Glaring Omissions In Our List Of Links Notably From the South Africa
Art World And That Is Because These Sites Are Administered By The IIPRPs
(Ignorant and Intransigent Products of Racial Privilege) !!!