tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30567758016772312422024-03-19T05:29:24.750-07:00SWANSouthern World Arts NewsSWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comBlogger280125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-74103441647486301942024-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:002024-02-21T12:07:33.019-08:00MARLEY FILM: MUSIC AND MEMORIES OF TROUBLED TIMES<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Judging from
the audience reactions at a screening of <i>Bob Marley: One Love </i>in
Brussels, the music may touch international viewers, but the memories and some
of the “insider” comments belong to Jamaicans and those closely connected with
the country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It was clear from
discussions after the premiere that attendees who had lived in Jamaica understood
the context of the songs, and got certain jokes, while others felt adrift, even
as they appreciated the world-famous tracks such as <i>No Woman, No Cry</i> and,
yes, <i>One Love</i>. This may account for some of the less-than-positive
reviews that have started to emerge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0PgMLX31B52lxGaVtfiMhWQ4DwrRFbDGLHceDbSABq9yY3F5laybZKceGEW5TrUF97dwDYpYxEhELXKKsDzBe-i7_5P8L7qiq0bWxfr0S3u3ojtMQBm_NO4fd5pGnUSsc8pxfMsCa4yN2KWVNqqVgxwfTYlbgIMPhe9P9BMaoPuU6kyCgjN6fJf9EHQ/s1034/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20poster.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1034" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0PgMLX31B52lxGaVtfiMhWQ4DwrRFbDGLHceDbSABq9yY3F5laybZKceGEW5TrUF97dwDYpYxEhELXKKsDzBe-i7_5P8L7qiq0bWxfr0S3u3ojtMQBm_NO4fd5pGnUSsc8pxfMsCa4yN2KWVNqqVgxwfTYlbgIMPhe9P9BMaoPuU6kyCgjN6fJf9EHQ/s320/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20poster.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">“The film was
surprisingly authentic,” said Stefanie Gilbert-Roberts, a Jamaican communications and culture professional who resides in Belgium. “But perhaps so authentic
that it might seem out of this world for those not connected to the culture.”</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Bob Marley: One
Love</i>, directed by
Reinaldo Marcus Green and coming nearly 43 years after the iconic singer’s
death, focuses on the Seventies and on two concerts that Marley and his band
performed in Kingston, the Jamaican capital. Both events took place amid surging
political violence on the island and were aimed at unifying the population. But
before the first concert, gunmen stormed Marley’s home and shot him, his wife Rita,
and his manager Don Taylor – an assault that shocked Jamaicans and
international fans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The film depicts
the attack quickly, without dwelling on what must have been deep trauma for Marley’s
family. Watching it, one can’t help but wonder at the effects on those who have
now gone on to co-produce this movie: his widow Rita, their children Ziggy and
Cedella, and the other family members involved such as Stephen (music supervisor).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Bob and Rita performed
with their wounds at the <i>Smile Jamaica</i> concert in December 1976, and
then left the island: he eventually for London, and she with the children to
the United States. The film shows Marley’s time in England, which is perhaps the
least interesting part of the story – as viewers don’t really get an idea of
how he dealt again with life away from “home” (he had lived in London before, in the early Seventies, signing to Chris Blackwell's Island label). Instead, we’re given scenes of
him jogging, playing football with his bandmates, joking with record executives, and getting inspiration for the
title of the album <i>Exodus</i>, a global hit after its release in 1977.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeO5PoD-NmSKu3YiS4EKLd3xAmcrEmEY-AbEE_v5Ag17qKdbCNd7Pe_Kpv_GSGyOirN_IexZC9lDQN6ZzQfSiSO5-Ugs4ek5SMJArSCihBccwqeD1rmm_VHkfd6K4gmDJ7podS3aklaSeRx0Vp8n_lPB8NG54C2HJIGwAj-z77daXWju9AqNL8rrKsYac/s1931/Bob%20Marley%20-%20Songs%20of%20Freedom.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1931" data-original-width="1069" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeO5PoD-NmSKu3YiS4EKLd3xAmcrEmEY-AbEE_v5Ag17qKdbCNd7Pe_Kpv_GSGyOirN_IexZC9lDQN6ZzQfSiSO5-Ugs4ek5SMJArSCihBccwqeD1rmm_VHkfd6K4gmDJ7podS3aklaSeRx0Vp8n_lPB8NG54C2HJIGwAj-z77daXWju9AqNL8rrKsYac/s320/Bob%20Marley%20-%20Songs%20of%20Freedom.jpeg" width="177" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Marley’s “relationships”
are also not dwelt upon, as a viewer remarked after the screening. The most well-known of these, with Cindy Breakspeare (Miss World 1976 and mother of
Damian Marley), is shown fleetingly in a scene where she watches him perform in
a studio. Breakspeare is named in the credits as a consultant to the film.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Following his self-imposed
exile in England, Marley would return triumphantly to Kingston to play the <i>One
Love Peace Concert</i> in 1978, when he brought Michael Manley and Edward Seaga,
leaders of the opposing political parties, together on stage to clasp hands. It
was a message again to Jamaicans to unite. By the time of the next general
election in the country, in 1980, more than 800 people had been killed, and citizens
were leaving the island in droves, taking with them their grief, and the music of their youth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the film,
Rita (played by British actress Lashana Lynch)
refers to one of the most shocking incidents during this period, when attackers
set fire to a charitable institution, with residents inside burned alive. For
those who experienced these turbulent years, the film brings the memories
crashing back, of both the horrific incidents and the music. Marley recorded his
island’s troubles in song after song: <i>Johnny Was</i>, <i>Concrete Jungle</i>,
<i>Rat Race</i>, <i>Ambush in the Night</i>, <i>Them Belly Full (But We
Hungry)</i> and others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition,
there were the more playful tunes such as <i>Roots, Rock, Reggae</i> (with the opening
lyrics “Play I some music”), and then the love songs, which the film highlights
as well: <i>Turn Your Lights Down Low</i> being among them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcmgobQFSYrO2yfn7qKG50VN5W7XBiO9LxSIIEGOB0bWO3r8xYuvavc_sYJeA8iM8XqSMrEjkAqc_5tQgKd5f5YKAui4FoVnonRhPhg5jYcjiXnipUkn7bJVZzbYq_JAAkWJPlZTWOhkI2hS47hkRrhPBfVk9Rl7ROn8s0YYvRJ-Fgb0STI20X0hyphenhyphenmTA/s2000/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20-%20with%20Rita.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="2000" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcmgobQFSYrO2yfn7qKG50VN5W7XBiO9LxSIIEGOB0bWO3r8xYuvavc_sYJeA8iM8XqSMrEjkAqc_5tQgKd5f5YKAui4FoVnonRhPhg5jYcjiXnipUkn7bJVZzbYq_JAAkWJPlZTWOhkI2hS47hkRrhPBfVk9Rl7ROn8s0YYvRJ-Fgb0STI20X0hyphenhyphenmTA/w200-h120/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20-%20with%20Rita.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the movie,
Marley is seen playing this on the guitar to Rita, and it is then that one
realizes that the whole biopic might actually be a love song to her, formulated
by her children.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As portrayed by Lynch, Rita is a force, an artist in her own
right, who needs to be both a backing singer for Bob and a parent to their children (as well as to his “outside” ones) – a situation she angrily describes
in one argument scene. Lynch’s performance is perhaps the most memorable, and the
writers could have given her greater scope by including more of Rita’s story.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBx-d8E9ggWK4K1_Sgl3TphxYe4V1opTTZosaCSPPQHIf7vkO9x8tUEDX_HZem19Dy8vBdms9Rylpnmkf1uOmtGqfVYAy3WDnbtZwvxepXXSiP0MoQ10xb97cCsSWzs5kbCBBybWkoRLtSpDmlooqecpzbZy1Mu-rDNfbaOhHGjnWMKun1qkA7UxDU94E/s362/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20actor.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="362" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBx-d8E9ggWK4K1_Sgl3TphxYe4V1opTTZosaCSPPQHIf7vkO9x8tUEDX_HZem19Dy8vBdms9Rylpnmkf1uOmtGqfVYAy3WDnbtZwvxepXXSiP0MoQ10xb97cCsSWzs5kbCBBybWkoRLtSpDmlooqecpzbZy1Mu-rDNfbaOhHGjnWMKun1qkA7UxDU94E/w200-h149/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20actor.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Playing Marley,
British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir works hard to capture
the intensity and charisma of the singer, and he gives a credible performance.
But the script needed more substance for a complete portrayal. Not shown, for
instance, is Marley’s stance on personal relationships. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At an early interview in
Kingston, he was once asked about these views, and his response was: if a woman
loved him, she would love his other women. When questioned whether this might be acceptable were the situation reversed, he replied: She don’t do that. Still, he
adopted the two children Rita had with other partners. One love, one heart? Fi dem business?</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So,
yes, artists are complex people, and certain aspects of his life might
have been depicted, alongside the far-reaching and undeniable impact in addressing
injustice, inequality, and marginalisation. This is a minor criticism, however.
The film is absolutely worth watching - for the man, the music, the memories... and the question of how far the world still has to go in solving major ills.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyosk8-35kZDwpPrFIfyrS4XgBF9WlNicPhyvgfyv7qtLX3yrr2WJ59roBmBtCm4p9WhyphenhyphenOQo1A2DPHf1RIig0zZwaZgHRJq2XtYEJtAAW1fBYI7IQlE9jzFfF3WV1sQpLjpLNcOhGBd0WxDmT4lT-by1Lpdx1-1LpE2AuS6tYhJcwnb3ZVA2OmgotMct0/s4032/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20Betton%20Nayo.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyosk8-35kZDwpPrFIfyrS4XgBF9WlNicPhyvgfyv7qtLX3yrr2WJ59roBmBtCm4p9WhyphenhyphenOQo1A2DPHf1RIig0zZwaZgHRJq2XtYEJtAAW1fBYI7IQlE9jzFfF3WV1sQpLjpLNcOhGBd0WxDmT4lT-by1Lpdx1-1LpE2AuS6tYhJcwnb3ZVA2OmgotMct0/s320/Bob%20Marley%20One%20Love%20Betton%20Nayo.jpeg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At
the screening in Belgium, co-organized by Paramount Pictures, Sony Brussels and
the Jamaican Embassy, Marley’s importance was summed up by Ambassador Symone
Betton Nayo, who gave a short speech before the film began.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“His
ability to connect with people through his music, transcending cultural and geographical
boundaries, has made him a symbol of unity, strength and hope,” Betton Nayo
said. “He was not only a prolific writer of music, and a talented performer,
but an inspiring messenger. Many of his anthemic compositions such as <i>One
Love</i>, <i>Get Up, Stand Up</i>, <i>Redemption Song</i> remain relevant as we
reflect on current global realities.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With
“Reggae Month” being celebrated in February, the film’s release is timely, paying
tribute to an iconic Jamaican artist whose music lives on, with the call for
peace, love, hope, and justice, Betton Nayo added. <b><i>– AM/SWAN</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): A poster for the film; the Bob Marley album </i>Songs of Freedom<i>; Lashana Lynch and Kingsley Ben-Adir as Rita and Bob, courtesy of Sony Pictures Belgium; Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley, courtesy of Paramount; Ambassador Symone Betton Nayo at the premiere, photo by A.M./SWAN.</i></b></span></p>
<b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">Bob
Marley: One Love </span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;">(Paramount Pictures)<i> </i>is currently in cinemas.</span></span></b></div></b>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-21751874356986230662023-09-25T05:19:00.004-07:002023-09-26T05:38:04.703-07:00 RWANDA MEMORIALS ADDED TO WORLD HERITAGE LIST<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Forty-two new
sites, including memorials of the Rwandan genocide, have been inscribed on the
World Heritage List, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization) announced at the end of a two-week meeting in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The organization
said its World Heritage Committee – which met from Sept. 10 to 25 – approved 33
cultural and nine natural sites, bringing the total on the List to 1,199 across
168 countries.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYTciakjZxteK8mOpDh1clcV34Z1Qq0BKyqGFhgltwCz_B56x7Ace_33J7UniKPt6S6ndVjTuay97iXCCdWXEO47Bxit27Nq4SW0Fpb5h1_hp4BALp6DFYeUnAI7y5aDQC62_SBcu6eCzPP9IkFx9M1znMjwE8KbcdMpNBc34e455Y4DjB8hSvomOmIhs/s1000/Rwanda%20-%20Flame%20of%20Hope.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYTciakjZxteK8mOpDh1clcV34Z1Qq0BKyqGFhgltwCz_B56x7Ace_33J7UniKPt6S6ndVjTuay97iXCCdWXEO47Bxit27Nq4SW0Fpb5h1_hp4BALp6DFYeUnAI7y5aDQC62_SBcu6eCzPP9IkFx9M1znMjwE8KbcdMpNBc34e455Y4DjB8hSvomOmIhs/s320/Rwanda%20-%20Flame%20of%20Hope.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rwanda had its
first two inscriptions: Nyungwe National Park, and the genocide memorial sites
at Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero, which include the locations of
massacres in 1994.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Between April
and July of that year, an estimated one million people were killed across the
country by armed militias that targeted Tutsi but also murdered moderate Hutu
and Twa people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Gisozi site
in the capital city Kigali houses the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">1999-built </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims have been buried, while the hill of Bisesero
(western Rwanda) hosts a memorial constructed in 1998 to honour the fight of those
who resisted for more than two months before being killed by the genocide
perpetrators.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rwandan
officials welcomed the inclusion on the World Heritage List, stating that the
“historic” inscription… “increases international visibility, and also honours
the memory of the victims they represent throughout the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">UNESCO said
that with the 2023 listings for Africa - five in all - the continent has “reached the symbolic
milestone of 100 sites” on the List (which has a preponderance of properties in
Italy, China, Germany, Spain and France).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Over the past decade,
the UN agency says it has been working to remedy under-representation on the
List, urging member states to put forward sites for inscription.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This year, the organization
emphasized new recognition for “Sites of Memory” - places in which an event
occurred “that a nation and its people, or certain communities wish to
memorialize”. It said the inclusion of such places on the List “makes them part
of our shared global heritage, and recognizes the part they play in the peace
process.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The World
Heritage Committee, for instance, also inscribed Argentina’s torture memorial (the
ESMA Museum and Place of Memory - Former Clandestine Detention, Torture and
Extermination Centre), and Belgium and France’s “Funeral and Memorial Sites of
the Western Front in the First World War”.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photo: Flame of Hope at the Gisozi memorial site.</i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">For more information on the UNESCO World Heritage List, see: <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/" style="text-align: left;">UNESCO World Heritage Centre</a></span></i></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-40363535866860553132023-05-17T13:40:00.013-07:002023-05-23T20:39:23.729-07:00INTERVIEW: THE MAKING OF A GHANAIAN SHORT FILM<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some movie
scenes keep replaying in one’s mind long after one has left the cinema, and
this is certainly true of <i>Moon Over Aburi</i>, a short film shot in Ghana
that has been gaining accolades since its release earlier this year.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Based on a
story (and script) by the prize-winning Ghanaian-Jamaican writer and poet Kwame Dawes, the
film addresses subjects such as sexual abuse, society’s view of women’s roles,
and the gender-based perspectives from which experiences are recalled and
retold. It will have a special screening this month at the prestigious Calabash
International Literary Festival in Jamaica (May 26-28), and while viewers can expect to be moved by the whole story, they will be haunted by one stunning, unexpected scene.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TH-jrZSOUpsEhYmrtFzXK4A26YYH4TR7kmtKUSBUh-dQAD-x9zdi93N_kn45hGnh2T1by5uhXpLCfGoZExjgKYe4mPtjbDd2rhLcnSFUH3aTGpqkajSP18kXDcvfAGFb9UG6x9gx5L10INfpw0C_Zb1gNgAuJpdbKboSpO-0aDX3_T8DTzElsBDO/s3053/Anniwaa%20Buachie%20(2).jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2932" data-original-width="3053" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TH-jrZSOUpsEhYmrtFzXK4A26YYH4TR7kmtKUSBUh-dQAD-x9zdi93N_kn45hGnh2T1by5uhXpLCfGoZExjgKYe4mPtjbDd2rhLcnSFUH3aTGpqkajSP18kXDcvfAGFb9UG6x9gx5L10INfpw0C_Zb1gNgAuJpdbKboSpO-0aDX3_T8DTzElsBDO/s320/Anniwaa%20Buachie%20(2).jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">In its
minimalist mise-en-scène, <i>Moon Over Aburi</i> is reminiscent of a play, with
two main actors in the spotlight, or rather the moonlight, playing off each
other: Ghanaian-British actress Anniwaa Buachie and her Ghanaian compatriot
Brian Angels (whose credits include the 2015 feature <i>Beasts of No Nation</i>, starring Idris Elba).</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Buachie plays a
mysterious woman, the owner of a small food kiosk who seems tied to something
in her past. Angels plays the man who visits the kiosk on a moonlit night and
asks for a meal. As the two exchange cryptic words and stories, it becomes
clear that the man knows more about her than he lets on, and the colossal
secret she carries is gradually revealed, as enigmatic shots of the full moon
emphasise the mystique. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Buachie, who
produced the film and co-directed (with Sheila Nortley), has a background
in both cinema and theatre, having performed at London’s Old Vic and other
venues. She has also appeared in guest roles in popular television series such as
<i>Eastenders</i>. But making <i>Moon Over Aburi</i> was not a shoo-in for her, she says. She
and her team had to overcome certain obstacles for the work to see the light of
day - because in a world where the number of films seems to be ever growing,
only a selected few filmmakers acquire the resources to pursue their art. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the following,
edited, interview, Buachie speaks with <i>SWAN</i> about the film’s journey to the
screen. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: <i>Moon
Over Aburi</i> is a shocking, thought-provoking film that is beautifully made.
How did it come about?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Anniwaa
Buachie</b>: As an actor, I
provided the voice of the audiobook in the anthology <i>Accra Noir</i>, edited by Nana
Ama Danquah [and published by New York-based publisher Akashic Books]. I fell
in love with the story <i>Moon Over Aburi</i> by Kwame Dawes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWn9rTtQyvGmR-FkM0J_LGLBlK3pUPIS676YyBh7oDPvXsGVMq8W-tYLru-mMnI2yz1tvstTs2MbpFLZtb_MGj8v5GJuf1ZtPovmYvLB2H1M9OaGC3wmKB2ec4dT5udNmQMt8abItqj4H3SCygLsxl0QbCesbjYc4KSRkA4XqGvm5jzhvsqEhM4s-k/s1080/Aburi%203.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="1080" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWn9rTtQyvGmR-FkM0J_LGLBlK3pUPIS676YyBh7oDPvXsGVMq8W-tYLru-mMnI2yz1tvstTs2MbpFLZtb_MGj8v5GJuf1ZtPovmYvLB2H1M9OaGC3wmKB2ec4dT5udNmQMt8abItqj4H3SCygLsxl0QbCesbjYc4KSRkA4XqGvm5jzhvsqEhM4s-k/s320/Aburi%203.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I remember when
I started reading this story, I immediately had goose bumps. The story was
honest, visceral, poetic, chilling... a dance of cat and mouse between two
people, a man and woman, secret and lies, making one question whether two
wrongs can make a right.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It sat with me,
it was in my heart, my mind, my body. I had never read a story that highlighted
the vicious cycle of domestic violence, but also explored how a woman
ruthlessly and unapologetically takes back her power. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Society tends
to excuse the faults of a man and blame the women in that man’s life. The woman
who raised him, the woman who married him, the woman who rejected him. Power is
given to a woman to birth and nurture a child, yet it is taken from her as soon
as she seeks equality, acknowledgement, and respect. It is a story that pushes
the brutal subject matter of domestic violence into the light, a much-needed
conversation that often lies in the shadow, swept under the carpet. I had to
bring this story to light.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
were some of the challenges in adapting the short story to suit the demands of
a different medium, film?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A.B.</b>: Kwame Dawes’ writing is beautiful,
lyrical and poetic, and it was important to me to ensure that the film produced
stayed true to the mystical element of the original. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOl-atrMGdON-MLbQNolLtJp9vhjwN1ui29tBIQe8C40ITzhVL13r-QkmYt5fGWbo3RI2-Qzr7w_zl2brNozAmmTz7lAKsU0gnhNq7m2mkIenA0mCeAL0uXSms5E40JBDNwEjwEk1q1kBobvNHejlfQeOePDAeJNCLl2E4kgQbYxGSv4RqMe_GHVFc/s1280/Aburi%202.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="1280" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOl-atrMGdON-MLbQNolLtJp9vhjwN1ui29tBIQe8C40ITzhVL13r-QkmYt5fGWbo3RI2-Qzr7w_zl2brNozAmmTz7lAKsU0gnhNq7m2mkIenA0mCeAL0uXSms5E40JBDNwEjwEk1q1kBobvNHejlfQeOePDAeJNCLl2E4kgQbYxGSv4RqMe_GHVFc/s320/Aburi%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Many stories
are written in the first person, and the reader already is biased as they often attach themselves to the main narrator / protagonist. However, with <i>Moon Over
Aburi</i>, Kwame had already written it in a dialogue format. The story was a
script in the first instance, so adapting it to film was a joy, to be honest.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What was tricky
was deciding how much detail to pack from a 20-page short story into a 10-page
script. The world that Kwame had created was so intricate, intimate through
words, and heavily reliant on the reader’s interpretation. However, with a screenplay,
you have to make definitive decisions and find ways to utilise camera shots,
sounds, and the colour palette to influence the viewer’s perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Film also
demands a particular structure that a short story can forego. Screenplays
require scenes that establish each character and a clear breaking point in the
middle of the script that take characters to the emotional extreme - into fight
or flight mode. The audience needs to be taken on an emotional ride, and this
is influenced by the whole creative team: producer, director, cinematographer,
etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Personally, it
was a challenge for me to maintain a balance between being an actor and being
the producer, and co-directing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdQ37g93RGVXmKYRU9Z2TkwFYFceRC2TMXWlDyMYipq1M4rj14QMRncMr6w2_fIk1H7ChGhmTX-8cXNiWTks2t8_ZgLtuc5wuYc4DWPzDcWvI5hQrRW8r0R6TvBnbDMkuKllW1Sf8esn7OAbOC8iZH-vawaThcg5W6OVZoHrJGRa47IomxOleMqe_/s1432/Aburi%201.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="1432" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdQ37g93RGVXmKYRU9Z2TkwFYFceRC2TMXWlDyMYipq1M4rj14QMRncMr6w2_fIk1H7ChGhmTX-8cXNiWTks2t8_ZgLtuc5wuYc4DWPzDcWvI5hQrRW8r0R6TvBnbDMkuKllW1Sf8esn7OAbOC8iZH-vawaThcg5W6OVZoHrJGRa47IomxOleMqe_/s320/Aburi%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The actor
inside me wanted to play forever and fully immerse myself in the character.
However, there was a part of my brain that, as the producer, always had to be
focused on the practicalities, thinking about if the budget is being used
effectively, if everyone is happy on set, if cast and crew have been fed and
have what they need to maintain a high quality! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Also, once a film project is
done, an actor can switch off and think about their next project, whereas the
role of the filmmaker doesn’t stop there - now it’s about implementing,
marketing, sourcing additional finance, distribution. Good thing I am a great
multi-tasker!</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: The
shots of the landscape, the moon, and the setting overall, are artistic and
evocative. Can you tell us more about the photography and where it took place?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A.B.</b>: The story takes place in the Aburi,
the eastern region of Ghana, and in Accra, the main city. Whilst the story
leaves room for the imagination, I am so thankful to Ghanaian-based
cinematographer extraordinaire Apag Annankra of Apag Studios and art director
Godwin Sunday Ashong. Their knowledge of the neighbourhood and the scenery
enabled us to find places within Aburi and Accra that provide a magical
realism.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj34J7YUUwkRjqSkCv9ny2Lcjls2gUquZ399CYIzzJpQ27abbQOPlohgeTn3IHUPg138lvUVQmen1cVtPnMPyp7lyPCVt2j3-iJn9HpOz8c1My0na2Dbsxd9C48lPzYuq1SDzbIPwqYewJnDvqfit6PzJoM7Ouj87eEo4j5kFJlLbQ_yRi9ajKtMwx1/s1412/Aburi%204.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="1412" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj34J7YUUwkRjqSkCv9ny2Lcjls2gUquZ399CYIzzJpQ27abbQOPlohgeTn3IHUPg138lvUVQmen1cVtPnMPyp7lyPCVt2j3-iJn9HpOz8c1My0na2Dbsxd9C48lPzYuq1SDzbIPwqYewJnDvqfit6PzJoM7Ouj87eEo4j5kFJlLbQ_yRi9ajKtMwx1/s320/Aburi%204.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We used drone shots to capture the vastness of Aburi and correlated
this with the earthy green and blue colours and rural setting in the country
scenes, and juxtaposed this with our city location - with intimate shots,
highly saturated neon colours, and an abstract setting. The city locations were
based in Jamestown, the vibrant heart of Accra, and Cantonments.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: The
films you’ve produced carry a social message - about the treatment of girls and
women - but it is left up to viewers to draw their own conclusions, or to see
the light, so to speak. How do you balance artistic subtlety and activism?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A.B.</b>: It is important to me, as an artist, to
present situations that encourage conversations, a reflection of self and to
identify how one contributes or blocks the development of girls and women. The
best teaching is when the viewer has space for analysis themselves, as opposed
to being force fed an opinion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I simply ensure
that the films I produce have in-depth perspectives, of extreme impactful
situations, drawing the viewer in on an emotional, human level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
are some of the difficulties in making a film without major studio backing, and
are things changing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A.B.</b>: Budget. A studio-backed film would
have a large budget and with that the creative team has space to make mistakes,
to experiment, to spend hours on a scene taking multiple shots. With a big
budget you can secure your ideal location, block off streets and build a set if
needs be, to get the right look for the film. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whereas when
you are working on an independent or a low budget, everything you do has to be
specific, and with the right intention, because the repercussions are greater.
