dunia duara (the world is round)

Article about African fashion in 'Udvikling' (Danish Foreign Ministry's Magazine)

SUPER HAPPY. My article (in Danish) has taken the front page on the Danish Foreign Ministry's Magasinet Udvikling.

Read it here, or download it here (page 8-12).

Thanks a million to Helen Jennings from ARISE magazine, Nathan Chiume and Chichia London. Doreen Mashika - listed in the fact box together with MaXhosa by Laduma, Babatunde Styles andOzwald Boateng. 

My PERSONAL main message is that AFRICA is alive and kicking. Go out there and buy some African design!

More African fashion photos here.

Spoek Mathambo in Copenhagen

Copenhagen friends, you know Spoek Mathambo is performing in Copenhagen on May 10....!

NOT to be missed if you wanna explore some of the most innovative and crazy music coming out of Africa RIGHT NOW. Listen to one of my favorites here:

 

 

AND buy tickets there.

Individuality, Collectivity and African Prints

I am researching material for an article about African fashion and design - and its relation to expressing identity and individuality rooting in a collective culture - and I am again reading this article 'The Curious History of African Prints' - about where African prints came from. Now, I stumbled over this:

'But there was a problem: The machine-made version of these cloths developed a crackling effect—a series of small lines, dots, and imperfections where the resin cracked and dye seeped through—that didn’t appeal to Indonesian batik purists. In need of a market for the new textiles, the Dutch turned to West Africa. As it turned out, West Africans were actually partial to these imperfections: They appreciated the fact that no two bolts of cloth were identical.'

It is the imperfections which makes us stand out. It takes courage though to pick imperfection over perfection - doesn't it?

It could also be said in an entirely different way like a journalist once did when he reviewed the South African band eVoid like this:

'...to flow like the untainted waters of a languishing African river in no hurry to find the ocean, where you will only merge with many other rivers and lose your distinct and evocative individuality'.

The African Twitterati - can we count on these facts?

'Revolution' and 'elections' were the big hashtag trends of 2011 according to a survey investigating 11.5m African tweets recorded in the last quarter. Read more here.

I agree, based on my own practical and personal experience from Tanzania, with the overall trends and tendencies, but do also think that it would have suited the Africa Report well had it explained how Portland Communications and Tweetminster managed to 'read' 11,8m tweets, categorise them 'African', or that the African twitterati is dominated by young, middleclass etc. 

I am saying so as there are simply too many of these surveys on the use of social media in Africa, where facts may not be precise, due to a long list of technical reasons.

In spite, most results found are presented as pure facts.

But is it...?!

'Last Dictator Standing' #Mealfor6 #Mugabe #Nandos

There are many ways to tell President Mugabe to fuck off.

The South African bands, The Cassettes and Freshlyground already did it here.

Now...

'The wickedly funny ad featuring Robert Mugabe and his happy memories of good times with fellow dictators (including PW Botha) is racking up the kind of international attention unheard of for South African ad campaigns. Already it appears to enjoy the kind of cult appeal typically associated with the Old Spice campaigns of this world.'

More here, where the focus is on how to make a commercial video viral on social media. Not one word about politics.

That, you fortunately get at the Nehanda Radio.

I am left with the question: did Nando's do this (only) to sell food, lucrating on popular politics - or do they actually have a political opinion they want to push forward?