Posters printed on risograph. 29,7 x 35 cm. Made from (and presented with) Guinean stamps issued in 1959, designer unknown. Photos : EESAB-Rennes
A roaringly powerful poem by Brazilian writer Vinicius Jatobá on the impetuous elemental forces from the beginning of the creation of the continents to their division by the oceans.
Temi Oh’s first novel »Do You Dream of Terra Two?« asks which visions of the future we share. Enos Nyamor talked with Temi Oh about space travel, dreams, identity, and the places we call home.
»Among some of the recent postcolonial ideas, the concept of Afropolitanism has grown increasingly problematic,« says Enos Nyamor. An essay that attempts to provoke new ways of scrutinizing the promising, but equally elitist, concept of Afropolitanism.
Edith Lázár reflects on interrelations of second-hand fashion practices, western and eastern economic systems, technocratic changes, and her life in Romania.
Cameroonian cartoonist Japhet Miagotar talks about North-South relations, and describes his work as a reflection of social behavior, shaped by personal history, ideologies, studies, and African statuary.
For three months Paula Bulling, graphic artist from Berlin, and Japhet Miagotar, graphic artist and lecturer from Dschang, have exchanged images and ideas about life in Berlin and Dschang, about childhood, the everyday and politics.
In this story, young people from a Congolese town fall prey to dream vendors in search of a better life. They follow a quest, which leads them to the depths of rivers in search of diamonds and gold.
By weaving together historical events and imagined texts, »Lebensentwürfe« questions the stories of West African women and their descendants, so as to tell it anew.
Nigerian writer Sada Malumfashi relates an encounter with his friends, while hunting a key in Berlin's night, roaming trough the city, learning Berlin, while in that moment shaping the city with a black perspective.
On his way from Germany to Kenya, Eric Otieno passed by Bagamoyo, in Tanzania, where he found traces of German colonialism. A reflection on the difficult, and distorted memory politics, which often repeat national narratives of founders, fathers, and flags.
Can one be thirsty in the sea? Can there be distance if we get close? Can music be silent?
A poem that reflects on contradictions, and realities existing next to each other.
Drawing from the Japanese art of shifu, a Sun Ra song, and old screensavers, the works The Text Is Text-ile & Of Sounds And Something Else discuss the recalibration of historical (written) heritage and knowledge.
Zoltán Lesi and Ricardo Portilho on poetic experiments, intertwining time and people, intersexual athletes, and their new book publication In Frauenkleidung.
Felwine Sarr talks about his essay »Afrotopia« and the need for a »cultural revolution« in Africa: »Now is the time to dream the utopia in Africa itself, and to design the continent ourselves!«
The three curators of the festival »Membrane – African Literatures and Ideas« intend to refresh the flow of words, images, ideas, people, and notions from Africa, from the many Africas into the rest of the world.
The organizers of the festival »Membrane – African Literatures and Ideas,« explore the possibilities within which permeability in thinking, speaking, and acting is the basic condition of change.
Alice Sarmiento’s article reveals the power of dance to resist the repressive methods of the war on drugs in the Philippines, within Manila’s poorest districts.
A photo essay by Helena Schätzle and Sudharak Olwe outlines the everyday atrocities on Dalits in India, which are shaped by the historical prejudice of the caste.
Looking at Susan Meiselas’s work »Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History,« Sophie-Charlotte Opitz explains how memory can »survive« by becoming a part of social life.
Writing about cultural artifacts needs new strategies of interpretation in a media-saturated world, as Enos Nyamor outlines in his essay.
Contemplating their experiences, two individuals connect through a visual exchange – an affirmation and replica of their interactions with their everyday lives.
Can we imagine a future in which humans won’t be the center anymore, but cockroaches play a major role in the ecosystem? This is exactly what the sci-fi-related project From Pest to Power proposes.
In a world where people are lonelier than ever, Jennifer Katanyoutanant builds a website for the millions of mukbang fans to have online dinners with one another.
Tiare Ribeaux fabricates an alternative present/near future – creating bioplastics, sharing those recipes, for creating speculative environments, and healing the earth.