Planning is key, and ensuring everyone in the crew and cast understands the
overall vision of the film is important. There cannot be a weak link, everyone
needs to work together to bring their A-game. You cannot go back and re-shoot,
money is tight, which also means time is limited. You just have one chance to
make sure you get the right shots, the right lighting, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I do think
things are changing but not quickly enough. Independent filmmaking is an art
that is not given the same respect as the big studio movies and TV. Which is a
shame, because independents are a great way to platform new and upcoming talent
and inject society with stories that are often forgotten, hidden, or discarded.
But nowadays the art of filmmaking is more about the return on investment, and
for that reason independent filmmaking is always a risk, but that is what makes
it exhilarating and rewarding… if you make people's heads turn in an age where
attention is so competitive, you know you have something really special.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
do you hope viewers will take away from <i>Moon</i>? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A.B.</b>: This film focuses on giving attention
to overlooked narratives, concerning social issues such as: gender-based
violence, misogyny and gender inequality, which shroud many cultures. It will
open doors to a diverse audience offering intelligent insight into the social
and political consciousness of the invisible and the marginalised. While this
story is in a fiction anthology, it is a reality that most women face. Through
the screenings, I am hoping viewers can identify how cultural constructs
contribute to the way in which women are viewed, and how this can change, how
this MUST change and, ultimately, that it’s down to us, the new generation to
take control and rewrite the social narrative. A narrative that allows us, me,
as a woman, to learn from the present, and construct a future that uplifts
gender equality, suppresses elitism, and eradicates poverty. This is the
foundation of social cohesion and the start of a new African legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What’s
next for you?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A.B.</b>: Kwame and I are touring with this
short in many film festivals in the UK, Ghana, and the States as well,
developing <i>Moon Over Aburi</i> into a full feature and exploring production
companies and talent. Personally, I have my show coming out on the BBC (teen
drama <i>Phoenix Rise</i>), and I have a couple other things in the works that I can’t
announce yet, but it’s an exciting time! <b><i>– SWAN</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Photos: top
to bottom: Anniwaa Buachie; scenes from Moon Over Aburi.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">See too: <a href="https://www.ipsnews.net/2023/05/making-ghanian-short-film/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=making-ghanian-short-film" style="text-align: left;">Interview with Anniwaa Buachie - The Making of a Ghanaian Short Film | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)</a> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Follow </i>SWAN<i> on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale</i></span></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-12836552177153432202023-03-27T14:00:00.006-07:002023-05-23T20:44:23.800-07:00AFRICAN FILMS OF UNESCO-NETFLIX SCHEME TO STREAM<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s a new
direction for UNESCO, getting involved in
movies, so to speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The United Nations' cultural agency and
Netflix - the global streaming and production company - have partnered to
“support” and “promote” Africa’s new generation of filmmakers, and the results
will be revealed to the world from March 29, when six short films by young
directors will be available in 190 countries via the video-on-demand platform. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikrjZL2Vh4_DNL367S1c9Kc1ZZUCQzaznyo2IfMEdQWOMzdOV6-woAjBF0fD44lKGOa1ym4IuUMNgI56PpB9UpKGDeW2QCNtxdsBee6ZLCjRl9Vv8wzvR1YbLMH3yz7VWGhe9zP_1GQaz3KD6GKVkeyu3UvK8KiOoTqkN_4ivyUJUvO1V0qtCkD7Rq/s1721/African%20Folktales%20poster.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1721" data-original-width="1217" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikrjZL2Vh4_DNL367S1c9Kc1ZZUCQzaznyo2IfMEdQWOMzdOV6-woAjBF0fD44lKGOa1ym4IuUMNgI56PpB9UpKGDeW2QCNtxdsBee6ZLCjRl9Vv8wzvR1YbLMH3yz7VWGhe9zP_1GQaz3KD6GKVkeyu3UvK8KiOoTqkN_4ivyUJUvO1V0qtCkD7Rq/s320/African%20Folktales%20poster.jpg" width="226" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The films are
the winners of an “African Folktales, Reimagined” competition that was launched by both entities in 2021, attracting more than 2,000 entries, according to UNESCO.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ernesto Ottone
Ramírez, the agency’s assistant director-general for culture, said the joint
initiative “pays homage to Africa’s centuries-old tradition, passing wisdom
from generation to generation, from elders to the youngest”. He acknowledged
that this is a departure for UNESCO whose work with streaming platforms
have mostly focused on regulatory and policy issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Tendeka Matatu, Netflix’s director of film for Sub-Saharan Africa, said the company</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">believes that “great stories are universal and that they can come from anywhere and be loved everywhere”. He said that </span><span style="font-family: arial;">what Netflix</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> and UNESCO have in
common is the desire to "promote the multiplicity of expression". </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The submissions to the film contest went through a first selection process, before being narrowed to 21 candidates, who presented their projects to an international jury. The judges - including film
mentors - then selected six finalists: from Kenya (Voline Ogutu), Mauritania
(Mohamed Echkouna), Nigeria (Korede Azeez), South Africa (Gcobisa Yako),
Tanzania (Walt Mzengi Corey) and Uganda (Loukman Ali).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Each finalist
won $25,000 and a production grant of $75,000 to create their short movie with
a local production company, UNESCO said. The films were completed earlier this year, and their streaming (as an “anthology”) will begin with the 6th Kalasha
International Film and TV Market in Kenya, a three-day trade fair taking place
March 29 - 31.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0LCaKQk_0r_7tRG9FhVpl99JkjtLtL1nNMaPoTfI_hQj6t2hsKJy3Og_hoTHaqsubd7UpbDo6_Gv2fBOVYpRvciVOcba0sgKeyrrTpNwEmg725X1Sl80RgJPXPSHTfrTS_e7Ievu0aWIUkg7UFiiCzlkcy6PakPjSQzUYhFICY3UV-Qurxc9AbIf/s3666/African%20Folktales%20Ottone.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1854" data-original-width="3666" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0LCaKQk_0r_7tRG9FhVpl99JkjtLtL1nNMaPoTfI_hQj6t2hsKJy3Og_hoTHaqsubd7UpbDo6_Gv2fBOVYpRvciVOcba0sgKeyrrTpNwEmg725X1Sl80RgJPXPSHTfrTS_e7Ievu0aWIUkg7UFiiCzlkcy6PakPjSQzUYhFICY3UV-Qurxc9AbIf/s320/African%20Folktales%20Ottone.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking at an
in-house “advance” showing of the films at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Ottone
Ramírez said the agency was “particularly pleased” that the short films
captured “not only the culture of Africa, but also the cultural diversity
within Africa”.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some observers
privately expressed concerns, however, that any association with global
streaming platforms could lead to formulaic storytelling or could undermine
local film ventures - a fear that Ottone Ramírez said was unfounded.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He told <i>SWAN</i>
that the filmmakers had complete freedom, and that the films were their own
vision. What Netflix “put at their disposal”, he said, was access to an experienced
film partner, as well as financial and technical support. (The
“Netflix-appointed supervising producer” was Steven Markovitz from Big World
Cinema, an African production company based in Cape Town, South Africa.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">UNESCO says the
partnership illustrates a “shared commitment to the continent’s audiovisual
industries, which generate jobs and wealth” and that the creative industries
“are an asset for the sustainable development of the continent”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcYBa5aGkig06XZ1w8iTwrdTenuJ5nDOw4JC2V4aaXaFcvhZH5ud5fs-iAV_vWc00qgVTWjCBdH4VvZA71iAkzN70N7QtMg4Z3s3DnVnPHypzGlLO-kFmXToRrDxNPCpxbj9qB3VOy5-Te_l-Z_CGlbvkbbBLl0DlA-3t6YtNgrPWeM9yECzj2y9gl/s4032/African%20folktales%20scene%202.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcYBa5aGkig06XZ1w8iTwrdTenuJ5nDOw4JC2V4aaXaFcvhZH5ud5fs-iAV_vWc00qgVTWjCBdH4VvZA71iAkzN70N7QtMg4Z3s3DnVnPHypzGlLO-kFmXToRrDxNPCpxbj9qB3VOy5-Te_l-Z_CGlbvkbbBLl0DlA-3t6YtNgrPWeM9yECzj2y9gl/s320/African%20folktales%20scene%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The creative
industries are also an opportunity for companies seeking to expand into new markets, which could be mutually beneficial, observers say. While Nigeria and a
few other countries have well-established filmmaking sectors, many African
directors might benefit from international support.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Anniwaa Buachie,
a Ghanaian-British actress and filmmaker, told <i>SWAN</i> that “budget” is one of the
biggest constraints for independent films. “You cannot go back and re-shoot,
money is tight, which also means time is limited. You just have one chance to
make sure you get the right shots, the right lighting, etc.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some of the
industry challenges are highlighted in a report UNESCO produced in 2021 on
Africa’s film sector, titled <i>The African film Industry: trends, challenges and
opportunities for growth</i>. The report found that the sector could create some 20
million jobs and generate 20 billion dollars in annual revenue on the
continent. With the survey, UNESCO could identify the need to create capacity
building and to “scale up” efforts by policy makers - using Nigeria as one
model, Ottone Ramírez said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>(Read here: <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379165">The African film Industry: trends, challenges
and opportunities for growth - UNESCO Digital Library</a>)</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It was on the completion of the report that UNESCO decided on the current project, Ottone
Ramírez told <i>SWAN</i>. At the same time, Netflix was also seeking to launch a
project in Africa, so talks began on a partnership, with “months” of discussion
about the format and the call for applications, he added.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As for
“priorities”, UNESCO hoped to include indigenous languages and gender equality
in the project, he said. Alongside English and French, the winning films are
made in a variety of languages including Hausa, KiSwahili, Runyankole,
Hassaniya Arabic, and isiXhosa - reflecting the UN International Decade of
Indigenous Languages (2022-2032).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Many of the
stories also centre on women characters, with topics including domestic
violence and the struggle for equality within patriarchal structures.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“It shows us
how important this subject is for the young generation of African filmmakers,”
Ottone Ramírez said. “I would say it was the main theme in each of the 21
pitches before the final selection. We’re seeing another way of storytelling.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Part of the aim
was equally to boost opportunities for women filmmakers - something that has
already been happening with the long-running FESPACO film festival in Burkina
Faso - and to focus on directors living in Africa, Ottone Ramírez told <i>SWAN</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">During the
selection of the winning pitches, UNESCO and Netflix acted as observers,
leaving the choice to the international jury, he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Aside from
being able to produce their films, perhaps the biggest advantage to the winners
is that they have access to a global platform, which Netflix said it is “proud”
to provide.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“We know Africa
has never lacked in talent and creativity” said Matatu, the Netflix director.
“What has been in short supply, however, is opportunity. Emerging talents often
struggle - they struggle finding the right resources and the visibility to
fully unleash their potential and develop their creative careers.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The winning
short films will potentially reach some 230 million subscribers of the
video-on-demand platform around the world, he said - an unprecedented
opportunity for these young filmmakers. <b><i>- SWAN</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Industry
mentors were Bongiwe Selane, Jenna Bass, Pape Boye, Femi Odugbemi, Leila Afua
Djansi, and Tosh Gitonga.</i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-20686507768905787362023-02-23T10:22:00.005-08:002023-03-08T05:16:58.760-08:00SECOND AFRICAN BOOK FAIR OF PARIS HERALDS SPRING<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In autumn 2021,
hundreds of book lovers gathered in one of the “chicest” areas of France’s
capital to attend the inaugural African Book Fair of Paris, surprising even the
organizers, who hadn’t expected the first-time event to be such a resounding
success, especially amid the Covid-19 pandemic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiL7g7zVWdEHyLXkjOsZ90fRWeLyedKiGJuw6x2v0RA2MineR01eGpEW_ASRYIlrP8ryTc67_Zol9mgD5B98xNC9cDovmb6-O0qNsD2JEgWCvG1CYG2DOoe6d1MnqooLhnNNvSjrQKpSw740AaYcnSr9bLDv4bCoN7btxaRwWSNOIHruSOVCldc2O/s1772/Salon%20du%20livre%20africain%202.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1772" data-original-width="1299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiL7g7zVWdEHyLXkjOsZ90fRWeLyedKiGJuw6x2v0RA2MineR01eGpEW_ASRYIlrP8ryTc67_Zol9mgD5B98xNC9cDovmb6-O0qNsD2JEgWCvG1CYG2DOoe6d1MnqooLhnNNvSjrQKpSw740AaYcnSr9bLDv4bCoN7btxaRwWSNOIHruSOVCldc2O/s320/Salon%20du%20livre%20africain%202.jpg" width="235" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, the Salon
du livre africain de Paris (its French name) is back this year at the same
location - the town hall of the 6th arrondissement, replete with striking
chandeliers and ornate, painted ceilings. But it’s taking place in March, at
the start of the spring season for which the city is so famed, and it promises
to be more expansive.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Erick Monjour,
the fair’s French director, said that around 200 writers and 50 publishing
houses will participate from March 17 to 19, with Guinea as the “country of
honour”. The full programme is set for release March 1.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The fair will
also pay homage to South African icon Nelson Mandela, ahead of the 10th
anniversary of his death (in December), and will celebrate the work of Senegalese
filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007), who would’ve been 100 years old this
year.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Among the main
attractions are the debates and lectures involving renowned writers, and in
2021 readers were able to hear from authors who had travelled to Paris from different
African countries, and to interact with French-speaking African and Caribbean
writers based in France.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Monjour told <i>SWAN</i>
that the idea for the fair “started with the realization that for several years
there was no book fair in Paris devoted to African literature and that there
was a need for this because there are so many readers”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(The annual
Paris Book Fair for some time did have a section focused on African writing,
but that was discontinued for various reasons, including financial issues.) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“We wish to
give the greatest visibility to African literature but also to books that are
about Africa,” Monjour said, adding that the focus was mainly on
French-speaking countries because of a limited budget.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-u4I85wJd0m1eC3BYzJNqCwiSeVTXjJK2-aG5pFPBXOaLwLflg-XYmQ4bW46si8qCVlIHV3aBfihQ2AVtEDoT2Nlb3oEHKdYXVK0kMovCgmphL-jI67kGyhjVAhLUT9S5R48F0NCDeDBLCYbRSeo5Px1dc83LU06-a1G6j8NHWunRt9JfaB6AQwEK/s3823/Salon%20du%20livre%20african%204.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3823" data-original-width="2867" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-u4I85wJd0m1eC3BYzJNqCwiSeVTXjJK2-aG5pFPBXOaLwLflg-XYmQ4bW46si8qCVlIHV3aBfihQ2AVtEDoT2Nlb3oEHKdYXVK0kMovCgmphL-jI67kGyhjVAhLUT9S5R48F0NCDeDBLCYbRSeo5Px1dc83LU06-a1G6j8NHWunRt9JfaB6AQwEK/s320/Salon%20du%20livre%20african%204.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">“We don’t
really have ‘Anglo’ writers, from countries like Nigeria for instance, coming
to the fair, because of the cost. But there are publishers with books
translated from English.”</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The publishing
houses present in 2021 featured an array of literature that reflected the increase
of writing from the continent. They included pioneering companies such as
Editions Présence Africaine, which began in Paris in the late 1940s and went on
to publish leading francophone African writers as well as anglophone writers in
French translation. The founders organized the first International Congress of
Black Writers and Artists in 1956.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">During the 2021
fair, readers flocked to Présence Africaine’s well-stocked table which carried
books by writers such as Goncourt Prize winner Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, American
author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, and a host of others - all against the
backdrop of French architectural splendour (with its inescapable reminders of
conquest and colonialism).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“One of the
things about this festival is that, even with a limited budget, we wanted it to
be in a prestigious location, in the centre of Paris, because sometimes events
like this can be on the ‘periphery’,” said Monjour. “This venue is a beautiful
place.”<b> <i>- SWAN</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): a poster for the 2023 Salon du livre africain de Paris; the stand of Editions Présence Africaine at the 2021 book fair (credit AM/SWAN).</i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Follow SWAN on Twitter @mckenzie_ale.</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-20238960780761183242023-02-18T09:21:00.004-08:002023-02-19T00:01:02.618-08:00PRINCETON HONOURS TONI MORRISON WITH EXHIBITION<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Acclaimed American writer and 1993 Nobel
laureate Toni Morrison will be the focus of a “revelatory exhibition” at
Princeton University Library opening Feb. 22.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Curated
by Autumn Womack, assistant professor of English and African American Studies, the
exhibition titled <i>Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory</i> is aimed at
“excavating” the creative process of the iconic author, who died in 2019. It
will be the “center of a community-wide exploration of how Morrison’s archive
continues to influence the past, present, and future,” the organizers said in a
release.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimCNIFJqnJnCZEPgyqC7MfKXfPSci08tnb1oKp4-SCzO6SgXYtSq9I3CR42yQoGaQpaTMoBzwl0zoCf7is8jZjz6pDKGQdLPVoJnCBcW9JABjbvdIzLihFs1cy1Zsd1S_Ul-PN2oLtscRyCW5LVC-Stk2MQ-dJ5GjfGURSgWd3clqwGED-98ndpOuP/s5101/Toni%20Morrison%20-%20Jazz.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5101" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimCNIFJqnJnCZEPgyqC7MfKXfPSci08tnb1oKp4-SCzO6SgXYtSq9I3CR42yQoGaQpaTMoBzwl0zoCf7is8jZjz6pDKGQdLPVoJnCBcW9JABjbvdIzLihFs1cy1Zsd1S_Ul-PN2oLtscRyCW5LVC-Stk2MQ-dJ5GjfGURSgWd3clqwGED-98ndpOuP/s320/Toni%20Morrison%20-%20Jazz.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“It
is difficult to overstate the importance of Toni Morrison’s writing to American
literature, art, and
life. This exhibition draws us toward the unexplored corners of her writing
process and unknown aspects of her creative investments that only live in this
archive,” Womack added.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
Toni Morrison Papers archive includes research materials, manuscript drafts, correspondence,
photographs, and other resources that Princeton University acquired in 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Running
until June 4, 2023, the exhibition - at PUL’s Milberg Gallery - will also
“anchor a series of programs” that include several wide-ranging events, such as
an art exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum’s Art@Bainbridge with
artist Alison Saar, and newly commissioned performances “responding to
Morrison’s work” presented by the McCarter Theatre and Princeton University
Concerts, which stages classical music productions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In
addition, a three-day symposium will take place March 23-25, gathering some 30
writers and artists “to reflect on Morrison’s relationship to the archive”, with
Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat scheduled to deliver the keynote
address; and there will be public tours of <i>Sites of Memory</i>, children’s
programming, a spring lecture series, and undergraduate courses on Morrison’s
work, PUL stated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ZXgWWL88NesxZ2KTyHisJCNZCiw45GPUg3YV9hvzf--dtLfsn_O47AZ3pUg_6RW_Ytz2L8Ml7QGwiaJqJeEVG32DM_6yzMQ3QiAr7_O1X9pYw8caVfZBPTbN-xBhrmHsx_2QCmwMpHFcyRE0PDHtJU0azVS0hLgplhOPTzPqMWddZ3SpVITYo_TU/s440/Toni%20Morrison%20-%20Beloved%202.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="305" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ZXgWWL88NesxZ2KTyHisJCNZCiw45GPUg3YV9hvzf--dtLfsn_O47AZ3pUg_6RW_Ytz2L8Ml7QGwiaJqJeEVG32DM_6yzMQ3QiAr7_O1X9pYw8caVfZBPTbN-xBhrmHsx_2QCmwMpHFcyRE0PDHtJU0azVS0hLgplhOPTzPqMWddZ3SpVITYo_TU/s320/Toni%20Morrison%20-%20Beloved%202.jpg" width="222" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
events reflect the “enormous influence” that Morrison had not only on Princeton
University, where she taught for 17 years beginning in 1989 (later lending her
name to Morrison Hall, home to the school’s Department of African American Studies),
but also on the culture of American life, say the organizers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“In
imagining this initiative - from exhibition to symposium to partner projects - I
wanted to show the importance of the archive to understanding Morrison’s work
and practice. But I also wanted to show how this archive in particular is a
site that opens up new lines of inquiry and inspires new kinds of
collaboration,” Womack said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
exhibition includes some 100 original archival items curated into six
categories, according to PUL. “Beginnings” charts Morrison’s emergence as a
writer, editor, and the author of <i>The Bluest Eye</i>, published in 1970;
“Writing Time” draws from her day planners “to emphasize the process of her
craft, which she often honed in spare moments around her full-time career” as
an editor; and “Thereness-ness” explores the role of place in her work and
presents “rarities” such as drawings of architectural spaces for the famed novels
like <i>Beloved</i> (winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize) and <i>Paradise</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Furthermore,
“Wonderings and Wanderings” stages Morrison’s “creative process from start to<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">finish" and reveals how her published work holds a "capacious archive” of Black
life; “Genealogies of Black Feminism” uses correspondence between herself and
other Black women to “excavate an alternate account of Black feminist thought
in the 1960s and 1970s”; and “Speculative Futures” spotlights unfinished
projects and "unrealized possibilities that only live in the collection”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">As
readers and teachers of Morrison’s work around the world equally recognise her
importance and celebrate her literary legacy, some are hoping that <i>Sites of
Memory</i> will be a traveling exhibition to make her archives available to a global
audience. During her lifetime, she received awards from several countries,
including France which bestowed on her one of its highest decorations - the Légion
d’honneur - in 2010, two years before then U.S. president Barack Ob</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">ama awarded her the Presidential Medal of
Freedom.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“She
was always very open to young readers internationally, and very generous,” said
Andrée-Anne Kekeh-Dika, associate professor of American and Anglophone
Caribbean literature at Université Paris 8 in France.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“I
remember when she came to the Louvre and she was asked a question about the
reception of her work and her legacy, and she responded that ‘I’ve done my part
and I have to let my work go’. I was really impressed by that because sometimes
there’s a sense that you can’t engage with the work if you’re outside the culture.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On
the American national level, meanwhile, the United States Postal Service will
honour Morrison with a commemorative stamp in 2023, the thirtieth anniversary
of her receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><i>Photos: Toni Morrison, courtesy of Princeton University; an early edition of </i>Beloved<i>. </i></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><i><br /></i></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><i><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Follow
</span></i></b><b style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">SWAN<i> on
Twitter: @mckenzie_ale</i></span></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-63632902088654021932023-01-29T02:46:00.005-08:002023-02-01T07:11:06.567-08:00KOREAN JAZZ SINGER YOUN SUN NAH ON ART AND SOUL<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When the parents
of Korean jazz singer Youn Sun Nah realized that the COVID-19 pandemic had
begun, they called and urged her to return to Seoul from New York, where she
was based at the time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“They said buy
the ticket immediately,” the singer recalls. “There’ll be a total lockdown and
you might never be able to come home. When I watched television and heard that
borders would be closed, I packed my bags and I got the last ticket. I thought
I would come back in three months, but not a year.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgcEoiH9l4cPrHhhaobKeE9vuS5b1GmTynPRowoBjzmCM6h8GWjxxc31_hB5gGA8Gvue8PObJvSHPmvAsmDBTILmmie6UhL15bOv3Q2GIRJBIjNWH46r0vrD6OUqjRC2MlhusWaee3U-HjpbR1z1Ov_Rmt2shupHX4ht956JccfEqtXY52-Mq8Lfb/s900/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%20-%20Waking%20World.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="806" data-original-width="900" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgcEoiH9l4cPrHhhaobKeE9vuS5b1GmTynPRowoBjzmCM6h8GWjxxc31_hB5gGA8Gvue8PObJvSHPmvAsmDBTILmmie6UhL15bOv3Q2GIRJBIjNWH46r0vrD6OUqjRC2MlhusWaee3U-HjpbR1z1Ov_Rmt2shupHX4ht956JccfEqtXY52-Mq8Lfb/s320/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%20-%20Waking%20World.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">In Korea, under
travel restrictions like most of the world, Sun Nah wondered how she could fight the blues that threatened to overwhelm her. She began writing lyrics and
composing music for what would become the extraordinary <i>Waking World</i>
(Warner Music), her 11<sup>th</sup> album, released in 2022.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The songs are an
exploration of the life of an artist, confronting angst and despair, and their haunting
beauty - as well as experimental range of styles - may help Sun Nah to broaden
her already substantial international audience, as she embarks on a “Spring
Tour” beginning in March. With the memorable track <i>Don't Get Me Wrong</i>, the album also contains a message about the dangers of spreading misinformation and hate, the "other" ills of the pandemic.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Born in Seoul
to musician parents (and named Na Yoon-sun), Youn Sun Nah learned to play the piano as a child but grew up
focusing on the usual curriculum at school. She graduated from university in
1992 with an arts degree, having studied literature, and she thought this would
be her career direction. She didn’t want to pursue music, she says, because she
had seen her parents - a choir director and a musical actress - work too hard. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Still, when the
Korean Symphony Orchestra invited her to sing gospel songs in 1993, she began
taking her first steps in the world of performing and recording, eventually moving
to France to study music, as she relates. In Paris, she followed courses in
traditional French <i>chanson</i> and enrolled at the prestigious CIM
School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, where she had to overcome certain
artistic challenges.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the years since
then, she has performed worldwide, sung at the closing ceremony of the Sochi Winter
Olympics in 2014, contributed to a Nina Simone tribute album, and taken part in
the 2017 International Jazz Day concert which was held in Havana, Cuba.
