ARTS & CULTURE

Photo: North African immigrants in Sicily. Credit: Vito Manzari from Martina Franca (TA), Italy CC BY 2.0

Working to Raise Awareness About Migration Through Art

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS | LONDON (IDN) - Concerned by widespread public confusion and the lack of clear political action on migration, many non-governmental groups have been launching initiatives to raise awareness about the issue, and about the current situation of refugees in Europe.

One of these projects is an exhibition currently under way in London, titled Call me by my name: stories from Calais and beyond, which comes as countries prepare to observe World Refugee Day on June 20 and Refugee Week from June 20 to 26.

The exhibition features the inhabitants of the infamous Calais camp in France, which the show’s organisers say has become “a potent symbol of Europe’s migration crisis”. There, some 4,000 to 5,000 migrants have been living in squalid conditions as they try to reach Britain, although the French authorities this year set up shelters made from shipping containers to house about 1,500 people.

: A.D. McKenzie; THE WORLD; 10 June 2016

Photo: James Baldwin taken Hyde Park, London by Allen Waren on 1 January 1969. Source; Wikimedia Commons

Paris Looks at Fierce Son of a Preacher Man: James Baldwin

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS – He wrote fiery novels and essays that decried injustice and racism, and now nearly 30 years after his death, Paris is hosting a conference dedicated to the “expatriate” African-American writer James Baldwin.

The May 26-28 event, titled “A Language to Dwell In”: James Baldwin, Paris, and International Visions, has attracted some 230 scholars and artists, who will examine Baldwin’s legacy and global impact.

“The most important thing for us is that this is about James Baldwin – about his life, his work and his impact on readers around the world,” says Alice Mikal Craven, a professor at the American University of Paris (AUP) and co-organiser of the conference with her colleague William Dow.

: A.D. McKenzie; ARTS & CULTURE; 24 May 2016

Photo credit: Buddhist Fellowship of Singapore

Buddhists Take the ‘Gospel’ Music Path to Attract Youth

By Kalinga Seneviratne*

This article is the sixth in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

SINGAPORE (IDN | Lotus News Features) - Buddhist ideas and wisdom are being increasingly adopted by the West as part of a 21st century modern lifestyle, but in the East, youth are increasingly distancing themselves from their Buddhist heritage becoming “free thinkers” or even embracing Christianity from the West. A group of young Buddhist musicians from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have now come together to reverse this trend by using music to attract youth.

They staged a Buddhist musical show at the prestigious Esplanade arts centre here called “Sadhu for the Music” to mark the Vesak festival. The two shows on May 4 and 5 were a sell-out filling up all four levels of the large concert hall’s galleries.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; HUMAN RIGHTS; Religion; 06 May 2016

Art Exhibition Highlights Regional Bank’s Commitment to ‘Lighting Africa’

By Ronald Joshua

JOHANNESBURG | ABIDJAN (IDN) – When Akinwumi Adesina took over as the President of the African Development Bank in September 2015, he made no secret that lighting up and powering Africa would be one of his five priorities – one of the ‘High 5s’.

"Without electricity there is no future, no growth, no progress," he said opening the exhibition, titled Lumières d’Afriques (‘African Lights’) on April 26 at the Donwahi Foundation for Contemporary Art in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, under the auspices of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Artists for Development (AAD) Fund.

The exhibition, which is the world’s first in several respects, will run through June 6 before going to Dakar, London, Washington, among other places. It comprises 54 works created by 54 world-renowned contemporary African artists, one for each of the 54 countries that make up the continent, united around the same source of inspiration: The illuminated Africa.

: Ronald Joshua; SUSTAINABILITY; Affordable Clean Energy; 01 May 2016

Papa Wemba, photographed in 2009. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Tributes Pour in For Papa Wemba

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – To some, he was the King of Congolese rumba – a sound that layered luscious Cuban rumba with African instruments and beats.

Papa Wemba, or Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, was rebellious, prolific, a style icon, at times notorious and always innovative.