(International Jazz Day is an initiative of legendary jazz pianist Herbie
Hancock and the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO.) In addition, she has
received the Officier des Arts et des Lettres award from the French Ministry of
Culture, the Sejong Culture Award from Korea, and a host of other music prizes
and accolades.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In an interview
with <i>SWAN</i> before a recent concert in Brussels, Youn Sun Nah spoke of her
career with self-deprecating humour, discussing the effects of the pandemic on her
art and the meanings behind the songs on <i>Waking World</i>. She shed light,
too, on the experience of being a jazz singer amidst the global Korean pop
music phenomenon. The edited interview follows.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9G02VYysJxIyVhH1H50ve9_TtxFXRoRX4BMkVZGU1feEAr3Xt3lgHQnnhyGCVu5u77ZOgR7k1cMqKEIURkmYC5lpyPoDHzEPuEDaaFWogiqLLH8FeHp2wAtHn_HTdJfNEUyUG8BiI8ZesDpZA6y6434ATdeqH4rkPASzrJzNnzS3MV6-NpH08TRR/s2046/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%203.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2046" data-original-width="1708" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9G02VYysJxIyVhH1H50ve9_TtxFXRoRX4BMkVZGU1feEAr3Xt3lgHQnnhyGCVu5u77ZOgR7k1cMqKEIURkmYC5lpyPoDHzEPuEDaaFWogiqLLH8FeHp2wAtHn_HTdJfNEUyUG8BiI8ZesDpZA6y6434ATdeqH4rkPASzrJzNnzS3MV6-NpH08TRR/s320/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%203.jpeg" width="267" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
would you describe yourself?</span></b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Youn Sun Nah</b>: I’m a jazz singer from Korea. I studied jazz in France, and I travel around the world, and I’m kind of all
mixed up, but I’m very happy with that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Are
you now based in France?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> No, I used to live in Paris for a long
time, but actually, I don’t have a place to stay in France now. Every time I go
there, it’s just for the tour, so I go to different places. I could say I live
in Korea, but it’s a nomadic life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Let’s
speak about <i>Waking World</i>, which was released last January. You’re doing
a tour to promote it now, as that wasn’t possible earlier, during the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Yes, we couldn’t really do the
promotion thing, but <i>c’est la vie</i>. My manager called in 2021 to say: now
you can come, you can take the plane now. So, I quickly bought the ticket, came
back to France and recorded the album in Paris, and then I did some shows.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: A lot
of artists have had to find ways to keep going during the pandemic, and it’s
been especially difficult for many musicians who couldn’t tour, couldn’t be on
the road. Has that been the case for you too?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> As you know, jazz is really live music,
and I think most jazz musicians feel the same way. You want to do as many gigs
as possible. I don’t know if people listen to my music on platforms like
Spotify or iTunes, but I feel very lucky to perform live music. More than 400
jazz festivals exist in France, so it’s a privilege.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
did <i>Waking World</i> come about, and what does it mean for your fans, for
you?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> When I went back to Korea at the start
of the pandemic, I was kind of optimistic that things wouldn’t last long.
Everyone was wearing masks, but we could move around, just not take the plane.
Then … six months, seven months, eight months. From that moment, I got really
depressed, and I thought that maybe I should change my job, that maybe I would
never be able to go back to Europe and perform. What can I do, I thought. All
the musicians I played with were in Europe because I studied jazz in France,
and I don’t know that many jazz musicians in Korea. So, I had a kind of
homesickness even though I was home. But in Korea, we never lose hope, so I
think that’s in my DNA. I told myself: you should wake up, and you should do
something else; you can’t disappoint the people who’ve supported you for a long
time, you should have something to present to your audience. So, I started
writing some new tunes. Without the musicians I usually work with, I had to do
it all by myself.</span></p><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2uEsxUJtR5W1mgupCAiKOa2LT8VU3kS0oTjMy8hik8W_8d5Mif7znxUxtVOmCbbSOp3QIzG2V8qJVnYdJ5a5XLPJk8jgGq7TMAa-tsYdAghTVxSwjvPY4EBHQ72Dnhjy4cuaP2Xc9YweeroLlNfJoCekDz04U-rUMBloIJYlZaioh_hImYTdhcY1/s2048/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%205.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1795" data-original-width="2048" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2uEsxUJtR5W1mgupCAiKOa2LT8VU3kS0oTjMy8hik8W_8d5Mif7znxUxtVOmCbbSOp3QIzG2V8qJVnYdJ5a5XLPJk8jgGq7TMAa-tsYdAghTVxSwjvPY4EBHQ72Dnhjy4cuaP2Xc9YweeroLlNfJoCekDz04U-rUMBloIJYlZaioh_hImYTdhcY1/s320/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%205.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
did you do that?</span></b></div></b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Actually, I watched YouTube a lot, and
I learned many music tools. I learned how to play the guitar just by watching
tutorials, and I learned how to compose with the laptop.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: And you
wrote the lyrics too?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Yes, I’m not so good at English, but I
just wanted to be honest, so even if it doesn’t sound quite right, I just
wanted to express myself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: But
you’re used to singing in English?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Yes, after I started studying jazz. You
know, when I came to France, I didn’t know what jazz was. If I’d known, I would
definitely have gone to the States. I was so naïve … and maybe stupid? One day
I’d asked one of my musician friends in Korea what kind of music I should study
to become a good singer, and he’d said: do jazz. What is jazz, I asked him. And
he said: jazz is original pop music, so if you learn how to sing jazz, you can
sing anything. And I said: oh, it sounds great!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m a huge fan
of French <i>chanson</i>, so he said one of the oldest jazz schools in Europe
is located in Paris, so go there. Oh, great! I arrived there, and what you
learn at school is American standards, and everything was in English. I
actually studied in four different schools at the same time because, well, I’m
Asian, and I’m used to that education system where you don’t have to have any
free time for yourself! When I had only six hours of lessons, I thought: what
am I gonna do with the other eighteen hours? (Laughter.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: That
kind of approach must have helped with the album?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Well, I didn’t know when I could record
this album, so I just kept writing and composing. And arranging by myself, as I
had a lot of time. But, as you know, jazz is like … we should gather together
and arrange in the moment. When I could finally fly to France, I just gave all
the material to the musicians. And they said, oh, we’ll respect your scores.
And I said, no, no, do what you want. But they played exactly what I wrote,
every single note. I’m embarrassed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Tell
us about the inspiration behind some of tracks, such as <i>Bird On The Ground</i>,
the first song, which has the refrain “I want to fly. I want to fly. I want to
fly.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Well, “bird on the ground” - that’s me
during the pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: <i>Don’t
Get Me Wrong</i>, the second track, has an infectious melody, but the message
is clear: the world “has no chance with those who lie and lie”. Tell us more.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> During the pandemic, I could only watch
TV or go on the internet to know what was happening. But sometimes the information
wasn’t true, and even though it’s a lie you end up believing everything. Yeah,
so I thought the world has no chance with people who lie.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: The sixth
track has an intriguing title - <i>My Mother</i>. (Lyrics include the line: “How
can you keep drying my eyes every time, my mother?”) What’s the story behind
it?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> With the touring, I usually don’t spend
that much time at home. But with the pandemic, I was home for a whole year, and
I spent a lot of time with my mother, and I really had the chance to talk about
everything, about her life and what she experienced. She’s my best friend, and
we became even closer. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskoTA2XziTg3Hmqhes0qNA322QQwDTQXrfLv6I74QUfve5gHelbayaxqShvINgXZRvg7zB9f_6ape1zEIwDmExWl6meC9Cq_PSwo5hlcDyQr8GPOrIbKJekKdsjBHZJTz8BuUaaz-HMXqOS4_a4F-xVqDziOJGoz2KoUuNA0_qhIthjdZjAwPcSpG/s2072/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%202.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2072" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskoTA2XziTg3Hmqhes0qNA322QQwDTQXrfLv6I74QUfve5gHelbayaxqShvINgXZRvg7zB9f_6ape1zEIwDmExWl6meC9Cq_PSwo5hlcDyQr8GPOrIbKJekKdsjBHZJTz8BuUaaz-HMXqOS4_a4F-xVqDziOJGoz2KoUuNA0_qhIthjdZjAwPcSpG/s320/Youn%20Sun%20Nah%202.jpeg" width="237" /></a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: And the
title song <i>Waking World</i>?</span></b></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">YSN: I wanted
this to be a dream and not real, but at the same time this is the reality, so
it was kind of ambiguous for me. Where am I? Am I dreaming? No, you’re wide
awake.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: <i>Tangled
Soul</i>, track eight?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> My soul was completely tangled.
(Laughter.) And then one day, I felt: it’s okay, everything will be all right.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Speaking
about music in general, K-pop has become a global phenomenon. Are you in
the wrong field? (Laughter.) More to the point, are you affected by the huge
interest?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> At every show, I’m really shocked or surprised
because the audience says “hello” and “thank you” in Korean. Unbelievable!
There are many people who’ve told me about their experience in Korea, too,
saying they’ve spent a month or six months there. It’s something that my
parents’ generation couldn’t have expected because the country was destroyed
during the war - it’s not that long ago - and they had to build a completely
new country. They worked so hard, and because of them, we have this era. People
know Korea through K-pop, through Netflix.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Then
there’s this Korean jazz singer - you. When listeners hear your work, the “soul”
comes through. Can you talk about that?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> When I arrived in Paris, not knowing
what jazz was, as I mentioned, I told my parents: Oh, I’m gonna study jazz for
three years, and I think I can master it, and then I’ll come back to Korea and
maybe teach. And afterwards, I felt so stupid, and so bad because I can’t
swing, and I don’t have a voice like Ella Fitzgerald, and I could barely learn
one standard song. So, I tried everything. On <i>Honeysuckle Rose</i>, I think
I wrote down every moment that Ella breathed in, breathed out. But … I couldn’t
sing like her, it sounded so fake. So, I said: No, I’ll never be able to sing
jazz, this is not for me. After a year, I told my professors that, sorry, I
made a wrong choice, I’m going to go back home. And they laughed at me. They
said: What? Youn, you can do your own jazz with your own voice. And I said, no,
I can’t. Then they recommended some jazz albums of European jazz singers, such
as Norma Winstone, who’s an English singer, and my idol. She has a kind of
soprano voice like me, and when she interprets, it’s like a whole new tune. And
I said, oh, we can call this jazz too? I didn’t know.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, I learned
to try with my own voice and my own soul, with my Korean background, and the
more I used my own voice, the more I did things my own way, the more I felt
accepted.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
is next for you?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>YSN:</b> Well, everyone has told me that this
album is not jazz, but that’s what I wanted to do. Herbie Hancock always said
that jazz is the human soul, it’s not appearances, so you can do whatever you
want to do. We’ll see. It’s been a while that I’ve wanted to do an album of
jazz standards, so we’ll continue this tour in 2023 and then we’ll see<b><i>. -
A.M. / SWAN</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): the front cover of </i>Waking World<i>; Youn Sun Nah in Brussels (photo by A.M.); the back cover of </i>Waking World<i>; Youn Sun Nah and statue (photo by A.M.)</i></b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Youn Sun Nah’s Spring
Tour runs March 9 to May 26, 2023, and includes concerts in France, Germany, and
the Netherlands.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-58278329613039294592022-11-06T11:29:00.024-08:002022-12-07T03:54:02.742-08:00NEW ORLEANS IN ‘DAZZLING’ FOCUS AT PARIS EXHIBITION<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">An exhibition
at Paris’ Quai Branly Museum has put the rich culture of New Orleans in the
spotlight, with a striking display of carnival costumes and an in-depth look at
the city’s history and traditions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Titled <i>Black
Indians de La Nouvelle-Orléans</i>, the show celebrates the “cultural and artistic creativity of
African Americans in New Orleans”, say the organizers, who include experts from
the Louisiana port city. “The most spectacular form of this creativity is the <i>Black
Indians</i> carnival parade,” they add.</span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehRY-nE2vcAlmK4SBgN-R3s_Y_ypt8BQw7a5uGOWKMXi0EVGgrgLmLOAy2N5igPmN6ECygu7uW1JqrONs33ADN5ty8UU7HTkCvhTUv5NoMVxUuUWq_9P83V2mfmkdFj4bZ8piSOULrrzsXWbOy_F8MbYsmrlCfc08O4jutErgP3ezcl1Yxe24Ebzm/s2278/New%20Orleans%20Expo%204.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2278" data-original-width="1481" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehRY-nE2vcAlmK4SBgN-R3s_Y_ypt8BQw7a5uGOWKMXi0EVGgrgLmLOAy2N5igPmN6ECygu7uW1JqrONs33ADN5ty8UU7HTkCvhTUv5NoMVxUuUWq_9P83V2mfmkdFj4bZ8piSOULrrzsXWbOy_F8MbYsmrlCfc08O4jutErgP3ezcl1Yxe24Ebzm/s320/New%20Orleans%20Expo%204.jpeg" width="208" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The name <i>Black
Indians</i> “pays tribute to the native Americans who were subjected to French, Spanish and American domination for centuries, just like the African Americans
were”, the curators explain in their notes to the exhibition, which runs until
Jan. 15, 2023, at the museum (dedicated to the arts and civilizations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas). </div></div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Behind the
dazzling costumes of beads and feathers lies a story of violence and
resilience.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The exhibition
not only presents the colourful artistic creations that are paraded during
Mardi Gras festivities, but it takes visitors on a historical trip that starts
before the 1718 creation of New Orleans and continues to the present day - highlighting
the role France and other European states played in colonizing this region of
the Americas. The impact of the mass arrival of Haitian refugees in Louisiana
in the early 1800s, following the Haitian Revolution, is equally explored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This comprehensive
perspective demonstrates that the show was designed “in partnership with representatives
of <i>Black Indians</i> communities”, as the curators point out. It achieves
the stated aim of providing both a “geographical journey - from Europe to
Africa and America” - and a historical timeline with key dates and
personalities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Visitors aren’t
spared a discussion of the brutal aspects of this history, and the exhibits
include a film about the French slave ship Aurore, for instance, whose “arrival
in the Gulf of Mexico on 6 June 1719 announced the birth and horrors of the
slave-owning society of New Orleans”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In fact, during
the 18<sup>th</sup> century, New Orleans and the Caribbean together were the
leading producers of sugar and coffee, from the labour of enslaved people, as
the exhibition details.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnAxHfjXwai14XZoAz5b0VIL65EkT32jgyXNWGUem5tytcPyAxsmXc7Hdr3pnXxHOT1qr-LnE7jQDSbR0bUCcLgABTX3FH_LhZXGRI5Ry9w9DhPySii1cmh9CutulLfxC95PQeEvxhE3dozrdrNA3WE0BenOlNPEuCQkzxIFeJB5a0JAPBS2Z2iem/s4032/New%20Orleans%20Expo%205.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnAxHfjXwai14XZoAz5b0VIL65EkT32jgyXNWGUem5tytcPyAxsmXc7Hdr3pnXxHOT1qr-LnE7jQDSbR0bUCcLgABTX3FH_LhZXGRI5Ry9w9DhPySii1cmh9CutulLfxC95PQeEvxhE3dozrdrNA3WE0BenOlNPEuCQkzxIFeJB5a0JAPBS2Z2iem/s320/New%20Orleans%20Expo%205.jpeg" width="240" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Discussing the
tradition of the <i>Black Indians</i> costumes, head curator Steve Bourget said
that based on oral tradition, African Americans “created these costumes in the
nineteenth century to pay tribute to the Native American communities who kept
company with them and helped them” during slavery.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Artists who
adopt this style see, in the indigenous people’s claims, a form of resistance
to US society’s hegemonic power - and to them, this resistance resembles their
own struggle,” he added.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Associate
curator Kim Vaz-Deville, a university professor in New Orleans, explained that
for the show she worked closely with the artists, or maskers, as they’re called.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“I interviewed
those in the exhibition to learn about how they came to the tradition, their
creative process, and their motivation to undertake such major projects every
year,” Vaz-Deville stated. “I collaborated with them to ensure the text we
included in the show accurately reflected their messages and intentions for
participation in the tradition.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Visitors to the
exhibition will no doubt come away with lasting images of the stunning costumes
on display, but they will gain insight as well into New Orleans’ history and
current challenges (especially after Hurricane Katrina in 2005) – issues that
are also addressed in this memorable exposition. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos, top to
bottom: a poster of the exhibition; costume titled </i>The Taking (La Capture)<i>, of Big Chief Dow Michael Edwards, 2019.</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-91966107137463671152022-10-06T09:33:00.004-07:002022-10-06T13:34:48.479-07:00CARIBBEAN-AMERICAN ARTIST DEPICTS ‘CHOSEN FAMILY’ <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For two months
over the summer, Caribbean-American artist Delvin Lugo presented his first solo
show in New York City, exhibiting large, vibrant canvases at High Line Nine
Galleries on Manhattan’s West Side and featuring queer communities in his
homeland, the Dominican Republic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The exhibition,
titled “Caribbean Summer”, pulled visitors in with its vivid colours and
animated characters and also exemplified the success of alternative art events.
The gallery space was provided by non-profit arts group Chashama, which describes
itself as helping to “create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world by
partnering with property owners to transform unused real estate”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbEJm9HULqrxjqiQ0rBQfcJXloQEU8bYxJCR32B_cmSbWIC7ecItu1eYp7dipxmizzWJOOleExuo7_8e2ohO7mgLVL8qSWgUGzu38bpelOHMZno91yKgE3kZWA37HYHebps8RCC6VgL3cnsQxNQHHWP2E1uIsB3LqUROm0vhgr6-9F3Qw36dZnTeCl/s3098/Delvin%20Lugo%202.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2754" data-original-width="3098" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbEJm9HULqrxjqiQ0rBQfcJXloQEU8bYxJCR32B_cmSbWIC7ecItu1eYp7dipxmizzWJOOleExuo7_8e2ohO7mgLVL8qSWgUGzu38bpelOHMZno91yKgE3kZWA37HYHebps8RCC6VgL3cnsQxNQHHWP2E1uIsB3LqUROm0vhgr6-9F3Qw36dZnTeCl/s320/Delvin%20Lugo%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">These spaces - including
galleries that normally close their doors for the summer - are used for “artists,
small businesses, and for free community-centric art classes”. According to
Lugo, the organisation’s assistance made his show possible and has also provided
motivation to continue producing work.</div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The 44-year-old artist said he’s
particularly interested in portraying LGBTQ activists and in expanding his work
to include more countries of the Caribbean. The following (edited) interview
took place in Manhattan during the exhibition.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: How did the show come about?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DELVIN LUGO</b>: So, this exhibition is a response to
work that I was doing before. I had just finished a series that was about my
childhood, growing up a young, gay man in the Dominican Republic, because I
lived there until I was twelve years old. And I’d spent so much time kinda dealing with the past that it got to the point that I was like: you know
what, I actually don’t know anything happening with the queer culture and the
lives of people in DR right now. Yes, I do go back and visit, but when I go
back, I go to see my relatives in the countryside, so this was a way to really
educate myself and really connect with the queer community in the Dominican
Republic. And in this case, it’s Santo Domingo that I’m focusing on. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: What steps did you take to make the
connections?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: Well, I really started by reaching out
to individuals on social media that maybe I’d seen stories written about, or
things that caught my eye on Instagram… so, I reached out to them, and we kind
of started a dialogue first. Then when I was ready to start painting, I decided
to go meet them in person, and the theme that I had in mind was “chosen family”.
I had a few ideas about what the situation was like there, but I really, really
didn’t know. It wasn’t until I started meeting people and they started telling
me that basically they had no rights… and so I wanted to focus on artists and activists
- people I really admired, people that are doing the work and doing the fight. That’s
really how it started. I went there, I told my contacts to bring their chosen
family, and we hung out and took pictures, and I came back here and that’s how
the paintings were formed, from all the information that I had. And I usually
don’t just work from one picture, I do a collage of many photos, and then I
paint from that collage. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb01ti3acTGeWsaQ9SgOUXZQntjjtPQlWE97uNVXcHa14qf-FU71-okrk5VBJepkECNy4U_41ZTIb2OPeU7J6IljDnOBYgIyZkQtmGxQd20OPPDCDhPfgFBJMmw4GZLyJbcwA5hlWwsZjEj6qaNbZRzii16lNNjM_tlA_54pRcRvAB8ZLbEKPkCgVM/s4032/Delvin%20Lugo%201.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb01ti3acTGeWsaQ9SgOUXZQntjjtPQlWE97uNVXcHa14qf-FU71-okrk5VBJepkECNy4U_41ZTIb2OPeU7J6IljDnOBYgIyZkQtmGxQd20OPPDCDhPfgFBJMmw4GZLyJbcwA5hlWwsZjEj6qaNbZRzii16lNNjM_tlA_54pRcRvAB8ZLbEKPkCgVM/s320/Delvin%20Lugo%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><b>SWAN</b>: So, there’s no painting that comes
from just one photo?</b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: Well, in some cases, I borrowed
pictures from an association that hosts Gay Pride marches, and I used the
people pictured, but I added myself, or the car, or different aspects. With
these images, I was inspired by the spirit - the spirit of celebration, the
spirit of individuality… and I kind of just worked around the image, adding
myself as the driver and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: The paintings are super colourful,
really striking - was that the intention from the start?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: I’ve been working with vibrant colours
recently, and I knew that it was gonna be very bright… the Caribbean is bright,
colourful, and also I wanted to make the paint symbolize the heat, the climate
in DR as well. It also feels like summer with the hot pink. But I really do
know most of these individuals. Except for some young people in one picture, I
know everyone, like Agatha, a trans woman and gay activist from the Bahamas who lives in
the Dominican Republic. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: Can you tell us about your own journey
- have you always wanted to be an artist?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: I did, you know. It was one of those
things that when I was done with school, I really needed to work to survive, so
I took jobs and somehow I was always able to get jobs in fashion, and that
really kept me busy for a long time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: What did you do in fashion?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: When I started, I did sales, like
showroom wholesale, but most of the time I was working as a fashion stylist, being
an assistant and then doing my own work. And that’s a fulltime job. Then slowly
but surely, I started doing my own projects, like ink drawings, just things for
myself, to be creative. And that developed into my drawing more and playing
with oils, which is something I had done before. To get back into it, I went to
continuing education classes. I needed to be reintroduced to oils because I’d
forgotten so many techniques and things that you need to know. From then, I kept
painting, praying for more time to work at it. Then Covid happened, I was let
go from my job, and, in the beginning, I kept thinking that they might call me
back any minute, and I truly worked around the clock on my painting for the
first two months. The job didn’t call me back, but at that point it was great
because by then I’d got used to an everyday practice. I can tell you that from the
beginning of 2020 to even now, the way that I’ve seen my work grow and even the
way that I think, and the way that I approach painting, it has been quite a
learning experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinprJDAxoY2mvWuXFbrifL4mkhwBmjLbKh_XCfWqLptLXI5wCFJfPPzFRsstfA8D4DlvTTJU9O5TSLs5g3T1xs5PUF6_oEFvnYO0AJhqI9vOFrKDVnBP1j70cJkkjwnD8uWoV8mIj0-o_LHoshyedHcQLKkfbqhPKetSbcZfoCxhtH17mBu0UV3ly2/s2428/Delvin%20Lugo%203.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2026" data-original-width="2428" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinprJDAxoY2mvWuXFbrifL4mkhwBmjLbKh_XCfWqLptLXI5wCFJfPPzFRsstfA8D4DlvTTJU9O5TSLs5g3T1xs5PUF6_oEFvnYO0AJhqI9vOFrKDVnBP1j70cJkkjwnD8uWoV8mIj0-o_LHoshyedHcQLKkfbqhPKetSbcZfoCxhtH17mBu0UV3ly2/s320/Delvin%20Lugo%203.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SWAN</b>: So, this is your first real solo show?</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: Yeah, it really is. I’ve done a number
of group shows, but this opportunity came with Chashama and I applied for it. I
was already working on all these pieces, so this was the right time. It’s an
introduction to my work, it’s not like a full solo show in a way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: How long have you lived in New York?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: So, my family left DR in 1990, when I
was twelve, and we lived in Rhode Island and then I made my way to New York in ’97
and I’ve been here ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN</b>: Where next, with the art?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>DL</b>: I want to continue painting, because
it’s such a privilege to have a studio, to have a full-time practice, and I really
do want to continue that. I’ve been painting from home up until October last
year, and when I got my first studio - even though it’s the size of this table
here - I couldn’t wait to get to the studio. I was there to do my own thing. Still,
I actually get annoyed when people tell me: “Oh, it must be so wonderful, you’re
in your studio, doing your art…” It is great, but it’s also really frustrating because
I’m hitting my head against the wall many a day, or leaving angry because
something didn’t go right. It’s a fight. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, for me, it’s
truly just to continue creating, to continue painting, following my instincts,
following the stories. I really want to continue in the same path of
representing and bringing a focus to the LGBTQ community, not just in DR, but
in any other parts of the world. I think it would be an interesting project
actually to go elsewhere to meet the queer culture and showing them in the
painting, even like in other places in the Caribbean, like Puerto Rico, Cuba,
Jamaica. That would be really interesting. <b><i>– AM / SWAN<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p>
<b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photos of Delvin Lugo
at High Line Nine Galleries in NYC by A. McKenzie</span></span></i></b></div></b>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-55328409884992918632022-08-31T05:02:00.071-07:002022-11-09T07:09:54.541-08:00POLITICS AND LYRICISM: REMEMBERING GEORGE LAMMING<p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: arial;">By Dimitri Keramitas</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">George Lamming was a pioneer of Caribbean literature
whose reputation spanned the Atlantic. He was part of a legendary generation of
writers, including VS Naipaul and Derek Walcott, who left what were then still
colonies to make careers in London, the capital of the then-regnant British
Empire.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlnMEuYWIy5GehvSmIpeOsr70cJzlL7OrChtmRKdn8U6KpdbSOCTPWJ-oX-SOS5245TmFKPCsW_Ixz8S0hghMN7CXZnkV6e18IfazwMM2Hp1Rzk6YDVanfTAtgoS1KChkHMNwCW8Zert7nuM0NkY3BGnfMcmvi2toqOFVKicBdM4ZuK8S22p52Nrq/s668/Lamming%202.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="425" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlnMEuYWIy5GehvSmIpeOsr70cJzlL7OrChtmRKdn8U6KpdbSOCTPWJ-oX-SOS5245TmFKPCsW_Ixz8S0hghMN7CXZnkV6e18IfazwMM2Hp1Rzk6YDVanfTAtgoS1KChkHMNwCW8Zert7nuM0NkY3BGnfMcmvi2toqOFVKicBdM4ZuK8S22p52Nrq/w127-h200/Lamming%202.jpeg" width="127" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">This was at the beginning of the de-colonization phase
during the post-war period, and the lives of Lamming and his literary peers were
marked by an inner dialectic between the demands of literature and political
sensibility. Lamming, who died in June of this year, was a particularly lyrical
prose writer, but he could be astringent in his political views.</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Upheaval in his homeland’s region came in the form of World
War II. A largely unknown part of the war was the Battle of the Caribbean – a crucial
transit point for supplies moving from the port of New Orleans to Europe and
beyond. In addition, Trinidad was home to the second-largest oil refinery in
the Empire.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Caribbean became a target of German U-Boats that decimated
commercial shipping. The Allies hunted down the submarines, created large bases
on the islands, helped Gaullist <i>Résistants</i> overthrow the Vichy regime in
the French Antilles. But there was a negative impact as well. Naipaul detailed
how American money flowing into their bases resulted in corruption, prostitution
and the black market. Lamming, in his great novel, <i>In the Castle of My Skin</i>,
described how the fictional San Cristobal, based on Barbados, was deforested
for timber and had its rail lines ripped out to provide steel for Britain’s war
effort.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_zV_zH0XIbh-gIK90zepJkBmdrYOwl70-0AXoK2t2_KWqTaBRK8keCYGJ9RjhaFJn2ZMR8mNqrQa5oeuJY75WQ-pdZhpYOiYPKoawFb2EvG6rRXW0s7lxiuu2ypAH69kXL5dkjek9E_jFphS894EcmL7UWLsb1bQjFjia91t6Oesv-cIjvWsET-mc/s500/Lamming%201.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_zV_zH0XIbh-gIK90zepJkBmdrYOwl70-0AXoK2t2_KWqTaBRK8keCYGJ9RjhaFJn2ZMR8mNqrQa5oeuJY75WQ-pdZhpYOiYPKoawFb2EvG6rRXW0s7lxiuu2ypAH69kXL5dkjek9E_jFphS894EcmL7UWLsb1bQjFjia91t6Oesv-cIjvWsET-mc/s320/Lamming%201.jpg" width="210" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To a great extent, Britain’s efforts managing decolonization
had to do with the very different war that followed: the Cold War. Just as the
US plotted against a democratic leader in Guatemala, invaded the Dominican Republic,
and supported anti-Castro Cubans, Britain intervened in British Guyana to quash
the democratically elected, but Marxist-leaning, Cheddi Jagan government.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As part
of the Cold War effort, Caribbean students were groomed with scholarships (courtesy
of the Colonial Office) to Oxbridge and jobs at the BBC Colonial Service. This
is where Lamming, Naipaul and Walcott found employment in 1950s London.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lamming and Naipaul were colleagues at the BBC, but
eventually became rivals. <i>In the</i> <i>Castle of My Skin</i> has a serious
tone throughout, lyrical language, and a sensitive appreciation of character.
Billed as a novel, it is in fact an innovative hybrid, fusing novel,
short-stories, and memoir. In contrast, Naipaul’s early works, such as <i>Miguel
Street</i>, are admired today for their idiosyncratic style and mimicry of
Creole speech, but they were originally seen as bitingly comic, in the manner
of Evelyn Waugh. Many West Indians were not amused, and Lamming called
Naipaul’s approach “castrated satire”. Ironically, both Lamming’s novel and
Naipaul’s <i>Miguel Street</i> resembled one another in their employment of
microcosmic settings and young autobiographical personae trying to make sense
of their world.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDmKPhV0HQ3Ls1uQ3NhPwePUPBL5aTh79vfQmT1sBxTTEfWmNBvclYw2b-d0x9rQDciCSk2uyfGe8LTX5YJw8a-rxcqvHKASH33ZGTMB6UyR9Zviz6rr6n4wcDzTBOZFpLNSXK1kKSyG9v0VIXMnryeYK3RrM4oyiiNHESYeN5rgO9dmQ_WgVJdwUH/s1878/Lamming%203.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1878" data-original-width="1286" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDmKPhV0HQ3Ls1uQ3NhPwePUPBL5aTh79vfQmT1sBxTTEfWmNBvclYw2b-d0x9rQDciCSk2uyfGe8LTX5YJw8a-rxcqvHKASH33ZGTMB6UyR9Zviz6rr6n4wcDzTBOZFpLNSXK1kKSyG9v0VIXMnryeYK3RrM4oyiiNHESYeN5rgO9dmQ_WgVJdwUH/s320/Lamming%203.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Lamming and other Caribbean writers didn’t find the “motherland”
during the 1960s to be a stable cynosure of imperial order. Britain’s culture had
become jarringly fashionable: Swinging London, Carnaby Street, the Beatles and
Stones, the new cinema, the art of Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. Politically
and economically, successive Labour governments presided over stagnation and
decline, and immigration from the Caribbean and other parts of the Commonwealth
sparked racist backlash.</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It wasn’t an auspicious time for the traditional
English novel. Neither Lamming nor Naipaul would write major fiction during the
decade. Instead, they both turned to nonfiction to examine the alienation and
destabilization stemming from de-colonization.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Naipaul wrote <i>The Middle Passage</i>, a work of
reportage on the contemporary Caribbean. He wrote it after being invited by the
president of Trinidad to visit and write on the region; Lamming (who’d spent
much of his early life teaching in Trinidad) received the same invitation.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Instead of reportage, Lamming in <i>The Pleasures of
Exile</i> turned to literary and cultural criticism to trenchantly express how
Western culture, including its canonical literature, distorted the image (and
implicitly, self-image) of colonized peoples. In this he was a precursor of
critic-scholars such as Edward Saïd, who explored similar themes in his classic
<i>Orientalism</i>. Lamming followed that up with two more essay collections: <i>Coming,
Coming Home: Conversations II – Western Education and the Caribbean
Intellectual</i> and <i>Sovereignty of the Imagination: Conversations III –
Language and the Politics of Ethnicity. </i>Lamming also wrote five more
novels, notably <i>The Emigrants</i> (1954), a sequel to <i>In the Castle of My
Skin</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBw8XL4Muw5XU_-Vlx_CFT_hiuLGVXGIW0kiOrVgBAEb0LPfcvETHVDDGAMnAplTzDREOh4OGSN-_C-wMQ477Dsx8usVjSnj_iUXKSKFBZT_hKUuNlS5b5Vkk8NFwbQQjjsMmthFoAPA5S3lMmC75C4Md3JIUaZtQsaTh4bYlnQDw_1LqvyaKiICT/s1895/Lamming%204.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1114" data-original-width="1895" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBw8XL4Muw5XU_-Vlx_CFT_hiuLGVXGIW0kiOrVgBAEb0LPfcvETHVDDGAMnAplTzDREOh4OGSN-_C-wMQ477Dsx8usVjSnj_iUXKSKFBZT_hKUuNlS5b5Vkk8NFwbQQjjsMmthFoAPA5S3lMmC75C4Md3JIUaZtQsaTh4bYlnQDw_1LqvyaKiICT/s320/Lamming%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While Naipaul embarked on a globe-hopping career
writing nonfiction, Lamming and Walcott spent years in academia, especially in
the US. During the 1980s, Lamming taught at the University of Hartford in West
Hartford, Connecticut, and I came to know him when I attended two of his
classes, one an introduction to creative writing, the second a literature
course focusing on post-imperial fiction.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At that time he was a genial middle-aged man, nattily
dressed with a halo of white hair. His double-focus was evident in the classes
he taught. As a creative-writing instructor, he was kindly and supportive, even
indulgent. He was amused by one of my stories, which satirised then-vice
president George Bush. He was more rigorous when it came to his survey of
post-colonial literature.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There’d been a violent military takeover in Liberia
then, and Lamming turned a cold eye on what was transpiring there. His
objective appraisal of the violence recalled Frantz Fanon, and evoked a
favorite image of Lamming’s, that of Caliban in <i>The Tempest. </i>In effect
he appropriated Shakespeare’s play about shipwrecked whites on an island
(perhaps based on Bermuda) and reversed the perspective to that of the
repressed indigenous whose rage must ultimately find release. Likewise, his
takes on African writers Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o gave a 180° spin
on the Africa-set fictions of European authors, in particular Joseph Conrad’s <i>Heart
of Darkness</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul both won the Nobel Prize,
a distinction which eluded Lamming. Naipaul was eventually made a lord, and lived
like a country squire in Wiltshire, in England (however, his plush country
abode was rented, not owned). As for Lamming, he returned to Barbados, where he
became an elder statesman of literature, and was made a Companion of Honour of
his native country. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To many, the most famous Barbadian is no doubt the singer
and cosmetics mogul Rihanna. However, George Lamming was probably gratified
that in the passage of time he not only reached the ripe age of 94, but also lived
long enough to see Barbados become a republic. - <i>SWAN</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): portrait from </i>In the Castle of My Skin<i>, and book cover (University of Michigan Press); image from the 1996 Caribana literary conference in Milan, and programme of a conference event where Derek Walcott also participated.</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-52869288793994861342022-07-06T08:39:00.008-07:002022-10-06T13:32:39.456-07:00ABORIGINAL ARTIST SALLY GABORI IN PARIS SOLO SHOW<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The iconic canvases of Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, the acclaimed Aboriginal
artist who began painting around the age of 80, can be seen this summer in a
stunning exhibition in Paris. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_a_PC-_R45bTyye30-jfsG7daUwB-b1dVFpRTQbV_BtzxMyM1M3G7aGC9glSWye0d_KGc6KGaCK00jdQp6skXVgcwUadFnM1on5h544-zWDU6UYSLcRfObMLuaCRM8fvZG4sH3lmrJIEgU50qExe0ZtcPsb5H3uYeQEU8XjKAe75TW6ZSl4Sp0lWH/s900/Sally%20Gabori%202.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="900" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_a_PC-_R45bTyye30-jfsG7daUwB-b1dVFpRTQbV_BtzxMyM1M3G7aGC9glSWye0d_KGc6KGaCK00jdQp6skXVgcwUadFnM1on5h544-zWDU6UYSLcRfObMLuaCRM8fvZG4sH3lmrJIEgU50qExe0ZtcPsb5H3uYeQEU8XjKAe75TW6ZSl4Sp0lWH/s320/Sally%20Gabori%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The show runs
until Nov. 6 at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, located in the Montparnasse area on the city's Left Bank, and it’s the first solo exhibition of Gabori’s work outside
Australia.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“This immense
painter has produced a unique body of work comprising extraordinary modernity,
without any apparent attachment to other aesthetic currents, especially within
contemporary Aboriginal painting,” say the curators. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Gabori is
considered one of Australia’s greatest contemporary artists of the past 20
years, achieving national and international artistic fame before her death in
2015. She created hundreds of works within a decade, after she was introduced
to painting at a local community centre. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The exhibition
is not presented in chronological order; instead, visitors are treated to an
ocean of colour, where the sea seems to take centre stage. This is a show where
art lovers can simply immerse themselves in works that pulse with force,
personality and creativity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For more
information about the exhibition and Gabori’s life and work, see:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.sallygabori-fondationcartier.com/">https://www.sallygabori-fondationcartier.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Photo (by AM):
A visitor looks at Sally Gabori's paintings at the Fondation Cartier, Paris.</i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-76148060331755791702022-05-11T12:52:00.006-07:002022-05-22T01:29:24.289-07:00PARIS INSTALLS STATUE OF GUADELOUPE'S 'SOLITUDE'<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She's here now.
We can see her. She won’t be forgotten.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With these
words, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo on May 10 inaugurated a statue of Solitude, a woman
who fought against slavery in Guadeloupe, was sentenced to death by French
forces in 1802, and killed a day after giving birth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY1p8Or5HiEks5ccRvK2QPEUaWOd9xjdBVdUsP8ph2g0IN3s6PGbyM_YDfPYxfyYCqdbUOpUGKjH42N35EGiHmRjv4Fv0wl_i_7gm1UG9Sme1QpRkH-3gKXmdeY4fDoSeSkHOxjLDJI6JWlsLdYoo7r6LUt9IOYqzLu-O6S65fPwFWYe72xwnM27hj/s1259/Solitude%20statue.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1259" data-original-width="724" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY1p8Or5HiEks5ccRvK2QPEUaWOd9xjdBVdUsP8ph2g0IN3s6PGbyM_YDfPYxfyYCqdbUOpUGKjH42N35EGiHmRjv4Fv0wl_i_7gm1UG9Sme1QpRkH-3gKXmdeY4fDoSeSkHOxjLDJI6JWlsLdYoo7r6LUt9IOYqzLu-O6S65fPwFWYe72xwnM27hj/w230-h400/Solitude%20statue.jpg" width="230" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“History and
memory are part of our lives,” Hidalgo declared, pointing out that women however tended to be the "forgotten ones". She said the commemoration
was important not only for people today but also for future generations.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In France, May
10 is observed as the National Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade,
Slavery, and Their Abolition (la journée nationale des mémoires de la traite,
de l'esclavage et de leur abolition), and several events were held around the
country, including one with President Emmanuel Macron at the Jardin du
Luxembourg in the French capital - as in past years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The statue’s
inauguration formed part of these events, taking place in a symbolic location. “Solitude”
stands on the Général Catroux Square in the 17th arrondissement, in a garden that the city had already
named for her in September 2020.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Close by are monuments honouring famous writer
Alexandre Dumas (author of <i>The Three Musketeers</i>) and his father Thomas-Alexandre
Dumas - who was born into slavery in Saint Domingue (Haiti) and eventually became
a general in the French army.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Up to now, the
most striking feature of the square has been two huge “broken-chain” shackles
on the grass, created by artist Driss Sans-Arcidet and installed in 2009 as "Fers,
hommage au Général Dumas". It is around this iron sculpture that some associations
have been paying homage to the victims of slavery, since the national May-10 day
was launched in 2006. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaapTtliRYZMZcU9v7yvcEky0tnsYuMaMpY-70zF4hwYmP82j70kQ2P-uQay-j2kK0Q8VRCCPv0HJ04OFRotJhBGf980Pr8_hyvRwpgKwkJV8E40Z11Qbc3ExaR9tdG6aF9-HvgOSTRVKljU3kRAwlS1wvHHhFeHyvs2H-WnW7Wi77HDbj3kBDBTow/s4032/Solitude%20-%20shackles%20-%20Dumas.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaapTtliRYZMZcU9v7yvcEky0tnsYuMaMpY-70zF4hwYmP82j70kQ2P-uQay-j2kK0Q8VRCCPv0HJ04OFRotJhBGf980Pr8_hyvRwpgKwkJV8E40Z11Qbc3ExaR9tdG6aF9-HvgOSTRVKljU3kRAwlS1wvHHhFeHyvs2H-WnW7Wi77HDbj3kBDBTow/s320/Solitude%20-%20shackles%20-%20Dumas.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In fact, even
as Solitude’s statue was being inaugurated, another commemorative ceremony was
taking place just a few meters away, with music sometimes drowning out the voices
of Hidalgo and other official speakers (who included the statue’s creator -
artist Didier Audrat - and former French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault). </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Apparently, the organizers of the two events had not
consulted with one another, according to several spectators, who
called the “clash” a “pity”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile, the
statue’s inauguration drew a diverse crowd, who rushed to snap pictures of
themselves beside the monument when it was unveiled.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The almost
non-stop picture-taking sometimes felt jarring, but it was perhaps
understandable, given Solitude’s legendary role in slavery resistance in the Caribbean.
Beyond Guadeloupe, her life has been made known particularly through the work
of French writer André Schwarz-Bart, whose Guadeloupean widow and fellow writer,
Simone Schwarz-Bart, spoke at the inauguration, discussing his acclaimed novel <i>La
Mulâtresse Solitude</i> (<i>A Woman Named Solitude</i>). Schwarz-Bart said that
she and her late husband knew that the story had to be written.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbK2hxpChqpLOPxrCPlOdF5L3NxW_XjOnXpK3ljUE6xQNLvDm0ZVNNPgISMzgLvcwV8xQf4cPZuLMVKhFmklMYscBLNNmiLyZ3i6jqA227ytOXURYlEEt2QoZwqN9i7D4X9htLBn-Bjq_UFk_5fV5dksCEF63bIT6tCGX5jXZWK0QnG1TEbUXZiMFw/s892/Solitude%203.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="892" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbK2hxpChqpLOPxrCPlOdF5L3NxW_XjOnXpK3ljUE6xQNLvDm0ZVNNPgISMzgLvcwV8xQf4cPZuLMVKhFmklMYscBLNNmiLyZ3i6jqA227ytOXURYlEEt2QoZwqN9i7D4X9htLBn-Bjq_UFk_5fV5dksCEF63bIT6tCGX5jXZWK0QnG1TEbUXZiMFw/s320/Solitude%203.jpeg" width="269" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">According to Guadeloupean
teacher and translator Suzy Roche, both writers indeed worked to shine a light on the little-known aspects of Solitude's life and to "return her" to her people, as so many Caribbean heroes "have been lost to history".</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Solitude was
born circa 1772, some two decades before France first abolished slavery in
Guadeloupe (in 1794). She came of age during a period of uprisings, as people in
French colonies fought for their freedom, against the backdrop of the French
Revolution. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It was in 1802
that, while pregnant, she joined an uprising against French troops sent by
Napoleon Bonaparte, who wanted to reinstate slavery. The uprising was brutally
suppressed, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which has produced pedagogic material on
Solitude as part of a “Women in African History” project.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Researchers say
that she “was taken prisoner around 23 May 1802”, sentenced to death and
"suppliciée" (possibly tortured, flogged to death or hanged) on 29
November that year, a day after giving birth. That same year, France reinstated
slavery, before abolishing it again in 1848.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Solitude’s story
is a universal one that symbolises the fight for freedom and the current need
for continuous dialogue, said Hidalgo at the unveiling of the statue. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It also
symbolizes the struggle against racism and xenophobia - both of which are enduring
features of life in France, as various anti-discrimination organizations have
noted.<b><i> - SWAN</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Photos (top to
bottom, by A.M.): the statue of Solitude, by artist Didier Audrat; sculpture <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;">"Fers, hommage au Général Dumas" by Driss Sans-Arcidet; officials, including Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (centre) and former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (far left) posing with "Solitude". alongside writer Simone Schwarz-Bart (in sunglasses).</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>UNESCO info: <a href="https://en.unesco.org/womeninafrica/mulatto-solitude/pedagogical-unit/1">https://en.unesco.org/womeninafrica/mulatto-solitude/pedagogical-unit/1</a></i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-40056525754853632402022-04-30T02:20:00.010-07:002022-05-23T00:26:57.731-07:00MULTILINGUALISM VIEW: YOU ARE NOT YOUR LANGUAGE<p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">By
Valentina Vagliani</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>(The following article is a contribution to <i>SWAN</i>'s discussion of languages and translation, in collaboration with The Caribbean Translation Project.)</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a multilingual child, I remember feeling surrounded
by a variety of tones, rhythms and melodies, all at reach to seize and happily combine.
Every word you catch as a toddler is welcomed by marveling grownups; any
combination is allowed and whatever you formulate is seen as “adorable”.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9X4IKQjCcu0D_UBnr8BIiXYzE3OAH-JFXCKC8ioUflRE6VxoIjY1O6l6mQp_ZtwZv2yivxtkZpr75JoPqUUHSOexlkKjoU3doBi3IFavsFovmY_3qdouHoESbpUTVrnK4dw1DeC3lqBPqhebRiZP95gK-Y06oXKMRq3c8k5ih6wLqygeCKC1tXFi/s675/Valentina%202.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="675" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9X4IKQjCcu0D_UBnr8BIiXYzE3OAH-JFXCKC8ioUflRE6VxoIjY1O6l6mQp_ZtwZv2yivxtkZpr75JoPqUUHSOexlkKjoU3doBi3IFavsFovmY_3qdouHoESbpUTVrnK4dw1DeC3lqBPqhebRiZP95gK-Y06oXKMRq3c8k5ih6wLqygeCKC1tXFi/s320/Valentina%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Then comes the time for separation, when variety turns
into difference. You discover what is right and what is wrong in each separate
tongue, what is possible and what isn’t in one or the other, how unity must be shattered.
Each culture clearly sets its boundaries, but along with my growing knowledge
and love of these cultures, there was no single one growing inside me, and
never will be.</div></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Later, strangers, acquaintances and family started
asking questions: “Which one is your favorite?” “Which one is the strongest?” “You
must have a first language.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I can still see them, on the lookout for confirmation
of the answers they wanted to hear. I don’t think they were ever interested in the
actual frame of mind of the “whiz-kid”. One way or another, the response had to
fit their own assumptions.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I realize now how those innocent questions were all
about discrimination and grading, and how I instinctively protected my opposite
mindset as an inborn reflex of self-preservation. Why should I put my musical friends
- my languages - in rivalry, when I loved them all?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When you speak several languages, people assume you
are a born translator. What else could languages be useful for?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While you may or may not enjoy the challenge of
translation, the beauty of natural born multilingualism is precisely that there
is no need for translation. You don’t need to refer to a dominant culture to
understand another.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">However, a strange phenomenon occurs: you are always seen
as from the other country by locals, even your own kin. You are still a member
of the family, but a different one. I’ve heard that it happens to all expats as
well. Once you’ve seen your country from the outside, you become an outsider. You
are no longer really one of them. It’s not all bad, you stand out as an
exception, you attract attention and interest, but it affects your sense of
belonging.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGfrnzplSMfTYCv_uTPpVo0vZxGBWWQzzrfTa9f7zsG76BUyJauBhbn8wCoIOAyv4_Hhh2yCauj_jfaiN8G7WLcMsHe1PZ_Bza9Y8W9CxHesdzto57hY8nQYquV7D4MLuWLfJ4zdW2vcB8WhrT2TmrvN49vQqBRMfvNvmX6qsBbw75yk7o4PqqLGy/s3100/Toni%20Morrison.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2642" data-original-width="3100" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGfrnzplSMfTYCv_uTPpVo0vZxGBWWQzzrfTa9f7zsG76BUyJauBhbn8wCoIOAyv4_Hhh2yCauj_jfaiN8G7WLcMsHe1PZ_Bza9Y8W9CxHesdzto57hY8nQYquV7D4MLuWLfJ4zdW2vcB8WhrT2TmrvN49vQqBRMfvNvmX6qsBbw75yk7o4PqqLGy/s320/Toni%20Morrison.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Then your “exoticism” can become invasive. That
shouldn’t always be the source of interest towards you. It gets in the way of
what you want to say and to do with your life.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And that’s when someone says: “Come to think of it,
you’re really nothing, since you are none of them completely” (meaning none of
my three cultures). “Nothing personal…”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Seriously? Certainly nothing you can imagine.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The dismay caused by those words is reflected in Toni
Morrison’s famous quotation:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Somebody says you have no language and you spend
twenty years proving that you do.” (Portland State Public Lecture on the theme
of the American Dream, 1975)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was also told: one day “you’ll find your idiom”.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Multilingualism is a way of thinking, not only the
ability to switch languages. Is that what makes some people so uncomfortable?