“The world of popular music has lost a giant—a consummate musician, a shape-shifter who challenged norms and rewrote the rules of his nation’s music repeatedly over four decades, who spearheaded a fashion movement, and now has left us suddenly and far too young,” wrote ethnomusicologist Banning Eyre on the website Afropop.

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 27 April 2016

Somali-British Poet Penned Verses in 'Lemonade'

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Beyonce’s pick for lyrics setting off her latest production, LEMONADE, was Warsan Shire, a poet of Somali-British parentage.

A 27-year-old born in Kenya to Somali parents, who published her first pamphlet Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth in 2011, Shire went on to win the inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize in 2013.

“I tried to change/Closed my mouth more/Tried to be softer, prettier – less awake” – uttered as Beyoncé spins under water, her eyes open as if in a trance – is adapted from “For Women Who Are Difficult To Love.”

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 27 April 2016

Photo: Oumar Ly poses with his first camera at Festival mondial des Arts Nègres held in Dakar, Senegal from 10-31 December 2010. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Archives of Famed African Photographers Recall Ground-breaking Work

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – The vast archives of two remarkable photographers from West Africa who passed this year will ensure that authentic images of African life will be their legacy to future generations. The images radically depart from the clichés of colonialism.

Malick Sidibé, whose pictures of Mali’s youth conveyed the high-spirited feeling of a country that has just gained its independence, passed away at 80 years of age. His black-and-white pictures influenced many of his contemporaries in Africa and beyond. Sidibé died of complications of diabetes, according to Associated Press reports.

Mali’s culture minister N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo, expressed the nation’s grief. “It’s a great loss for Mali. He was part of our cultural heritage,” he told The Guardian. “The whole of Mali is in mourning.”

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 19 April 2016

Photo credit: The Somali Museum Minnesota

Somali Arts Blossom in Minneapolis

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) - Traditional Somali culture has found a home away from home. Scattered to the four winds during years of war and unrest, traditional handmade items have found their way to a safe place in the Somali Museum of Minnesota, amidst one of the world’s largest Somali diaspora population.

It may be the only museum in the world dedicated to preserving Somali culture. “Immigrant populations in Minnesota must explore and craft the ways they will carry their culture forward as they build their community in the United States,” the museum organizers wrote on the Museum’s website.

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 13 April 2016

ACP-EU Support Targets Artists and Creative Businesses

This write-up is based on an article that originally appeared on ACP Website on April 5, 2016. - IDN | INPS Arts & Culture Desk

SUVA, Fiji - A series of workshops from April 5 to 7 at the Fiji Museum in Suva connected artists across the Pacific to international networks. Led by Visiting Arts, in partnership with The Pacific Arts and Culture Foundation in Fiji, the initiative was supported by the ACP-EU Support Programme to ACP Cultural Sectors, known as ACPCultures+ .

The training in Fiji involved an intensive workshop led by internationally renowned Festival Director, Jonathan Holloway. His intensive workshops are designed to increase artists’ and creative practitioners’ ability to work internationally.

The event followed on successful workshops organised in 2015 in Trinidad and Tobago, Ethiopia and Malawi.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; ARTS & CULTURE; 10 April 2016

Leopold Senghor, centre, at the start of the festival. Credit: Jean Mazel, PANAFEST Archive Collection

Cold War Games and the First Pan-African Arts Festival

PARIS - Its goal was to bring together leading intellectuals and artists from Africa and the diaspora, and 50 years ago, the first Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (World Festival of Negro Arts, or FESMAN) did exactly that.

Played out against the backdrop of the Cold War, with the United States and the former Soviet Union jockeying for influence in Africa, the three-week-long festival took place in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1966, initiated by then President Léopold Sédar Senghor.

It included some world-renowned headliners: writers Wole Soyinka, Aimé Césaire and Langston Hughes; musician Duke Ellington; dancers from the Alvin Ailey troupe; iconic singer and activist Josephine Baker; calypso star Mighty Sparrow – and many others, representing some 45 countries.