Perhaps they can sense but cannot see, and therefore can’t quite understand or
even imagine the mind of the multilingual person? Yet, when we explain what we
experience, it doesn’t calm the threat, it just triggers more provocation, which
reveals denial of multilingualism’s specific characteristics. And it is this
denial that creates issues.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In people’s defense, the lack of words to represent
what exists in multilingual persons’ minds doesn’t help others to envisage the
possibility of what one describes. The expression “father tongue” is not as
commonly used as “mother tongue”, and how does one refer to the language you
acquire from attending school in another country? The lack of specific
terminology shows how little multilingual culture is represented.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To further describe the multilingual mindset, imagine
being everywhere at once, having a certain gift of ubiquity, as you can stand
in a culture while watching it from the perspective of another, and this,
without being watched in return.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Come to think of it, that in fact could be so
disturbing to some people that they just lose it. How else could several cultures
add up to nothing?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Fortunately, many individuals don’t need to know a
second or a third language to use their imagination and open their minds. Putting
thoughts into words is the first act of translation we all experience. Others love to learn foreign languages. They
enjoy discussing thoughts, concepts and are glad to explore the many ways of
thinking and possible representations of the human mind. And that, in the end,
is the most interesting part of life and of multilingualism.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Yes, you will find your idiom, it’s called freedom. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="FR"><i>Italian
and American, born in France, of Jamaican and Barbadian origins, Valentina
Vagliani is a dancer, singer and voice teacher based in Paris. She is
naturally trilingual and also speaks a fourth language.</i></span></b><b><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Editing by SWAN. Photos (top to bottom): Valentina Vagliani, by Rémi-Charles Caufman; image of Toni Morrison on the cover of </i>The Source of Self-Regard, <i>published by Knopf, 2019.</i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Follow the Caribbean Translation Project on Twitter: @CaribTranslate.</i></span></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-49791182992543822942022-03-28T07:57:00.017-07:002022-04-20T08:25:07.533-07:00FESTIVAL OF BRAZILIAN FILM IS BACK WITH MUSIC FOCUS<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Like many arts
events, the Brazilian Film Festival of Paris found itself scrambling to survive
when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Organizers first moved the programming
online because of lockdowns, and then changed the date to summer in 2021. Now,
the festival is back with live screenings of films that will take place in the
French capital March 29 to April 5.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQcv4sAESICyrWsQsRILEbbcBgXc7Mv7S5-pucHO-0w59_b8EFcXe8dbxq0bPNDjvajrt9nnEqESA_DvjHCyZr9Xn8i2NS62jzZU7bYwEnvCS0SSRKOf87BVnS3wOohvjWvqUBg9srisyZM5P6LJNzUABooNkhJJ_aPNgwtpu0Xada23WvX6kfEFS/s1080/Brazil%20Film%20fest%20of%20paris.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="1080" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQcv4sAESICyrWsQsRILEbbcBgXc7Mv7S5-pucHO-0w59_b8EFcXe8dbxq0bPNDjvajrt9nnEqESA_DvjHCyZr9Xn8i2NS62jzZU7bYwEnvCS0SSRKOf87BVnS3wOohvjWvqUBg9srisyZM5P6LJNzUABooNkhJJ_aPNgwtpu0Xada23WvX6kfEFS/s320/Brazil%20Film%20fest%20of%20paris.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This 24<sup>th</sup>
edition is putting the spotlight on music and on pioneering musicians, presenting Brazil’s greatest cultural export through different lenses, according to the
festival’s founder and director Katia Adler. A resident of Rio de Janeiro who
studied film in France and worked in television, Adler began distributing
Brazilian films in 1998 “as a way to show a different picture and to help
filmmakers at a time when culture was being pushed to the side-lines,” she said.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“When I was
working in television in the late Eighties and there was something about
Brazil, it was always negative, focusing on street children, drugs or poverty,”
she told SWAN in 2013 - a year that Brazil was the “guest of honour” throughout
France, with a range of cultural events.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While the
festival has faced difficulties since then, Adler says it has become an
important event in Europe, and she and her co-organizers are determined to see
it continue. The following edited interview with Adler took place in Paris via
telephone in March 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: The
pandemic affected the festival in 2020. How did you cope?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0i7UhqdniikfORBW-iFrfP3_n8z6krl0b2MkBiqBOgTt5SwL6-5HqsiUR3HRxIIlbV4uAIEw4ip9tSiBb8SpISrzbD1kFd0kA1l8BRPiMtFj7ahDiE15NewpqR26ZwogsJQzGZWuKWLgXuTLiPI7CVUXoV9N4cYNwMRUMNaJOqMRU5WCavp8-kqF/s3604/Brazil%20Film%20Fest%20-%20Katia%20Adler.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3604" data-original-width="2299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0i7UhqdniikfORBW-iFrfP3_n8z6krl0b2MkBiqBOgTt5SwL6-5HqsiUR3HRxIIlbV4uAIEw4ip9tSiBb8SpISrzbD1kFd0kA1l8BRPiMtFj7ahDiE15NewpqR26ZwogsJQzGZWuKWLgXuTLiPI7CVUXoV9N4cYNwMRUMNaJOqMRU5WCavp8-kqF/s320/Brazil%20Film%20Fest%20-%20Katia%20Adler.jpeg" width="204" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Katia Adler</b>: We
had to cancel the in-person screenings and go on-line. We had a selection of about
60 films and quite a number of virtual debates as well. Then in 2021, we moved
to July, for four days, with precautions. But people were still afraid to go to
the cinema, so our audience was smaller. Now we’re back to our format before
the pandemic, and I hope people will come out to see the films and that things
will be more or less back to normal. We hope we’ve left the pandemic behind us.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: What’s
happening at this year’s event?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>KA</b>: We have a line-up
of 29 films, and we’re really happy to be back with screenings in the cinema
because that’s important for viewers. We have 10 to 12 special guests coming from
Brazil - I think that’s significant too. And the festival can be seen as a
fighter because we’re still resisting negative trends even though we don’t have
a sponsor this year. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: Among the
notable films that will be screened, there is a documentary on renowned musician
Gilberto Gil, titled <i>Gilberto Gil - Antologia Vol.1 </i>and directed by Lula
Buarque de Hollanda. Can you tell you tell us more this?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>KA</b>: Yes, the
closing film of the festival is about Gilberto Gil, and it includes archival
footage that’s unknown to most people. The images come from his personal archive,
and it’s a very interesting film about him, about his life and music.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: Along
with this year’s theme of music, you’re also focusing on a work that had a
great impact on Brazilian filmmaking.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>KA</b>: We’ve
chosen a film by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, <i>Rio 40 Graus</i>, which somehow changed
the way that directors subsequently made movies because it was filmed in a
favela in Brazil, with Black actors, and that was significant. After this film,
Brazilian cinema changed a bit, but we’re still far from having representative Black
directors in Brazil. There’s still much to be done to portray and represent Black
Brazilians, who make up 50 percent of the population.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSBPlaZWvYpWTNRP4waD4k9suI7h5Ohmz3eMkvzRiYKgid5kNXEMdv5PdfrQza1U4zOe8YPoBzQEsdVFkAPCSLKgbl-hfylL8FPfrWf7_vISoh5yx4d539lSnLFWs8BEkJz3owhMQ42PgZ1zqHP29h0ztZAXo_NFRIt9b3WP7BSQKh4CBsJcysNVcE/s1920/Brazil%20Film%20Fest%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSBPlaZWvYpWTNRP4waD4k9suI7h5Ohmz3eMkvzRiYKgid5kNXEMdv5PdfrQza1U4zOe8YPoBzQEsdVFkAPCSLKgbl-hfylL8FPfrWf7_vISoh5yx4d539lSnLFWs8BEkJz3owhMQ42PgZ1zqHP29h0ztZAXo_NFRIt9b3WP7BSQKh4CBsJcysNVcE/s320/Brazil%20Film%20Fest%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our opening
film this year,<i> Pixinguinha </i>(directed by Denise Saraceni), is about a
great Brazilian musician and I think that it’s important for the festival to show
this film, and to have discussions and debates.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: Overall, what’s
the main importance of a festival such as yours, especially with the sizable Brazilian
community in France?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>KA</b>: In addition to the Brazilian community, about 70 percent of our audience consists of French
film fans who are interested in Brazilian culture, and the festival serves on
one hand to promote Brazilian cinema, but it also serves to highlight French
distributors of Brazilian films. France is the leading country for co-production
of films with Brazil. But Brazilian cinema is on average still not widely known.
It’s not like Brazilian music, which most people know, and which is played just
about everywhere. I think it’s fundamental to have a festival that has existed
for 24 years and which is a platform for Europe, because other countries ask
for the films after seeing them at the festival. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Photos (top to bottom): the poster for the Brazilian Film Festival of Paris; Katia Adler; and a shot from the film </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Pixinguinha. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Im</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ages are provided courtesy of the festival. </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>The festival is
also making about 8 films - features and documentaries - available online from
March 29 to April 30, 2022. <o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>For more information:
<a href="https://www.jangada.org/festival-events-fr/festival-du-cinema-bresilien-de-paris-24">Festival
du cinéma brésilien de Paris 24 - Festival - Jangada</a></i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-57419973539829285602022-03-14T10:44:00.001-07:002022-05-12T07:58:15.808-07:00ANGOLAN ARTIST BONGA KEEPS THE LIGHT SHINING<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With his latest
album <i>Kintal da Banda</i>, the acclaimed Angolan musician Bonga has reminded
us how valuable art can be in times of darkness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">From the first track,
which gives the album its name, listeners will feel their spirits lifting as
Bonga’s passionate, raspy voice and irresistible melodies take us to a sphere
of light. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintNGGo-1EmTAd0FgoYw5UhHcKMn3iFLalzVL1IsWIysUpLLx5tx7U-JulfC1dxQ_nTPQO6VEn4Dr36IyjOmGrWS1dPEiQKcf51IwccmQFRBUQuZn1EMbysk00GSDGC79JpbnSs3J_exkUggp6a3cQYv5dFA3j9GuQ9j5yylV_kmheX50QZDQAfePD/s260/Bonga.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="260" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintNGGo-1EmTAd0FgoYw5UhHcKMn3iFLalzVL1IsWIysUpLLx5tx7U-JulfC1dxQ_nTPQO6VEn4Dr36IyjOmGrWS1dPEiQKcf51IwccmQFRBUQuZn1EMbysk00GSDGC79JpbnSs3J_exkUggp6a3cQYv5dFA3j9GuQ9j5yylV_kmheX50QZDQAfePD/s1600/Bonga.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The collection
of songs celebrates his memories of growing up in Kiripi, Angola, and receiving an education in the courtyard of his family’s home. The album’s title
translates as “the Courtyard of the Place” or, perhaps more loosely, “Yard Band”,
and it recalls the area where Bonga “forged his social and political
conscience” and his “aptitude for tenderness and revolt”, as French author Anne-Laure
Lemancel puts it, in notes about the release.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The themes range
from family get-togethers and shared meals to the need for resistance against
the “dark forces” of the planet, no matter who they are – although Bonga asserts
that he doesn’t wish to get angry anymore because it’s detrimental to his health. The stories in the songs come alive through the melodies of semba, the traditional Angolan music genre that Bonga is
credited with popularizing on the international scene.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One of the album’s
highlights is <i>Kúdia Kuetu</i>, a duet with French singer Carmélia Jordana
that speaks of Angola’s famed cuisine, and which somehow evokes the sweet sadness
of songs by the late Cabo Verdean star Cesária Évora. (Both Bonga and Évora
were born in the early 1940s.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Other tracks,
such as <i>Kolenu</i> and <i>Sem Kijila</i>, recall Bonga’s long career of
activism and revolt, and even as we dance to the rhythm, the message is clear: keep
resisting the darkness and the warmongers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Listen to
Kúdia Kuetu here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejkcvasYyVM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejkcvasYyVM</a></span><o:p></o:p></i></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-66413658959231423802022-02-14T02:24:00.015-08:002022-02-14T11:38:12.350-08:00A CUBAN-BORN WRITER ON TRANSLATION'S 'VITAL' ROLE<p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">By
Marta Fernandez Campa</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Critically
acclaimed Cuban-American writer and translator Achy Obejas is the author of
many works of prose and poetry, including seminal texts such as <i>We Came all
the Way from Cuba so You Could Dress Like This?</i> (1994) and <i>Memory Mambo</i>
(1996). Obejas’ most recent publication, <i>Boomerang/Bumerán</i> (2021), is a
book of poetry that explores a wide range of themes,
including love, exile, politics, gender and language from a multilingual perspective.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Her
writing has been widely anthologised in collections such as <i>Cubana:
Contemporary Fiction by Cuban women</i> (1998, translated from Spanish), <i>Our
Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles</i> (2008),
and <i>Radical Hope: Letters of Dissent in Radical Times</i> (2017), to name a
few. She is also a journalist and has published investigative and opinion
articles for <i>The Chicago Tribune</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, <i>Out</i>,
<i>The Washington Post</i>, <i>The Village Voice </i>and other publications.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLkguoLYQWuOAWqczK2rjPdFrwAV8rtMQ9kqQqHQPzK88ZcLQCyBLSma0cjM-BCEu2JQIei8hu79S4eg5ZZ_3lzS44Q1U8FVqXrzsuHNp2tr5XkjBO5UOpJLzn_lLjbjUnD6rYYetpysiLd935cHsDpqO_Y3xlg6HDZMhGtcRMGdRmkEkxRDKKJXok=s1610" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1610" data-original-width="1337" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLkguoLYQWuOAWqczK2rjPdFrwAV8rtMQ9kqQqHQPzK88ZcLQCyBLSma0cjM-BCEu2JQIei8hu79S4eg5ZZ_3lzS44Q1U8FVqXrzsuHNp2tr5XkjBO5UOpJLzn_lLjbjUnD6rYYetpysiLd935cHsDpqO_Y3xlg6HDZMhGtcRMGdRmkEkxRDKKJXok=s320" width="266" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As
a translator, Havana-born Obejas has translated the writing of several authors,
including Caribbean writers Junot Díaz, Rita Indiana Hernández and Wendy Guerra.
She has translated into Spanish Díaz’s <i>The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar
Wao</i>, and translated into English Hernández’s novel <i>Tentacle </i>and
Guerra’s <i>Revolution Sunday</i> and <i>Everyone Leaves</i> (which has been
translated into several other languages as well).</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She
is the recipient of multiple awards, including a Lambda Award and a Pulitzer
Prize for her journalistic work, alongside National Endowment for the Arts and
Ford fellowships. Her most recent short story collection, <i>The Tower of the
Antilles</i> (2017), was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The following interview with Achy Obejas,
conducted by email, is part of <i>SWAN</i>’s series of conversations with translators
of Caribbean writing, in association with the Caribbean Translation Project.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"><b> How did your interest in translation begin?</b></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Achy Obejas:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I feel like I’ve always been doing translation. When
we first arrived in the U.S., I was six and took to English very quickly, so
that I became my family’s translator/interpreter. This meant that, for me,
translation came very naturally. It wasn’t until I began doing it
professionally that I realized it was actually a specific skill set, that it
wasn’t just what you did to help your (immigrant) parents along.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US">When I first moved to
Chicago, I began doing interpreting gigs: depositions, labor disputes, medical
emergencies. I had to learn new vocabulary, reconsider the casual Spanish of my
family, and the regional variants that often came into play.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjRqy1bdcXVrrDgJHI0iEvUnkWdkHY1f5ZPC-PzOuOwbzzYDa2O0N4nYIAZh0i5aIpz1nS6owCOQpLt8oQNrSDwFTdjKps987tTCSZpOSXPQ2TvzB3DunJsmHii_CDV_kBtsY-K3ZoCPQn6kU6faJWChz8sJKfVDwYubemXuz72-kK_NpqLoHn44BQs=s800" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="509" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjRqy1bdcXVrrDgJHI0iEvUnkWdkHY1f5ZPC-PzOuOwbzzYDa2O0N4nYIAZh0i5aIpz1nS6owCOQpLt8oQNrSDwFTdjKps987tTCSZpOSXPQ2TvzB3DunJsmHii_CDV_kBtsY-K3ZoCPQn6kU6faJWChz8sJKfVDwYubemXuz72-kK_NpqLoHn44BQs=s320" width="204" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">My first actual book
translation was an accident, really. Akashic Books editor Johnny Temple and I
agreed that I’d edit a Havana entry for their noir series. At the time, I
figured most of the writers I was thinking of using had translators or work
already translated, but the truth is we didn’t consider translation very much
at all. And then, when I started getting the translations, they were god-awful.
It soon became apparent that it was better, and easier, for me to just do the
translations than try and fix them. Johnny and I ended re-negotiating for
translation fees on top of the editing fee.</div></span><p></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US">After <i>Havana Noir</i>
came out, David Unger was gracious enough to recommend me to translate Junot
Díaz’s <i>Brief and Marvelous Life of Oscar Wao</i>. I honestly didn’t think I
stood a chance so when I was asked for a sample, I just went with a kind of
Spanglish that complemented what Junot was doing in English. I got the job, and
great reviews for the translation, and suddenly I was a translator of literary
fiction.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <b>You’ve translated the work of many Caribbean authors,
including Rita Indiana Hernández, Wendy Guerra and your own writing. Can you
tell us more about these collaborations and your process of translation? </b></span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.0.:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Every author is different. A lot depends on their
personality, the work, their own level of interest in the translation, their
own knowledge of English. Wendy just hands it (over) and trusts me to do her
right, and of course I cherish that trust. With Rita, I had a few questions but
it was mostly a hands-off situation.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US">I honestly prefer when
I’m left to my own devices, to ask questions when I have them but to not feel
too supervised. My worst experiences have been with authors who think they
speak English, for Spanish, well enough to intervene. It’s usually not the
case, and it requires a lot of diplomacy.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m a pretty
straightforward translator - I read the text and take notes for questions,
research, challenges and doubts. And then I dive in, chronologically, usually
one page per session, with several sessions in a given day. I re-read the
previous day’s work every morning. After each chapter, I back up and read from
scratch, just to make sure the voice is steady, that there aren’t connections
I’ve missed, that kind of thing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi78z30h9Z6ZPH1VlW0t2YCCzgyROqOgiApuTs1wv3eH8fSkwWzwGeEMAD9I6_84ZOm1jsrJLV__IfZMwhL2SQOeXBHX9kccGE4u5i0oWERpjixOeJbiDjMNADYFlNSDG3dF7BQMIhPdd61I3he1oh1M30dCMfeTRAO2TQeHdaHS4YUHfJbpPYwdGQt=s475" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi78z30h9Z6ZPH1VlW0t2YCCzgyROqOgiApuTs1wv3eH8fSkwWzwGeEMAD9I6_84ZOm1jsrJLV__IfZMwhL2SQOeXBHX9kccGE4u5i0oWERpjixOeJbiDjMNADYFlNSDG3dF7BQMIhPdd61I3he1oh1M30dCMfeTRAO2TQeHdaHS4YUHfJbpPYwdGQt=s320" width="213" /></a></div><span lang="DE"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition, I always hire a reader. This is particularly important to
me when I’m translating into Spanish for two reasons: one, because I’m
autodidactic in Spanish (all my formal education is in English) it’s important
to have that safety net, and, two, because I’m frequently translating into
variants that aren’t Cuban, I want to make sure that the voice is absolutely
true.</span></div></span><p></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <b>How important is translation for today’s world,
especially for communities that might be </b></span></span><b style="font-family: arial;">underrepresented?</b></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.O.:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I think it’s vital. I’m always disturbed by this
notion that the translator is somehow a traitor. The translator is a bridge, a
pathfinder, the one who makes communication possible. And communication is
imperative in our fractured world. And given that the world’s superpower
refuses to foster multilingualism, then I think translation is our only hope of
expanding minds and opening hearts. </span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <b>In the Caribbean, as in other regions, it sometimes
feels as if countries are divided by language. How can people in the literary
and education spheres help to bridge these linguistic “</b></span><span lang="DE"><b>borders"?</b></span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.O.:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I think the only way that’s real is to learn each
other’s stories, to get closer to each other’s lives. We do that by talking to
each other, which means we use translation as a bridge, not just to understand
each other’s language but each other’s experiences and how they shape each of
us.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"><b> How do you see literary translation evolving to reach
more readers?</b></span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.O.:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I think it’s a pretty exciting time to be a
translator, and a terrific time for discussions about the hows and whys of
translations. Language is always evolving but right now feels like a very
emphatic moment in terms of gender, disability, race and other political
concerns and how language frames these conditions. It seems to me I’m
constantly re-evaluating and reconsidering my approach.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlMPQZPBudq-w6-kajDn3s99-BdS9FZ7OUFaAKjl1BaMfIwI4v28F5nVxNfa6zxgN4liPWUzTpwhtncZm8u6Rwmeo-P1vn4EW8ZV6ttReijSRWFfnjtVM9WTOI7_qw6hMcptt76ZMAepRvb2QT11CJPmU7nw0dOV6C19QMrRNLfF1jb9u_n_vx9uOr=s1540" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1540" data-original-width="1036" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlMPQZPBudq-w6-kajDn3s99-BdS9FZ7OUFaAKjl1BaMfIwI4v28F5nVxNfa6zxgN4liPWUzTpwhtncZm8u6Rwmeo-P1vn4EW8ZV6ttReijSRWFfnjtVM9WTOI7_qw6hMcptt76ZMAepRvb2QT11CJPmU7nw0dOV6C19QMrRNLfF1jb9u_n_vx9uOr=s320" width="215" /></a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> The decade of Indigenous Languages begins in 2022.
Can you speak a little about what that can mean to the work of translators and
to translation generally?</span></b></span></div><p></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.O.:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Wider circulation, I hope, of indigenous texts. And
greater respect and honor for indigenous communities, their histories and
stories. And a greater understanding too of how much those languages have
infiltrated and influenced more widely used languages, especially European
languages. Because we owe a lot.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="DE">SWAN</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US">:</span><span lang="EN-US"> Congratulations on the
publication of </span><i><span lang="NL">Boomerang / Bumer</span></i><i><span lang="EN-US">á</span></i><i><span lang="DE">n</span></i><span lang="EN-US">, your
latest poetry collection. In its Author´s Note, you mention that you wanted to
write largely a gender-free text and you highlight the challenge particularly
with the sections in Spanish, a language that is marked by gender categories in
its grammar and that, as you say, “exists on the binary.” How do you see the
poems disrupting gender binaries as well as other binaries and discursive
levels?</span></b><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.O.:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Most of the time when we talk about inclusive
language in Spanish, it means degendering persons, but the rest of the language
remains gendered: the table is feminine, the coffee is masculine. I have yet to
understand why that’s okay in a supposed de-gendered text; I have yet to
understand the utilitarian nature of gender. So, in Boomerang/Bumerán, I
de-gendered the table and the coffee and everything in between. I don’t think
you kill the binary in persons but allow it in things; why? </span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US">This is, of course, an
intellectual and political exercise. Most of us only de-gender a little here
and there in our speech - todes, amigos, that kind of thing - but I wanted to
propose a vision of another possibility. Not the way necessarily, but a way.</span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">SWAN:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <b>What are your next projects? </b></span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">A.O:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I’m currently working on a novel. I’m excited about
returning to that form. </span></span></p><p class="Body" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US"><i>Photos (top to bottom): Writer and translator Achy Obejas; </i>Havana Noir <i>(Akashic Books); </i>Revolution Sunday <i>by Wendy Guerra, translated by Achy Obejas; the cover of </i>Boomerang/</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="NL">Bumer</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US">á</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="DE">n<i> by Achy Obejas.</i></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span lang="EN-US">Marta Fernandez Campa </span></i></b><b><i><span lang="EN-US">is a researcher and lecturer based in London, with
various research interests, including multi-lingual texts and the role of
translation.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Follow the Caribbean Translation Project on
Twitter: @CaribTranslate</span></i></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-86984980868981118952022-02-02T10:38:00.006-08:002022-02-03T11:47:24.899-08:00SCHOLAR SPOTLIGHTS EARLY ROLE OF RASTAFARI WOMEN<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
Rastafari movement, which began in Jamaica during the 1930s, has become internationally
known for its contribution to culture and the arts, as well as for its focus on
peace and “ital” living. Major icons include reggae musicians Bob Marley, Peter
Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Burning Spear, with the movement overall projecting a very
male image.</span></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">But women have
contributed significantly to the development of Rastafari, as Jamaican-born historian
Daive Dunkley has shown through his research. Rastafari women were
particularly active in the resistance against colonial rule in the first half
of the 1900s, and they created educational institutions for young people and helped
to expand the arts sphere in the Caribbean, among other work.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 18.15pt;">These
contributions are highlighted in Dunkley’s latest book, </span><i style="text-align: left; text-indent: 18.15pt;">Women and Resistance
in the Early Rastafari Movement</i><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 18.15pt;">, an essential addition to the history of
Rastafari - which scholars generally see as both a religious and social
movement. US-based Dunkley, an associate professor in the University of
Missouri’s Department of Black Studies and director of Peace Studies, spoke to
<i>SWAN</i> about his research, in an interview conducted by email and videoconference.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left; text-indent: 18.15pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What inspired your research on women’s role in the
early Rastafari movement?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUPWMgKJ8DP3xWxQBAfdSaMwuWgs4VXro73JSbQBo5bR3i92jh5jSVmmZ5Oey7WRkwMywjRv7rj0gxl-9tPn41j5nlYCv0W9sGOcCrRfgist4C7NI7sLtzPC-8EjglNWdtRWp2nkgLfry4VAiBEkUKNVvhB4RqV3wxUlpJuc9Ygs6wB-k_2eIf1EIj=s4800" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4800" data-original-width="3200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUPWMgKJ8DP3xWxQBAfdSaMwuWgs4VXro73JSbQBo5bR3i92jh5jSVmmZ5Oey7WRkwMywjRv7rj0gxl-9tPn41j5nlYCv0W9sGOcCrRfgist4C7NI7sLtzPC-8EjglNWdtRWp2nkgLfry4VAiBEkUKNVvhB4RqV3wxUlpJuc9Ygs6wB-k_2eIf1EIj=s320" width="213" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US">Daive Dunkley</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="text-align: left;">: There is a story here. My inspiration
for writing about women’s role in the early Rastafari developed from research I
had been doing since 2009 on Leonard Howell, one of the four known founders of
the movement. I quickly realized that women were a significant force in the
group that became known as the Howellites and were critical to all their
considerable initiatives. These included developing the first self-sufficient
Rastafari community, known as Pinnacle.</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hundreds
of women joined the estimated 700 people of the Pinnacle community in 1940,
located in the hills of St. Catherine, Jamaica. I realized too that the women
had been part of establishing the Ethiopian Salvation Society (ESS) in 1937 and
were members of its governing board. They were secretaries and decisionmakers,
including Tenet Bent, who married Howell. Bent was one of its leaders and
financial backers. She also had connections in middle-class Jamaica that proved
critical to the development of the ESS as a benevolent Rastafari organization.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Interestingly
the ESS created a constitution written chiefly by women who called it a “Christian
charity.” And some of its first outreach programs were also clearly determined
by women, such as providing relief in the form of food and clothing to
survivors of natural disasters in several parts of Jamaica in the late 1930s. In
2014, I decided to focus my research on the activities of the early women, who
came predominantly from the peasantry. The colonial government and newspapers
largely ignored the activism and leadership of these women in the development
of the Rastafari movement.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Were you surprised by the information you discovered?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>D.D.:</b> I
was not surprised by my information about women’s political, economic, and
cultural activism within the early Rastafari movement. My earlier research on
the antislavery activities of enslaved people included research on women. Despite
slavery, these women remained active in the resistance - undermining, escaping,
or abolishing slavery altogether. I found out that women’s role in the early Rastafari
encountered silencing by the colonial system. We helped maintain this silencing
in later writing about the early movement. What I read in terms of secondary
scholarship was largely androcentric. I learned the names of the four known
founders and some other prominent men. They engaged the colonial system unapologetically
as Rastafari leaders. I read nothing similar about women, which I found pretty
strange.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihSO9OEW0ovw0-PH01VGV-SmYx_aZMr6m2V5ZO-wtf8bHruOkhjTJn4f2uwMPpIWvoM2lwbnY4CXao2A2mRQpIbkC0it1O9amX54GP8iVJKSvPlU4N5nZk-hZN27vL5B2HiBiyaF__CoLXIDvWZWtx4KoWxT6jcUKrJ_zfdLLlt-L8oK68oKnUQy3W=s2550" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2550" data-original-width="1650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihSO9OEW0ovw0-PH01VGV-SmYx_aZMr6m2V5ZO-wtf8bHruOkhjTJn4f2uwMPpIWvoM2lwbnY4CXao2A2mRQpIbkC0it1O9amX54GP8iVJKSvPlU4N5nZk-hZN27vL5B2HiBiyaF__CoLXIDvWZWtx4KoWxT6jcUKrJ_zfdLLlt-L8oK68oKnUQy3W=s320" width="207" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Moreover,
when women were portrayed, including by British author Sheila Kitzinger in the
1960s, it was essentially to reflect on how marginal they were in the movement.
By the way, for me, the early Rastafari movement dates from the 1930s to the
end of the 1960s. Women in the 1960s were members of the early action, and many
joined from the 1930s through the 1950s. In other words, early women were
members of Rastafari during and after the colonial system. This system was far
more devastating in its attitudes towards Rastafari than the early postcolonial
government of Jamaica that took over with the island’s political independence
in 1962.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rastafari
obtained a male-dominated image from the mid to late 1950s with devastating consequences
for all the movement’s women. The colonial system successfully imposed a veil
of silence on women, resulting in our ignorance of these women. More research using
interviews with and about women and closer reading of the colonial archives,
including the newspapers, helped me uncover some of the hidden histories of the
women in the early movement. I was inspired to continue searching for these
stories because I knew that Black women were never silent in the previous history
of the Caribbean or before the genesis of Rastafari in 1932.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What was the most striking aspect of this story?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="text-align: left;"><b>D.D.:</b> This
question is a difficult one to answer because all these stories involving women
were fascinating or striking. But if I were to venture an answer to the
question, I would say that the story about the women who petitioned the
government for fairness and justice in 1934 stands tall among the most striking.
I’ve written elsewhere about this story in a </span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blog.lsupress.org/documenting-oppression/?fbclid=IwAR3lIq_TiHQxVRURA3hSpHkH3t2dfd7GGmaWs1OIWhYZasW6JQeHWdX6s3M">blog</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-align: left;"> for the
book published by LSU Press. I said that the women who petitioned the
government for justice and fairness showed their awareness of the power of
petitions in the history of the Black freedom struggle in Jamaica and the
Caribbean.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="text-align: left;">These women organized themselves to defy the colonial police,
justices of the peace, and resident magistrate. These entities had dedicated themselves
to silencing Rastafari women and men. The women submitted their petitions to
the central government. They did so in a coordinated fashion to ensure that the
colonial officials did not ignore the pleas.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You
will have to read the book to get a fuller sense of what happened due to these
petitions. I will say that engaging with the government showed an effort not to
escape from the society but rather to transform colonial Jamaica into a just
and fair society. The women wanted the island’s Black people to see themselves
improving. They wanted Jamaica to reflect their aspirations. The activities
aimed at accomplishing this wish were among the most significant contributions
of early Rastafari women. They were not escapists. They were radical
transformationalists if we want a fancy term.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3CFXPHDDtCj-sIwC5oIEZVXF7lGGrLf4Gt2RGMNiShliktIx2uj4WRl1OmI0uNGVS92Uwvlj3xBCsUdVxsVxKueZL_AXZ4Dsnh-A927neN0hSjqzvZ4IFDOoxcuuipjeg8goffb_3wqKJXgNMUWOR5i98dJYR2Yq9ZcbwXPw8yx9bXkJNWq1eUS0k=s2086" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2086" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3CFXPHDDtCj-sIwC5oIEZVXF7lGGrLf4Gt2RGMNiShliktIx2uj4WRl1OmI0uNGVS92Uwvlj3xBCsUdVxsVxKueZL_AXZ4Dsnh-A927neN0hSjqzvZ4IFDOoxcuuipjeg8goffb_3wqKJXgNMUWOR5i98dJYR2Yq9ZcbwXPw8yx9bXkJNWq1eUS0k=s320" width="166" /></a></div><b style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How important is this particular segment of history
to Jamaica and the world, given the international contributions of the
Rastafari movement?</span></span></b></span></b></div></b></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>D.D.:</b> Rastafari’s
early history is critical to understanding both the history of Jamaica and the
African diaspora at the time. People like to think of the internationalization
of the Rastafari movement as starting from the 1960s and growing from there.
However, my research on early Rastafari women has confirmed that this is not
true. Rastafari was formulated with an international perspective and
established ongoing connections with the global Black freedom struggle from its
very beginning. The women also helped establish relations with Ethiopia on a
political level that included fundraising, organizing, and participating in protests
against fascist Italy’s aggression and subsequent occupation of Ethiopia in
1936-1941.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition,
women protected the Rastafari’s historic theocratic interpretations of the
coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie I and Empress Menen Asfaw in 1930. The
coronation event was critical to inspiring the genesis of the Rastafari
movement. Women such as the previously mentioned Tenet Bent maintained the
correspondence with the International African Service Bureau (IASB) through one
of its founders, George Padmore, the Trinidadian Marxist based in London. The
women knew that the organization evolved out of the International African
Friends of Abyssinia formed in London in 1935 to organize resistance against
Italy’s attempts to colonize Ethiopia.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">In 1937,
Padmore created the IASB with help from other Pan-Africanists from the
Caribbean and worldwide, including CLR James, Amy Ashwood Garvey, ITA
Wallace-Johnson, TR Makonnen, Jomo Kenyatta, and Chris Braithwaite, the
Barbadian labor leader. The early Rastafari women preserved the history of
Rastafari’s attempts to engage with the global Garvey movement from 1933,
though disappointed by Garvey’s unwillingness to meet with Rastafari founder
Leonard Howell.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Women,
however, helped preserve the movement’s links to Garvey’s Back nationalist
ideology to maintain the Pan-African political consciousness of the African diaspora.
Women also read and discussed the literature of Pan-Africanist women writers
such as Amy Bailey. The newspapers of Sylvia Pankhurst, the British socialist
and suffragist, also kept the early Rastafari women abreast of developmental
initiatives in Ethiopia.</span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi28SQWqRkC7FRZuvmlcgy_VhGvJfkfzHas9J0Rnm3RO4PfHTF7zcTP8Yd8fzJZn2WlHuXdzNDC1g_gm8tAEawFmtkrk3CcXcMZpomwZ8lRFippSSJGGcnf6jI_1aLfrmTh1BsLG1WAwHp-c7QS5S3wM-cSEewDBcRMlV4yXN937Di7cAoVX5jdsjh3=s1931" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1931" data-original-width="1069" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi28SQWqRkC7FRZuvmlcgy_VhGvJfkfzHas9J0Rnm3RO4PfHTF7zcTP8Yd8fzJZn2WlHuXdzNDC1g_gm8tAEawFmtkrk3CcXcMZpomwZ8lRFippSSJGGcnf6jI_1aLfrmTh1BsLG1WAwHp-c7QS5S3wM-cSEewDBcRMlV4yXN937Di7cAoVX5jdsjh3=s320" width="177" /></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Undoubtedly,
the 1960s onwards brought further development of this international focus,
especially with the development of Reggae and primarily through the touring by Bob
Marley and the Wailers in the 1970s. However, much of the success of Reggae was
due to its Rastafari consciousness developed in the 1930s. This consciousness
centered on the African origins of humans and empowered Reggae with a message
of morality, peace, and justice that appealed to people worldwide.</span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: From a gender standpoint, how significant would you
say the research is for Jamaica, the Caribbean?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>D.D.:</b> The
early history of Rastafari women revealed some crucial developments in the
story of gender and its dynamics in the modern history of the African diaspora.
The early women challenged gender disparity inside and outside the movement
from the 1930s’ inception of Rastafari. Many of these women had been part of
empowered women congregations in the traditional churches, namely the Baptist church.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Still, they felt that Rastafari focused more on their African ancestry and
therefore was more relevant to their social uplift. Among the gender
discussions initiated by women was equality between the emperor and empress of
Ethiopia, whereas men saw the emperor as the returned Messiah. The women
proposed that the empress and emperor were equal and constituted the messianic message
of the coronation event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1930.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Women
also ensured that they participated in preaching the Rastafari doctrine on the
streets </span><span style="font-family: arial;">of Jamaica from the early 1930s. They defended men arrested and tried
for their involvement in Rastafari. Many women also ended up imprisoned for
their defense of the movement and its use of cannabis. Women were present
during the court proceedings as witnesses and supporters. Their willingness to
engage the justice system revealed to colonial officials that the male focus in
suppressing Rastafari would continue to fail unless they paid attention to
women.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5OHfJpmJRaqi6VlHFcEyxajG-eSDIIdCNy0TVAh1EKgpNDtqurSruqr0i9aT0SYvU8HdmY6lbLvcFaeRu0WozE7k2mXeJdbrzIS460H6_raW4JTEz7wojI3AhXz2M8BHFQtjtIg6MqCmjWFJNpa-r3pyHD5WBcAPa1SpRZMbpt3rpP8Kl21C1v-I9=s479" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="479" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5OHfJpmJRaqi6VlHFcEyxajG-eSDIIdCNy0TVAh1EKgpNDtqurSruqr0i9aT0SYvU8HdmY6lbLvcFaeRu0WozE7k2mXeJdbrzIS460H6_raW4JTEz7wojI3AhXz2M8BHFQtjtIg6MqCmjWFJNpa-r3pyHD5WBcAPa1SpRZMbpt3rpP8Kl21C1v-I9=s320" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
women carried on the Pinnacle community in the 1930s through 1950s when the
police arrested the men. As my book discusses, women were at the center of
initiating the most significant Rastafari organization of the late 1950s, the
African Reform Church of God in Christ. One of its two founders was Edna E. Fisher.
She was prosecuted for treason-felony and did not attempt during the trial to
hide the fact that she was the owner of the land on which they built their organization.
Fisher considered herself the brigadier of the movement. However, scholars have
named the events and the trial after her partner and future husband, Claudius
Henry. Still, Fisher was instrumental in the leadership and creating the
organization’s cultural and political objectives.</span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Why did the Rastafari movement become so
male-oriented in later decades?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>D.D.:</b> My
research has shown that Rastafari became male-oriented mainly in the 1950s.
This change was primarily a response to the attempts of the colonial regime to suppress
the movement. Its male leaders and many male followers decided they needed “male
supremacy” to fight “white supremacy.” Scholarship on the Black freedom
struggle in the United States has also disclosed this decision. Despite this
reorientation towards male centrism, women continued to play pivotal roles inside
and outside leadership positions.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Initially,
it made sense for many women to capitalize on the image of male power to protect
the movement because of the targeting of male members by the government. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3dK3Z_VJOQuJoLOvqIMIU_xTcEaEZbqSZB4z8MgUHGgJea7YY_pi27d7q-c306R5VRwvO7ypnw_MS0Oy04qceFO9Ha96KtOKlTjCllWvzoVOG5u3f2Gj_gPXPFxwmZgHY8LxZVDDNAkMQNB5o1KbjDobawxF3ZsLdRGTDnFEHzRL0UsfvPSZBInUW=s2659" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2353" data-original-width="2659" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3dK3Z_VJOQuJoLOvqIMIU_xTcEaEZbqSZB4z8MgUHGgJea7YY_pi27d7q-c306R5VRwvO7ypnw_MS0Oy04qceFO9Ha96KtOKlTjCllWvzoVOG5u3f2Gj_gPXPFxwmZgHY8LxZVDDNAkMQNB5o1KbjDobawxF3ZsLdRGTDnFEHzRL0UsfvPSZBInUW=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However,
state officials eventually recognized that targeting men could not end Rastafari.
They needed to take a gender-equitable approach to suppress the movement. That recognition
would lead to the detention of many women by the police on charges of
disorderly conduct, showing animosity towards state officials, such as police
and judges.</div></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Of
course, many women also faced cannabis charges. The male orientation of the
movement continued into the independence period of Jamaica primarily due to the
men seeking to consolidate power. Many cultural and philosophical attitudes
developed around this male-centered identity that started in the 1950s. The male
focus continues within the movement despite women challenging these attitudes
using notions of gender equality inherited from earlier women.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How did the book come about?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-align: left;"><b>D.D.:</b> I
started to write chapters for the book in 2014 and revised them over the next seven
years. One of the strategies I used was to return to some of the women and men
I interviewed to ensure that the information was consistent with what they had
told me previously. I also expanded the archival research to include Great
Britain and the United States materials. Regarding research materials for the
book’s writing, the most important sources were the Jamaica Archives, the
British Archives, the Smithsonian, and the newspapers, particularly Jamaica’s </span><i style="text-align: left;">Daily
Gleaner</i><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What do you hope readers will take away from it
overall?</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>D.D.:</b> One
of the things I hope will happen with this book is that it stimulates further
research into women’s role in founding the Rastafari movement. That part of the
history needs analysis that I think will expand our understanding of how Rastafari
came about and give a complete picture of the critical figures in founding this
movement. I believe women were vital to both the genesis and initial
development of Rastafari, who had been articulating its consciousness before the
1930 coronation of the empress and emperor of Ethiopia.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-align: left;">It
is clear from my research that women read the same materials men read and gradually
developed their ideas about Rastafari consciousness independently of men. I
also hope the book will inspire people to see poor Black women as agents of historical,
social changes in the history of the African diaspora. These women had
meaningful conversations regarding materializing social change for the greater
good. I’m hoping readers see these women as intellectual catalysts and
activists who helped shape the evolution of the modern African diaspora. These
women were critical to the decolonization process, for example. </span><b style="text-align: left;"><i>– AM / SWAN</i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-align: left;"><i><span lang="EN-US">Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement </span></i></b><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US">is published
by Louisiana State University Press.</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photos (top to bottom): Dr Daive Dunkley (courtesy of the University of Missouri); the cover of Dunkley's book (courtesy of LSU Press); Tenet Bent (courtesy of Month Howell); </span></span></b><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">Bob Marley - <i>Songs of Freedom</i></span></span></b><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">; an image from one of Dunkley's scholarly presentations; </span></span></b><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">artwork from the reggae CD <i>Inna de Yard</i>.</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -0.3pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">Follow SWAN on Twitter @mckenzie_ale.</span></span></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-58846623423241372842022-01-26T10:48:00.002-08:002022-01-26T10:57:18.804-08:00A FILMMAKER’S INDICTMENT OF EXPLOITATION, VIOLENCE <p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">By Dimitri
Keramitas</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Few titles are
as painfully ironic as that of Thierry Michel’s excellent but wrenching
documentary <i>Empire of Silence</i>, about the long wars in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo - a country that human rights observers don’t consider to
be “democratic”, and which doesn’t perhaps qualify as a “republic”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Yet, as the
Belgian director’s lush footage makes clear, this vast land in central Africa
could be something akin to paradise. The rolling, forested hills and valleys,
the nestling villages, evoke endless fecundity, while the enormous Congo River provides
a lifeline to much of the country. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJjTMJq0iD9THVTJyv6eP8E6v6dr5t5cEDx5sAkUYWquOI21TGMgnJP982UMi3UbuUdrVoLAVQ7mK-G7A-9EIEUgIvXI-8sVdEGRRRqMZBs3sONQZYnCyiAVMWapm1-Ltl63Zj0pefFFsKgDJkwDwLqgfticapWbPrs_kqITCCz4ZYVAGjJMshmGtE=s1251" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1251" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJjTMJq0iD9THVTJyv6eP8E6v6dr5t5cEDx5sAkUYWquOI21TGMgnJP982UMi3UbuUdrVoLAVQ7mK-G7A-9EIEUgIvXI-8sVdEGRRRqMZBs3sONQZYnCyiAVMWapm1-Ltl63Zj0pefFFsKgDJkwDwLqgfticapWbPrs_kqITCCz4ZYVAGjJMshmGtE=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The filmmaker
shows the rural population comprising hardy, salt-of-the-earth folk, “beautiful” from the point of view of the camera even in leathery-skinned age - and even in
the midst of great suffering. Michel also depicts the French-speaking elites as
well as the corrupt warlords, who all give viewers a sense of the talent and
energy that have gone to waste in the conflicts.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When the Nobel Laureate
Denis Mukwege, a doctor and human rights activist, says in the film<span style="color: red;"> </span>that Congo is the “world’s wealthiest nation”, he
inadvertently steps towards the slippery slope. For it is the monetization of “paradise”
(turning it into an “empire”) that is at the root of a long history of
unspeakable brutality. In the past it was minerals such as gold, nickel,
copper, then “blood diamonds”, still a lucrative business. Now high tech - smartphones,
electric cars, batteries - have made the country an important source of cobalt
and rare earths. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Michel isn’t
interested in presenting us with an artsy impressionistic documentary. Although
the film is extraordinarily vivid, he’s an old-fashioned documentary filmmaker
who wants to teach his public. He uses old news footage (including recyclings
of his own work), superimposed maps of different regions, talking-head
interviews and his own intoning voiceover taking us through the country’s
history. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPG-P8p2dS3mLt9iYCOH0fyvt-64PNONHjJud-3GOmOa4KrRxqeFF5qk6ohHjjAum4r3lhL7ebQDcRGUdvQUUTWlRgFSN4lQhYWJ5LZ2vfoLRn1zvwVqmyrCI-rKH78qBMFtMIqX6be8-uzEEoMK1QFQKjw2VnkSUyC_1_BJJnAwDuNliUAl7lwIjQ=s1024" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="726" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPG-P8p2dS3mLt9iYCOH0fyvt-64PNONHjJud-3GOmOa4KrRxqeFF5qk6ohHjjAum4r3lhL7ebQDcRGUdvQUUTWlRgFSN4lQhYWJ5LZ2vfoLRn1zvwVqmyrCI-rKH78qBMFtMIqX6be8-uzEEoMK1QFQKjw2VnkSUyC_1_BJJnAwDuNliUAl7lwIjQ=s320" width="227" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After the
ravages of Belgian colonialism - which Michel doesn’t address in this film -
the more recent origins of Congo’s ordeal, aside from greed for mineral wealth,
have been Cold War politics, mainly the U.S. government’s unwavering support
for dictator Mobutu Sese Seku, who ruled for decades. (The director also
doesn’t delve back into the CIA-linked assassination of the revolutionary
idealist Patrice Lumumba.) One unpalatable “truth” - and there are many in this
story - is that Mobutu did keep Congo (then called Zaire) “stable” and unified
for years.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mobutu, finally
old and ailing, was overthrown by an unlikely rebel leader named Laurent Kabila.
The footage the director shows of Kabila, interviews and his swearing-in
ceremony (conducted in French), depicts a bald, round-faced, heavy-set man,
with an ingratiating smile.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A long-time
opponent of Mobutu as far back as the 1960s, the famed revolutionary Che
Guevara, during his Congolese adventure, noted Kabila’s fecklessness. How could
such a man force his way to power? For Michel, essentially two reasons: Rwanda
and Uganda. Both countries wanted to pillage Congo as much as Western robber-imperialists
- Rwanda eventually became one of the world’s largest exporters of (Congolese)
diamonds. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When the
Congolese people got sick of the foreign intrusions, Kabila ordered out Rwandan
troops, including an officer who was a high official in the Congolese
army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon afterwards the president was
assassinated by his own bodyguard. More grotesque ironies, with evil emerging
from the good: Rwandan leader Paul Kagame, who overthrew the genocidaires in
his nation, and became the West’s example of African modernization, is the
chief villain of the documentary. He pursued not just renegade Hutu killers in
Congo borderlands, but also refugees, perhaps because they might one day
support and join the extremists. Many were abducted and forced back to Rwanda,
many were slaughtered. Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who’d defeated the mass
murderers Idi Amin and Milton Obote, was another “development” icon, but he
wound up as Kagame’s partner in crimes against humanity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The successor
to Kabila was his son, Joseph Kabila, who ruled for a number of years, during
which time Rwandan and Ugandan influence prevailed once again, and violence
continued to be the order of the day. Michel puts together a sort of montage of
Joseph Kabila that is fascinating to watch, in a very disturbing way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We see his
swearing-in ceremony, which is an eerie repeat of his father’s, and also glimpses
of him as president at various times. But the most intriguing footage is one of
him before his father came to power, when he too was a rebel in uniform. This
contradicts the idea of Joseph Kabila as just an entitled fils à papa. We can’t
help wondering if he may even have been complicit in his own father’s death,
though no evidence has emerged, only the fact of Kabila blithely dealing with
the regimes that certainly wanted the father dead <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhak13D-i-H_CyhS8GU2I8EwFvHMGl2_Dc0MKl3a906yeY4Q5Ba3B3jvtBVn0lqTsiJCYDmVsWWxtWFcodGLzY0vUL0FxD8pVwvZKEtjShR-1LRC-QXzoTANYmj8eyqqYGzmVvBzrlZehztNcitQJadfdAGHZf7YzRwCeZBVRvfVc2DWAoD4gKq2-sr=s1920" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhak13D-i-H_CyhS8GU2I8EwFvHMGl2_Dc0MKl3a906yeY4Q5Ba3B3jvtBVn0lqTsiJCYDmVsWWxtWFcodGLzY0vUL0FxD8pVwvZKEtjShR-1LRC-QXzoTANYmj8eyqqYGzmVvBzrlZehztNcitQJadfdAGHZf7YzRwCeZBVRvfVc2DWAoD4gKq2-sr=s320" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Such an
extraordinary parade of political villains is dispiriting. Fortunately, Michel
gives us a number of moral counterweights. Dr. Mukegwe is the most obvious one,
but there are several others: an exiled journalist who speaks truth to power;
another doctor, who was nearly killed for refusing to transfer corpses from a
mass grave to conceal the crimes of marauding soldiers; a pastor whose congregation
and hospital patients were massacred, but who remained in place. Then a number
of international dignitaries and human rights activists, the most prominent
being Italian official Emma Bonino. But certain ostensibly sympathetic US congressmen
seem to reciting boilerplate, or the usual clichéd condemnations, of which the
effects have been nil.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The chilling
nadir, and taunting riposte to humanitarian efforts, comes with Michel’s
recounting of the murder of two UN human rights investigators, an American man
and Swedish-Chilean woman. Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan were investigating
crimes against humanity committed by warlords and got too close to a node of
power. Phone video shows armed men leading them away from the road where they were
accosted. We then see first Sharp, followed by Catalan, shot to death.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgq0HMzZJRXtD63DU8B__hXgKt_lFiZ_cr2rdYs0G9_tP3FVfsc2QYQcqOsf4JfdG9jCrrqfOg8p-Z3ndjiJaUeQsc4XguzAivOxCyJ5IrnB4bYp3seJUA0j86KqY_tY6p_09PNFvMYbXz2VgzLvKiO1iczMeg6UbOx1DIehAuNQ-g6_e-7Rol6HVHZ=s1210" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="1210" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgq0HMzZJRXtD63DU8B__hXgKt_lFiZ_cr2rdYs0G9_tP3FVfsc2QYQcqOsf4JfdG9jCrrqfOg8p-Z3ndjiJaUeQsc4XguzAivOxCyJ5IrnB4bYp3seJUA0j86KqY_tY6p_09PNFvMYbXz2VgzLvKiO1iczMeg6UbOx1DIehAuNQ-g6_e-7Rol6HVHZ=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No one has been
prosecuted for the crime, no government or political faction punished. On one
hand, after so much grisly violence and suffering, we can question whether the
murders of two individuals should be held up as the ultimate atrocity simply
because they were white professionals.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But the lack of action by international
authorities and Western governments does indicate the utter impunity which
reigns. This impunity is the “silence” of the title, the omerta that extends
from cowed villagers to Western halls of power.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The director
has accomplished a great deal by depicting in vivid texture and comprehensible
form the complexity of Congo’s tragedy. But as the story continues into the
contemporary moment, we would like him to name some names of the present-day
corporate and political criminals responsible for the ongoing situation, and
also to examine the legacy of Belgian colonialism, even if he might have
already done so in other films.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Michel tries to
end on an uplifting note by showing us some sort of tribunal proceeding. It’s
not clear where this is taking place, or under whose auspices. Who are the
juridical-looking persons presiding, and what are the supposed results supposed
to be? We see victims testifying, and villagers chanting in unison about past
crimes. The first at least seem authentic; the latter have obviously been
rehearsed. Was this a pantomime put on by the Congolese regime, or a “truth and
reconciliation” event sponsored by an NGO? The lack of clarity is frustrating,
and not very convincing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Yet Thierry
Michel is, on the whole, to be applauded for making this film, as well as his
documentary on Dr. Mukegwe (<i>L</i>’<i>Homme
qui répare les femmes / The Man Who Repairs Women</i>) and several other films about Congo - they
should be required viewing for any number of officials and activists, even if
another irony is that a Belgian filmmaker is producing such documentaries. <b><i>–
SWAN<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>All photos courtesy of JHR Films (distribution). </i>Empire of Silence<i> </i></b><b><i>will be in cinemas from March 16. </i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Dimitri
Keramitas is a writer and legal expert based in Paris.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-28700556759973966182022-01-07T02:43:00.010-08:002022-01-10T05:52:12.542-08:00CALYPSO: A CARIBBEAN BOOKSTORE WARMS UP PARIS<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When you step
into Librairie Calypso, it feels like being home. The French capital’s first
bookstore for Outre-mer and Caribbean literature has a warm, cosy
ambiance, with founder-director Agnès Cornélie making sure visitors feel
welcome.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Located in the dynamic 11th arrondissement, this is the place for fans of authors such as Maryse Condé, Aimé Césaire, and Patrick
Chamoiseau - who all hail from the French-speaking Caribbean; the bookstore provides an extensive selection of their work, alongside literature from
other overseas (Outre-mer) territories, including Guiana and Réunion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWbOyE5RK_J8662VFVfLEz0aE2hiptrdGePJpmlBzuWE01LD9suONI3dsOTrn3Vna5w6tpV58OlPoLwYWvOkxxxRbfXSkWnsR5x82WP1WjFrtc-AzLhSNQdghSHChIAc-dBGrmCNINWOTjHbfNFqVfLSlBPSzhvPvL6aUq_hQylDGM0uzle72VAbr1=s3615" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3005" data-original-width="3615" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWbOyE5RK_J8662VFVfLEz0aE2hiptrdGePJpmlBzuWE01LD9suONI3dsOTrn3Vna5w6tpV58OlPoLwYWvOkxxxRbfXSkWnsR5x82WP1WjFrtc-AzLhSNQdghSHChIAc-dBGrmCNINWOTjHbfNFqVfLSlBPSzhvPvL6aUq_hQylDGM0uzle72VAbr1=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile Derek
Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid and many newer Anglophone Caribbean writers are equally represented, among the books in French translation from across the region.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Librairie Calypso also functions as a venue for
book launches and for a range of literary events, and it's becoming a beacon for those wishing to discover the richness of Caribbean writing - from Belize to Guadeloupe. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>SWAN</i> recently spoke with Ms Cornélie
about her exciting venture, and an edited version of the bilingual interview (done in association with the
Caribbean Translation Project) follows. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Why
did you decide to open a bookstore for Outre-mer and Caribbean books?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AGNÈS
CORN</b></span><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">É</span></span></b><b style="font-family: arial;">LIE</b><span style="font-family: arial;">: J’ai souhaité
ouvrir une librairie spécialisée sur les ouvrages des Outre-mer et des Caraïbes
car il me semblait important de mettre en valeur les richesses littéraires de
ces régions en les regroupant dans un même endroit. En dehors du soleil, des
plages et de la musique, elles ont des auteurs de talent qui méritent plus de
visibilité.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
did you decide on the location?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AC</b>: Quand j’ai commencé à travailler sur
mon projet, je souhaitais trouver un local commercial à Paris dans les XIe ou
XIIe arrondissements car ils sont dynamiques, familiaux avec aussi beaucoup de
librairies ce qui montre que les habitants sont habitués à se rendre en librairie
fréquemment. Par ailleurs, je tenais à être dans Paris et non loin d’un métro
pour que les clients qui viennent de loin accèdent facilement à la librairie.
Mais il y a tout de même des personnes qui pensent que la librairie devrait
plutôt être à Saint-Denis ou alors à Créteil… Non, selon moi elle a sa place à
Paris, dans la capitale. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_z0YlDCMby_Qv9641F3MhuOGWD6MQkwGpBivPcowe-7460F91yYgSmo6M91XO_7UoZZuCEpmQBdN5kMz3AB0mnufu8h2wgoT5SUOal5vjOcUV5lNnRUcJPEWIKSlxCucumcuzqz1__pJONNfW9JqLYwK9ry-ZK30UaHZFgdQ7EixFCMr2EZ7p5M-U=s4032" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_z0YlDCMby_Qv9641F3MhuOGWD6MQkwGpBivPcowe-7460F91yYgSmo6M91XO_7UoZZuCEpmQBdN5kMz3AB0mnufu8h2wgoT5SUOal5vjOcUV5lNnRUcJPEWIKSlxCucumcuzqz1__pJONNfW9JqLYwK9ry-ZK30UaHZFgdQ7EixFCMr2EZ7p5M-U=s320" width="320" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
has the response been like?</span></b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AC</b>: Depuis l’ouverture, je suis contente
de l’accueil : les habitants et commerçants du quartier ainsi que les clients
sont satisfaits qu’une librairie dédiée aux Caraïbes existe.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Can
you tell us about some of the shop’s activities during the year?</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AC</b>: Durant l’année, j’organise des séances
de dédicace et des rencontres-débats avec les auteurs. Il m’arrive d’être
présente à des conférences en dehors de la librairie afin de présenter des
livres liés au thème.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Il y a eu le
lancement d’une nouvelle maison d’édition et des sorties officielles de livres.
La librairie a aussi présenté une exposition de photographes guadeloupéens en
mai/juin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Elle a
accueilli la première réunion d’un nouveau club de lecture caribéen ainsi que
des parties d’un jeu de société sur des légendes créoles : il y avait un DJ
c’était très sympathique. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ce n’est pas
lié aux livres directement, mais la librairie a déjà accueilli des tournages
pour des interviews/clips d’écrivains, artistes, chanteurs…</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivDUAdAjyn8NH83K4xJ32NP5AxitxGue_IhDHVVhrv2OfHci7iALtD9v1RbPg752sakOIDtFfFyNFp8_1lHWbwgQTzoPuvhrFjaKq-v_5mEanWsw1qCfLOH3kQQIebOEPs4GQOxV9HE1sqFRffMw_T1K3ZWp_pEwj0XpUJBs35VpEmCgFgQZH4rdG7=s3687" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3687" data-original-width="2217" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivDUAdAjyn8NH83K4xJ32NP5AxitxGue_IhDHVVhrv2OfHci7iALtD9v1RbPg752sakOIDtFfFyNFp8_1lHWbwgQTzoPuvhrFjaKq-v_5mEanWsw1qCfLOH3kQQIebOEPs4GQOxV9HE1sqFRffMw_T1K3ZWp_pEwj0XpUJBs35VpEmCgFgQZH4rdG7=s320" width="192" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
has been the feedback / response from Caribbean writers based in France?</span></b></span></b></div></span></b></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AC</b>: Les auteurs caribéens vivant en France
sont également contents de l’existence de ma librairie et me sollicitent pour
des dédicaces. Donc c’est une bonne chose. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How do
you see the bookshop evolving in the future? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AC</b>: J’aimerais que les rencontres avec les
auteurs se poursuivent car les clients aiment beaucoup rencontrer leurs auteurs
préférés et débattre entre eux. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">J’aimerais
aussi que l’on sorte de la pandémie afin que je puisse ré-ouvrir la partie
salon de thé et que les clients puissent de nouveau s’installer pour déguster
une boisson chaude. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: Will you</b></span><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> include books in other languages of the Caribbean, besides French and Creole?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oui, j’aimerais
proposer des livres en espagnol et en anglais mais il faudrait que la
distribution des maisons d’édition étrangères soit plus simple en France. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
are your views on the possibility of a Caribbean literary festival in Paris?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AC</b>: Il existe un salon du livre jeunesse
afro-caribéen, un salon du livre haïtien… donc je pense qu’un salon du livre
caribéen serait une très bonne chose. <b><i>– SWAN<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): Agnès Cornélie at Librairie Calypso; the bookshop's interior; works by Jamaica Kincaid in French translation at the store. Photos by AM/SWAN.</i></b></span></p>
<b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Follow the Caribbean
Translation Project on Twitter @CaribTranslate</span></span></i></b></div></b>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-44062821662289126912021-12-01T07:24:00.003-08:002021-12-06T17:40:02.725-08:00ICONIC PERFORMER JOSEPHINE BAKER ENTERS PANTHEON<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Legendary
singer, dancer and activist Josephine Baker entered the Panthéon - the resting
place of France’s “national heroes” - on Nov. 30, with French president
Emmanuel Macron recalling her life on stage, her wartime activities, her fight for civil rights, and her "love" of her adopted nation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlk0R69kczseCZ2mdNm8dVcp07Yd1id_aHksasftIDClJxLMqmFtSsguZy9JlicPfJ3L_blREbZxHlfjLmPR_8Y-sSPQxaQiAESJGPkyWL0n71wQU1Os7s2sd1yihE3LIFszlHLCDlacQ/s1800/Josephine+Pantheon+1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlk0R69kczseCZ2mdNm8dVcp07Yd1id_aHksasftIDClJxLMqmFtSsguZy9JlicPfJ3L_blREbZxHlfjLmPR_8Y-sSPQxaQiAESJGPkyWL0n71wQU1Os7s2sd1yihE3LIFszlHLCDlacQ/s320/Josephine+Pantheon+1.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">“You enter our
Panthéon because, born American, there is none more French than you,” declared
Macron in a speech at the induction ceremony.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“And while, at
the end of your career, adapting the words of your greatest success, you
proclaimed ‘My country is Paris’, each of us tonight is whispering this
refrain, like a hymn to love: ‘My France is Josephine’," the president added.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Baker, who died
in 1975 and is buried in Monaco, is only the sixth woman to enter the Panthéon and
the first woman of African descent. She joins other luminaries such as Victor
Hugo, Marie Curie, Alexandre Dumas, and Émile Zola as a recipient of this honour.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For the ceremony,
a symbolic coffin draped in the French flag was borne by military pallbearers
up the red-carpeted road to the Panthéon, as the Eiffel Tower (lit up in a
special way for the occasion) shone in the background. Organisers said the coffin
contained soil from the different places where Baker had lived, but that her
actual remains will stay in Monaco, in accordance with her family’s wishes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Images from
Baker’s life were projected onto the façade of the building, giving spectators
the story of her journey from St. Louis, Missouri - where she was born in 1906
- to becoming one of the biggest stars of her day in Europe. Her famous song
about Paris, “J’ai Deux Amours”, to which Macron referred, served as a note
throughout the evening. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5jOmrINf_4Obmn6kiFrA1-tLlPxIKqaKmkPLVW8swQpzYAzrDssKCB7CulnFSsm90ev1FwdNpE10P7BT0uAWOeuDLqFJmyLFUuBCCGvC2bhDBdSZTU2er0uYHlgjDOiInm-q7Ji1YsY/s576/Josephine+Pantheon+9.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="576" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5jOmrINf_4Obmn6kiFrA1-tLlPxIKqaKmkPLVW8swQpzYAzrDssKCB7CulnFSsm90ev1FwdNpE10P7BT0uAWOeuDLqFJmyLFUuBCCGvC2bhDBdSZTU2er0uYHlgjDOiInm-q7Ji1YsY/s320/Josephine+Pantheon+9.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking in
front of the casket (placed solemnly on a dais in the centre of the Panthéon), Macron pointed out that the induction was taking place exactly on the 84<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of Baker’s becoming a French citizen - a status she gained Nov. 30,
1937.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She had arrived
in Paris in 1925, fleeing U.S. segregation, and gone on to become a leading
performer, renowned for her dance in a “banana skirt” as well as for her acting,
singing and other ventures.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Regarding the
skirt, Macron said that while Baker had had to do certain performances because
of the times, she turned the tables by her sheer inventiveness, and by
ridiculing prejudices.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Josephine
Baker forged her own legend, imposed her freedom … by her insouciance, her
awareness, her cheerful courage,” Macron said. “The American, who took refuge
in Paris, became the incarnation of the French spirit, and the symbol of an
era.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He also lauded
her wartime activities, detailing all that Baker had done for France during
World War II. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxxdmgC5U_yenGZnmY2jK0cB6iH0LUOxFKN_y3qBNx1EzozEiK8E0gafMX3qsZkp7SfF-Ex_T-YdFXEm03wAwsF6p6IqNr7FrlK9W1JLFkxbEjcYLnmMuHJk-OKyCvAVD7Ioif9-WXLJg/s2048/Josephine+Pantheon+3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1518" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxxdmgC5U_yenGZnmY2jK0cB6iH0LUOxFKN_y3qBNx1EzozEiK8E0gafMX3qsZkp7SfF-Ex_T-YdFXEm03wAwsF6p6IqNr7FrlK9W1JLFkxbEjcYLnmMuHJk-OKyCvAVD7Ioif9-WXLJg/s320/Josephine+Pantheon+3.jpg" width="237" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Trading the
limelight for the flame of the Resistance, she became … an ‘honorable
correspondent’, and served her new country, risking her life,” said the
president during the ceremony, which was attended by Baker’s family, First Lady
Brigitte Macron, various dignitaries, schoolchildren, and representatives of
the African American community in Paris, among others.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Macron also
described how Baker protected Jewish people at her château in the Dordogne area of southern France, and how her home was used to transmit radio messages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He outlined her
civil rights activities as well, recalling that - dressed in her French Resistance
uniform - Baker flew from France to address the 250,000 participants in the 1963
march on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous “I Have a
Dream” speech.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At the march,
Baker told her audience about not being able to order a cup of coffee in the
United States because of her race, despite her success in Europe, and she
detailed how American authorities had tried to smear her as a Communist when
she spoke out against inequality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Macron said
Baker didn’t focus on skin colour, but that she “militated” for the freedom of
everyone. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Her cause was
universalism … the equality of all, before the identity of each,” he declared,
adding that in Washington, she was “more French than ever”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ5bKFrhEe6MHv7b8BSTTPxM4KxnTMGD4xVfoBn5tEQlESvmfW1nzMND0tb6CKOcEEogXtDm29GJ_8vWI7pKUCN6E2b9GL5kZ9ohyiC-nmkYqUGPlw460WanrH_36sBYLZFUIo2CjpB-k/s2048/Josephine+Pantheon+5.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ5bKFrhEe6MHv7b8BSTTPxM4KxnTMGD4xVfoBn5tEQlESvmfW1nzMND0tb6CKOcEEogXtDm29GJ_8vWI7pKUCN6E2b9GL5kZ9ohyiC-nmkYqUGPlw460WanrH_36sBYLZFUIo2CjpB-k/s320/Josephine+Pantheon+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Her adoption of
12 children - her “rainbow tribe” - also demonstrated her belief in diversity
and showed the world that people from different backgrounds and races could
live in harmony, said Macron, terming this the “most beautiful humanist”
example.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The induction
was not without controversy, however. Some observers used the occasion to discuss France’s vile treatment of Black and brown people throughout the
country’s colonial history, as well as its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade - topics many French people prefer not to discuss. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Critics
accused the government of “political opportunism”, among other things, and an opinion
piece in The Washington Post by a French journalist said: “France should not
use this moment to congratulate itself on its treatment of people of color”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While acknowledging
this history, other commentators felt that the “pantheonization” of Baker still
sent a powerful message, and some stressed that this kind of representation is
important for society. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“We. Are. Here,”
declared a Paris-based African American businesswoman with a smile, as she stood outside the Panthéon last Tuesday. <b><i>- SWAN</i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): An image of Josephine Baker inside the Panthéon; President Emmanuel Macron speaking at the ceremony; a billboard in Paris with pictures of Josephine Baker; the Panthéon, with images of Josephine Baker. Photos by AM/SWAN.</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-53468373803549831552021-11-26T12:55:00.005-08:002022-01-07T15:01:29.698-08:00UNESCO MEMBER STATES ADOPT RECOMMENDED AI ETHICS<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The member
states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) have agreed on a text of recommended ethics for artificial
intelligence (AI) that policy makers can apply on a “voluntary” basis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The adopted
text, which the agency calls “historic”, outlines the “common values and
principles which will guide the construction of the necessary legal
infrastructure to ensure the healthy development of AI,” UNESCO says.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The text specifies that AI systems “should not be used for social scoring and mass surveillance
purposes,” among other recommendations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
organization’s 193 member states include countries, however, that are known to
use AI and other technologies to carry out such surveillance, often targeting
minorities and dissidents - including writers and artists. Governments and multinational
companies have also used personal data and AI technology to infringe on
privacy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXYmnwd_i1nZ-97FhKi8UlNJ8ityMm6ad4TUpMJirG78Qjlzvtr3maOmVivjTFsX-60pzb4MOxfeaqW8HmqPZ2CeiLoz3NgbIZCzdsfzKDzWCEP1lgGpNoebCy6RiSBr00520QeLgzEQ/s2048/Unesco+AI+3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1857" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXYmnwd_i1nZ-97FhKi8UlNJ8ityMm6ad4TUpMJirG78Qjlzvtr3maOmVivjTFsX-60pzb4MOxfeaqW8HmqPZ2CeiLoz3NgbIZCzdsfzKDzWCEP1lgGpNoebCy6RiSBr00520QeLgzEQ/s320/Unesco+AI+3.jpg" width="290" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While such
states and entities were not named, UNESCO officials acknowledged that the discussions leading up to the adopted text had included “difficult
conversations”.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Presenting the agreement
Nov. 25 at the organization’s headquarters in Paris, UNESCO’s Director-General
Audrey Azoulay said the initiative to have an AI ethics framework had been
launched in 2018. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“I remember
that many thought it would be extremely hard if not impossible to attain common ground among the 193 states … but after these years of work, we’ve been
rewarded by this important victory for multilateralism,” Azoulay told
journalists.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She pointed out
that AI technology has been developing rapidly and that it entails a range of profound effects that comprise both advantages
to humanity and wide-ranging risks. Because of such impact, a global accord
with practical recommendations was necessary, based on input from experts
around the world, Azoulay stressed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The accord came
during the 41st session of UNESCO’s General Conference, which took place Nov. 9
to 24 and included the adoption of “key agreements demonstrating renewed
multilateral cooperation,” UNESCO said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While the accord
does not provide a single definition of AI, the “ambition” is to address the
features of AI that are of “central ethical relevance,” according to the text.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wBezhJOJVE1NN2X-NGNBrOQf5545am8AubkA_32OKz82NFY85w-FD_SAWO3dhk14iAaHC6NKzbC-URoVkB8tyQ6Bk9yOZN2sS6VjcKjd7tu6RDMP521PD3YUf8S9L6Uz-BOXOV2AUs4/s1828/UNESCO+robot+%25283%2529.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1828" data-original-width="1299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wBezhJOJVE1NN2X-NGNBrOQf5545am8AubkA_32OKz82NFY85w-FD_SAWO3dhk14iAaHC6NKzbC-URoVkB8tyQ6Bk9yOZN2sS6VjcKjd7tu6RDMP521PD3YUf8S9L6Uz-BOXOV2AUs4/s320/UNESCO+robot+%25283%2529.jpg" width="227" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">These are the features,
or systems, that have “the capacity to process data and information in a way
that resembles intelligent behaviour, and typically includes aspects of
reasoning, learning, perception, prediction, planning or control,” it said.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While the systems
are “delivering remarkable results in highly specialized fields such as cancer
screening and building inclusive environments for people with disabilities”, they
are equally creating new challenges and raising “fundamental ethical concerns,”
UNESCO said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The agreement outlines
the biases that AI technologies can “embed and exacerbate” and their
potential impact on “human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms,
gender equality, democracy … and the environment and ecosystems.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">According to
UNESCO, these types of technologies “are very invasive, they infringe on human
rights and fundamental freedoms, and they are used in a broad way.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The agreement
stresses that when member states develop regulatory frameworks, they should “take
into account that ultimate responsibility and accountability must always lie
with natural or legal persons” - that is, humans - “and that AI systems should
not be given legal personality” themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“New
technologies need to provide new means to advocate, defend and exercise human
rights and not to infringe them,” the agreement says.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Among the long
list of goals, UNESCO said that the accord aims to ensure that digital
transformations contribute as well to the achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goals” (a UN blueprint to achieve a “better and more sustainable
future” for the world).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“We see
increased gender and ethnic bias, significant threats to privacy, dignity and
agency, dangers of mass surveillance, and increased use of unreliable AI
technologies in law enforcement, to name a few. Until now, there were no
universal standards to provide an answer to these issues,” UNESCO declared.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Regarding
climate change, the text says that member states should make sure that AI favours
methods that are resource- and energy-efficient, given the impact on the
environment of storing huge amounts of data, which requires energy. It additionally
asks governments to assess the direct and indirect environmental impact
throughout the AI system life cycle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyX8qdly9S3htCt1s_7AJhGxVuJJs-8376WuSY7CIWN03vBjus3KmksMsxn3kYokE6ymmJuQ4T5CW2W_AIBA3EW_wn5X6_mWvHBeh-KZQnMAp4uzagbCCEA4_RkmaIt1aAmVYs5jws-EM/s1687/UNESCO+AI+4.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1687" data-original-width="1215" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyX8qdly9S3htCt1s_7AJhGxVuJJs-8376WuSY7CIWN03vBjus3KmksMsxn3kYokE6ymmJuQ4T5CW2W_AIBA3EW_wn5X6_mWvHBeh-KZQnMAp4uzagbCCEA4_RkmaIt1aAmVYs5jws-EM/s320/UNESCO+AI+4.jpg" width="230" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On the issue of
gender, the text says that member states “should ensure that the potential
for digital technologies and artificial intelligence to contribute to achieving
gender equality is fully maximized.”</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It adds that states
“must ensure that the human rights and fundamental freedoms of girls and women,
and their safety and integrity are not violated at any stage of the AI system
life cycle.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Alessandra
Sala, director of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Shutterstock and
president of the non-profit organization Women in AI, also spoke at the presentation of the agreement, saying that the text provides clear guidelines
for the AI field, including on artistic, cultural and gender issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“It is a symbol
of societal progress,” she told journalists, emphasizing that understanding the ethics of AI was
a shared “leadership responsibility” which should include women’s often
“excluded voices”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In answer to concerns raised by reporters about the future of the recommendations, which
are essentially non-binding, UNESCO officials said that member states realize
that the world “needs” this agreement and that it was a step in the right
direction. <b><i>- SWAN</i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos (top to bottom): UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay; a robot seen at a UNESCO conference; Alessandra Sala, of Shutterstock and Women in AI. (Photos by AM/SWAN.)</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-13973283205890118362021-11-25T01:32:00.014-08:002021-12-06T02:24:10.541-08:00AFRICAN ART FAIR BOUNCES BACK WITH PIZAZZ IN PARIS<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> Art is back
with a bang in the French capital.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After numerous
cancellations throughout 2020 and in the spring of this year because of the
Covid-19 pandemic, the fall cultural calendar has been packed, with people
flocking to see contemporary art (at FIAC), photography (at Paris Photo), and
African art (at AKAA – Also Known as Africa), in addition to a host of new
museum exhibitions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv032UE6w_Xw23I78MABVoR7JmidOwHH_muM7JEUN6IHI-TrNBmQg0kYi1Kz7N4g_TxX7e8YsRH4RvLztJnLFg8THxPytRr6Xvv5keOu4mPoyNqfwl81s456l8ixdhy5IQC91t-mws44k/s775/AKAA+-+paintings.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="775" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv032UE6w_Xw23I78MABVoR7JmidOwHH_muM7JEUN6IHI-TrNBmQg0kYi1Kz7N4g_TxX7e8YsRH4RvLztJnLFg8THxPytRr6Xvv5keOu4mPoyNqfwl81s456l8ixdhy5IQC91t-mws44k/s320/AKAA+-+paintings.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>The fairs and
shows have featured artists from around the world, with naturally some overlap </span>in the different genres.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Still, AKAA - which took place Nov. 12-14 - stood out
for “centering” African art in Paris once again, bouncing back strongly with
more than 130 artists and 35 galleries at the imposing Carreau du Temple venue.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This year, the 6-year-old fair showed an increased number of Caribbean and African
American artists as well, expanding its focus with some bold, innovative works.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A few days
after the well-attended 2021 edition closed its doors, <i>SWAN</i> spoke with
AKAA’s founder Victoria Mann about the cultural calendar and about AKAA’s raison
d’être. An edited version of the telephone interview follows.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
has the fair turned out, in your view?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>VICTORIA
MANN</b>: We’re extremely
happy. We were coming back after a last-minute cancellation in 2020 because of
the pandemic, and losing a year between two editions when there are so many
fairs all around us is not an easy thing. So, it was important for us to be
back with a fair that was high in quality for the public. And in terms of
public, it was just as important for us to have our collectors and institutions
here to allow for good business for our exhibitors, as well as a more general
public who really want to discover and know more about these artistic scenes
that we defend at the fair.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Did
you notice new attendees - people coming for the first time?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>VM</b>: I think we definitely had that kind of
visiting and viewership. It’s important for us every year to work on that. We
want those who know us to come back but we also wish to expand our visitorship,
and that’s the kind of work we do all year-long - and in this case, all
two-year-long – so that more and more people who don’t know the fair can come
and discover it. That’s also part of why it’s important for us to be here
during that week of November when Paris Photo is taking place because there is
a significant back and forth between the two fairs, and every year we get
visitors from Paris Photo who come and discover our event.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqLjKuJY_BRafhm6-ZqHjgLsEpcnj3AUSypmrZ6VbWU7cVTInH4NIoyG8OnJ76y0mDJ9cnt3C-fpzvoGF29InsV-hbbaPFE_Nqr1VEr0AdvsPBZ8ef4-oJ70c_n041nL7gNZfvSPdnibw/s1620/AKAA+-+Victoria+Mann.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqLjKuJY_BRafhm6-ZqHjgLsEpcnj3AUSypmrZ6VbWU7cVTInH4NIoyG8OnJ76y0mDJ9cnt3C-fpzvoGF29InsV-hbbaPFE_Nqr1VEr0AdvsPBZ8ef4-oJ70c_n041nL7gNZfvSPdnibw/s320/AKAA+-+Victoria+Mann.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Is there
a danger of people getting “art fatigue”, or “arted out” with so many events
crowded together? How do you situate yourself differently?</span></b></div></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>VM</b>: I think this year is particular,
right? Because the truth is that all the events that were planned even for the spring
sort of got pushed back because of the pandemic. So, I agree - this fall was
completely crazy in terms of cultural calendar, with fairs popping up in the
middle of the regular calendar which is already quite full. I think that things
will shape back up to be normal, hopefully, although I see some Covid cases
rising in certain countries, which makes me quite anxious like everybody else.
But, if we do come back to a semi-normal state, I think that the calendar will
spread over more evenly around the year.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In terms of
AKAA, I think we bring … that fresh outlook, and that’s really the identity
that we seek to develop and to push forward - we’re a discovery fair. And I
think that’s what our visitors and collectors really appreciate. They know that
every time they come to AKAA, they might see several artists that haven’t
already been presented in the fair in the years past, and artists that are
starting to have important standards in the world of art. But they will also
automatically discover these brand-new talents, and I think that’s what is
exciting.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: There
aren’t that many events in Paris that focus on Africa or the Caribbean, but
when they take place, people do come out in support. For instance, the First
African Book Fair of Paris earlier this year attracted a very high number of
visitors. How do you see the space for more events like this?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>VM</b>: In order to properly answer that
question, I think it’s important to resituate our positioning and our
philosophy. When we created AKAA, the idea was to create a platform that was
both a commercial one - we’re a fair, so the idea was for business to be able
to happen - but it was also going to be a cultural platform to bring about
dialogue, to bring about encounter, and therefore to bring about education
regarding certain art scenes. As I said, we’re a fair that’s positioned on
discovery, but with discovery you need to bring the right tools to understand
what you’re discovering. And, what was really important to us, is to not create
an artistic ghetto, but rather to be able to open up as much as possible over
the years. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy9LBrQ-YfVdlHF-xuf9EuwwghKEbA1G4bh4oED-9b3gRnvvu2oJ0Btk3keNYUivxWOOi8f8hYNSOFICzt2OM93MUL2t23C6HFOhPFZmIXMHckgOLOtH0dv53SuLohkdxS_8DmvcgCPWg/s1874/AKAA+-+Hanging+Fruit.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1874" data-original-width="1410" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy9LBrQ-YfVdlHF-xuf9EuwwghKEbA1G4bh4oED-9b3gRnvvu2oJ0Btk3keNYUivxWOOi8f8hYNSOFICzt2OM93MUL2t23C6HFOhPFZmIXMHckgOLOtH0dv53SuLohkdxS_8DmvcgCPWg/s320/AKAA+-+Hanging+Fruit.jpg" width="241" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, the way we
defend our message is that we try to actually take the geography out of the
equation… that’s not really what interests us but rather that link to the
African continent that each artist sheds light on in their work. And all of a
sudden, when you look at things through that angle, then the possibilities are
infinite and the space can be shared. So, of course, we do have a lot of
artists that live and work on the African continent. That goes without saying, and
it’s the number-one link that is easiest to identify.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But we also
have all these other artists that find their relationship to the African
continent through a number of different things. With the African American
artists, for example, there’s the link of heritage, the link of memory, the
link of ancestry. This is extremely important for us. And they have their place
alongside artists who are from the continent in the same capacity, as well as
artists who have a link through different elements, through - for example -
collaboration with artists from the continent, or residency or projects put
together. And so, we’re talking about a very international art scene centred on
the African continent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: That’s
an interesting perspective …<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>VM</b>: Yes, what we try to do is to basically
offer a new angle, a new point of view of that contemporary art map, and
instead of looking at it with Europe and the States in the centre as we’re a
little bit used to doing when we talk about contemporary art, we’re looking at
it with Africa in the centre, and from that centre, all these dialogues, all
these connections, and all these confrontations as well, that may happen. So,
from that point, the more this artistic echo system grows, the richer it gets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Photos (top to
bottom): </i>Le soleil est coeur<i> by </i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Amadou Opa Bathily,</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;"> 2021, mixed media on canvas, at African Arty Gallery - photo AM:SWAN; Victoria Mann; </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Hanging Fruit</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;"> by Jamaican-born artist Shoshana Weinberger, 2021, mixed media on paper, courtesy NOMAD Gallery; </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Focus@memory.cm</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;"> by Justin Ebanda, 2021, acrylic on canvas, courtesy / copyright Galerie Carole Kvasnevski.</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXaLy9lD_Lr7lsTfbbWQCmXgOnzHt1F95CZ1nzlpHliGTUwJNb3b9DhRf_1_PK7pcCFZOAF3H053kZuGaw9aspHpDN_BA43rkF1CgARykBIUjAYJeh-NrgVLXODUzh9lz9ya3h7lUlmDQ/s2048/AKAA+-+Focus%2540memory.cm+Justin+Ebanda.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1741" data-original-width="2048" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXaLy9lD_Lr7lsTfbbWQCmXgOnzHt1F95CZ1nzlpHliGTUwJNb3b9DhRf_1_PK7pcCFZOAF3H053kZuGaw9aspHpDN_BA43rkF1CgARykBIUjAYJeh-NrgVLXODUzh9lz9ya3h7lUlmDQ/w400-h340/AKAA+-+Focus%2540memory.cm+Justin+Ebanda.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-64459367027102676092021-11-13T08:30:00.006-08:002021-11-17T08:57:47.570-08:00UNESCO OBSERVES 75TH ANNIVERSARY, STRESSING PEACE<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Passionate
speeches, fervent performances by renowned artists, and the presence of special
envoys such as actor Forest Whitaker marked a significant milestone for the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoLxyXmdqmrBm-WfDgXoMKVOuK6sB3k3TZc_WqgXyrxaXq9SbiMy0mZd3xgIJuo9pxlTPovOnIFRU9jSKwmBqgX2l6RmdjWmgRIY8QSTN62DcyWAx_HCn4spKKsarW4D-II4Yi_tZxxw/s2048/UNESCO+-+gen+conf+2021.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoLxyXmdqmrBm-WfDgXoMKVOuK6sB3k3TZc_WqgXyrxaXq9SbiMy0mZd3xgIJuo9pxlTPovOnIFRU9jSKwmBqgX2l6RmdjWmgRIY8QSTN62DcyWAx_HCn4spKKsarW4D-II4Yi_tZxxw/s320/UNESCO+-+gen+conf+2021.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Founded in
1946, the body is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, with a
range of events taking place during its current General Conference, which runs
until Nov. 24 at the headquarters in Paris, France.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The agency’s
director-general Audrey Azoulay was re-elected at the start of the Conference
on Nov 9 for a second four-year term – a re-election that officials said had
the “overwhelming backing” of UNESCO’s 193 Member States; Azoulay obtained “155
votes out of a total of 169 ballots cast”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“I see this
result as a sign of regained unity within our organization,” Azoulay stated
after the vote. “Over the last four years, we have been able to restore
confidence in UNESCO, and in some respects, this has also been about restoring
UNESCO’s confidence in itself.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With the
re-election out of the way, the organization followed up on Nov. 12 with an
anniversary ceremony attended by some 25 heads of state and government, as well
as ministers from about 50 countries. The festivities were accompanied by the beaming
of the UNESCO logo onto Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower, and the organization even
asked the public to share images of this lighting-up “as a symbol of hope for the
creation of a more peaceful world”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73I-w8951iMUidCwQekvFzN2rdUIanf21xEE9xlVyv9_uhhVt89jRZjhsSQqLp7YqAB7u7lSl2LRAIP2I__1sT3A_h4g_Qw26hhRUhjdgCrvYUs3UK9OqSDfOaQ6QojpbBv2e0y36SRI/s2048/UNESCO+-+gen+conf+2021+b.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="2048" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73I-w8951iMUidCwQekvFzN2rdUIanf21xEE9xlVyv9_uhhVt89jRZjhsSQqLp7YqAB7u7lSl2LRAIP2I__1sT3A_h4g_Qw26hhRUhjdgCrvYUs3UK9OqSDfOaQ6QojpbBv2e0y36SRI/s320/UNESCO+-+gen+conf+2021+b.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As officials
recalled in speech after speech during the anniversary ceremony, UNESCO was
born of a “clear vision” after two world wars: to build peace “in the minds of
men” and women.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The founders believed that economic and political agreements
among states were not enough “to achieve lasting peace”; therefore,
people needed to be brought together with a strengthening of the “intellectual and
moral solidarity of humankind, through mutual understanding and dialogue
between cultures,” according to UNESCO.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In her speech
for the anniversary, Azoulay referred to this history and highlighted UNESCO’s
record in working for the advancement of science, culture and education. She
said that for 75 years, the organization “has led the fight for education,
focusing first on literacy campaigns with major campaigns starting in the late
1940s”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Azoulay
began her first term in 2017 (after the United States and Israel had withdrawn
from UNESCO following Palestine’s membership), she called for unity and
humanism. She said then that the world’s inability to prevent “tragedies” such
as the “massive degradation of the environment, obscurantism, terrorism,
deliberate attacks on cultural diversity, the oppression of women, massive
displacements of populations” could be explained by a common blindness: “the
lack of knowledge, the denial of universal values, and the absence of a global
and humanist response.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This week, she
reiterated her appeal for solidarity and for increased work by governments to
respect the dignity and freedom of citizens - the freedom to think, to learn,
to speak and to access education.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Photos - from top to bottom: UNESCO's director director (second from left) with actor Forest Whitaker and other dignitaries at the 75th anniversary ceremony; a group photo of officials attending the ceremony. Pictures courtesy of UNESCO / C. Alix.</i></b></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-24875427853740939392021-10-29T07:33:00.013-07:002021-11-01T06:30:28.556-07:00FRANCE: TRANSLATING A HARLEM RENAISSANCE WRITER<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Claude McKay
is having something of a rebirth</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> in France, thanks to independent publishers and to translators such as Jean-Baptiste Naudy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Naudy is the
French translator of McKay’s novel <i>Amiable with Big Teeth</i> (<i>Les Brebis
noires de Dieu</i>), one of two translations that have hit bookstores in 2021,
generating renewed interest in the work of the Jamaican-born writer (1890-1948).
McKay was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a "cultural nomad" who spent
time in Europe during the 1920s and 30s, and the author of the famous poem “If
We Must Die”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJHMcC0Tk4AMM-V1ssNbA-DXTWIaKYb7zb-xj2U89mf0IF2kbtyZfc_rATkHKqjOnBho75JGEp3BqoqFme8U8Inu5RMNhH2T-2Ar_qkrhIHNRlFyINDz8-BP4oDkSRiVwQrQZR8-Uaiw/s2048/claude+McKay+-+Brebis+noires.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1463" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJHMcC0Tk4AMM-V1ssNbA-DXTWIaKYb7zb-xj2U89mf0IF2kbtyZfc_rATkHKqjOnBho75JGEp3BqoqFme8U8Inu5RMNhH2T-2Ar_qkrhIHNRlFyINDz8-BP4oDkSRiVwQrQZR8-Uaiw/s320/claude+McKay+-+Brebis+noires.jpeg" width="229" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The first of
the two recent translations - <i>Romance in Marseille</i> (Héliotropismes) - was
published under its English title last spring, while Naudy’s <i>Les Brebis
Noires de Dieu</i> came out at the end of summer during the so called rentrée,
the return to routine after the holidays. A third McKay novel, <i>Home to
Harlem</i> (<i>Retour à Harlem</i>, Nada Éditions), has meanwhile been newly translated and is scheduled for
publication in early 2022.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This feast of
McKay’s work has resulted in profiles of the writer in French newspapers such as <i>Libération</i>, with Naudy’s expert translation receiving particular
attention because of the intriguing story behind <i>Amiable with Big Teeth</i>.
The celebrated “forgotten” work - a “colourful, dramatic novel” that “centres
on the efforts by Harlem intelligentsia to organize support for the liberation
of fascist-controlled Ethiopia,” as Penguin Books describes it - was discovered
only in 2009 by then graduate student Jean-Christophe Cloutier while doing
research. His discovery came 40 years after McKay had completed the manuscript.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cloutier and
his advisor Brent Hayes Edwards went on to confirm the authenticity of the
work, and it was published by Penguin in 2017. Fully aware of this history,
Naudy said it was “mind-blowing” to translate the novel, and he drew upon his
own background for the rendering into French.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEQVF-dQKiAUXTk3bCmOHo3wvy3tj60SvuYLa6qaPSWAZ_9z4vZ9Sg4Bilzp3AVjEI8AcJcGbrWcLZRDfoIVtkTWOIncX_JzPk-ByiAuK5BkQ0VA8k0c3BdnKfzcuFX1yEFsvNMc6Zf_Y/s2048/Claude+McKay+-+Naudy.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1528" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEQVF-dQKiAUXTk3bCmOHo3wvy3tj60SvuYLa6qaPSWAZ_9z4vZ9Sg4Bilzp3AVjEI8AcJcGbrWcLZRDfoIVtkTWOIncX_JzPk-ByiAuK5BkQ0VA8k0c3BdnKfzcuFX1yEFsvNMc6Zf_Y/s320/Claude+McKay+-+Naudy.jpeg" width="239" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Born in Paris,
Naudy studied Francophone literature at the Sorbonne University and design at
the Jan van Eyck Academy in the Netherlands. He describes himself as a
publisher, translator and “text experimentalist”, and he coordinates
"Déborder", a book series published by independent publishing house
Nouvelles Éditions Place. Within this series, he has translated <i>African
Journey</i> by Eslanda Goode Robeson (2020) and now the McKay novel.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a writer,
Naudy, under the name of Société Réaliste, has himself published two books, in addition to essays and experimental texts in journals and reviews; and as an artist he
has exhibited work in both solo and group shows internationally. One
can find examples of his public art pieces around Paris.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The following
edited interview with Naudy, conducted by email and in person, is part of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">SWAN</i><span style="font-family: arial;">’s
series about translators of Caribbean literature, done in collaboration with
the Caribbean Translation Project.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
did the translating of <i>Aimable with Big Teeth</i> come about? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Jean-Baptiste
Naudy</b>: In 2019, Sarah
Frioux-Salgas and I were invited by Cyrille Zola-Place, director of Nouvelles
Éditions Place in Paris, to curate a book series dealing with unclassifiable
texts, overreaching genres, intertwining topics. Our common interest for the
internationalisation of political and poetical scopes in the 20th century, via
the publication of books largely ignored by the classical Western frame of
reference, gave birth to this book series, entitled Déborder (To overflow). The
first book to be included was a reprint of <i>Negro Anthology</i>, edited by
Nancy Cunard in 1934, a massive collection of poetry, fiction and essays about
the Black Atlantic, for which she collaborated with paramount artists and
scholars of those years, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, George Padmore
and dozens of others. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5p8sAsqcoLnI-Tb8xArM5LAcVU5zPllur8_uZ-VlM7_4HsbpsmHEPe6Ub7wedbX4YQSoSoZM5AOg8sdOmclZ5zFYzAti3dczCW2Gp_me6colXHFT613TllPux_DSjihKdCNHL7mZMmhA/s2048/Claude+McKay+-+eslanda+robeson.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1549" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5p8sAsqcoLnI-Tb8xArM5LAcVU5zPllur8_uZ-VlM7_4HsbpsmHEPe6Ub7wedbX4YQSoSoZM5AOg8sdOmclZ5zFYzAti3dczCW2Gp_me6colXHFT613TllPux_DSjihKdCNHL7mZMmhA/s320/Claude+McKay+-+eslanda+robeson.png" width="242" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Since then, we have published five more books in this
frame, like the first French translation of Eslanda Robeson’s <i>African
Journey</i>, or <i>Sismographie des luttes</i> (<i>Seismography of Struggles</i>),
a kind of world history of anticolonial journals, amazingly edited by art
historian and writer Zahia Rahmani.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At the beginning of 2020, Sarah told me the
story of a newfound book by Claude McKay, <i>Amiable with Big Teeth</i>, edited
by Brent Hayes Edwards and Jean-Christophe Cloutier for Penguin Books in 2017.
Searching the archives of a rather obscure New York publisher, Cloutier had
found the complete and ready-to-be-published manuscript of a completely unknown
novel by McKay. The very fact that such a story was possible - to find out of
the blue a full book by a major writer of the 20th century - was unfathomable
to me. Nouvelles Éditions Place immediately agreed to the idea of publishing
the book in French.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN:
Including your translation, there will be three novels by McKay published in </span></b></span><b><span style="font-family: arial;">French this
year and next. Can you explain this surge of international interest in his work?</span></b></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>JBN</b>: The renewed interest in Claude McKay’s
oeuvre is global for sure, but also at times </span><span style="font-family: arial;">pretty local.
The critical deconstruction of the Western ideological frame of thought has
called for the exposure of another cultural grounding, a counter-narrative of modernity,
other stories and histories encompassing the plurality and complexity of dominated
voices, visions, sensibilities, positions on their path to liberation. To that extent,
McKay is an immense writer, whose very life was bound to this intertwining. Like
most of the key figures of the Black Atlantic, he has been largely ignored or under-appreciated
by the 20th century literary canon. More than ever, he is a lighthouse for
those interested in the interwoven problematics of race, gender, sexuality, and
class. But he is as well a singular figure of displacement, a critically productive
internationalist, being at first a Jamaican in New York, then a Caribbean </span><span style="font-family: arial;">from Harlem in
Europe, then a Black writer from France in Morocco, and finally back </span><span style="font-family: arial;">to the United
States, a Black Atlantic wanderer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFEI3Mbq-wnASsoMQGuOPQetIM-WigXvydSK3lXSZlXfG9UaLnPaHc7Cn-VWBUddCbR8oAnduTOtzT3tzAxqW86YC2PKzj4cDlAU2OX-CC_4GdjFnMXMLqgXdyRsZfj7eJ7K1ZXs9rBcE/s2048/Claude+McKay+-+Liberation.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1823" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFEI3Mbq-wnASsoMQGuOPQetIM-WigXvydSK3lXSZlXfG9UaLnPaHc7Cn-VWBUddCbR8oAnduTOtzT3tzAxqW86YC2PKzj4cDlAU2OX-CC_4GdjFnMXMLqgXdyRsZfj7eJ7K1ZXs9rBcE/s320/Claude+McKay+-+Liberation.jpeg" width="285" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Which is also
the point of his renewed presence in the French contemporary cultural landscape.
The very fact that one of the most preeminent actors of the Harlem Renaissance
was, first, a Jamaican, and second, writing from France about the Americas and
the global Black diaspora is irresistibly intriguing. Another important factor
is the crucial influence that McKay’s writings had on a number of Francophone literary
figures of the 1930s, including the founders of the Négritude movement, the Nardal
sisters, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, Léon Gontran Damas, René Ménil, and many
others.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In a nutshell,
I would argue that McKay captivates nowadays for all those reasons at the same
time. He epitomizes the Black international radical current that rose in the 1920s
and 1930s, his critical scope is extremely contemporary, and he is representative
of a certain blend of political and cultural cosmopolitanism that happened to
exist in the French imperial metropole during the interwar years. It is
interesting to notice that the three books being published now in France deal
with different periods of his life: <i>Home to Harlem</i>, his 1928 bestseller
(translated <i>Retour à Harlem</i> in the new French translation to be
published by Nada Éditions) is a luxurious portrait of Harlem in the 1920s,
written while he was in France. <i>Romance in Marseille</i>, released last
April by Héliotropismes, another previously unpublished </span>novel from the
early 1930s, revolves around the central themes of his most famous novel also
set in Marseilles, <i>Banjo</i>. And thus, <i>Amiable with Big Teeth</i>, dating from 1941,
being his last fiction and only novel ever written in the United States.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: In
addition to your native French, you speak English and Spanish. Where and how
did you begin learning other languages?</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>JBN</b>: Where I grew up, English and Spanish
were mandatory at school. So, I grasped some elements there, quite poorly. Then
I had to travel. So, I learned most of my English with Ukrainian artists in
Lisbon and bits of Spanish with Brazilian anarchists in Athens. How </span><span style="font-family: arial;">romantic…</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivSXmJFFin7tcNaoEytIdy_1uFIJpnF6cED2vnF4qeb_9ssIGNYBkNXjd93JeeeME1b56Dn1PKhJwQBvPVlBG7f03HAj1-9vcC6KaTp8ruhQIU3CxBJtXpAF_RxM1iIq2mgGNxoNrwJK0/s767/Claude+McKay+-+kamau+brathwaite.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivSXmJFFin7tcNaoEytIdy_1uFIJpnF6cED2vnF4qeb_9ssIGNYBkNXjd93JeeeME1b56Dn1PKhJwQBvPVlBG7f03HAj1-9vcC6KaTp8ruhQIU3CxBJtXpAF_RxM1iIq2mgGNxoNrwJK0/s320/Claude+McKay+-+kamau+brathwaite.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
did your interest in translation start?</span></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">JBN</b>: My first encounter with the need to
translate something happened I guess when I </span><span style="font-family: arial;">went to London
for the first time, in 1997. Following a totally random move - because I liked
his name - I bought a washed-out copy of Kamau Brathwaite’s </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Middle Passages</i><span style="font-family: arial;">.
I had never read anything like that. For sure it sounded like street music to
me, half a drunkard rant, half an esoteric psalmody, but the polyphony at work
in this single text, the sound and visual poetics of patwa mesmerized me.<b> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, for
the last 25 years, I have been trying to translate exactly that, the very
sensation I had in front of this palimpsest of languages. A rant that would be
a psalmody, at times unintelligible, at times neat as a scalpel slice. How
language can be haunted by the spectre of the past while echoing potentially
emancipated futures. What Rimbaud called “the long, immense, rational
derangement of the senses”, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">inscribed on a
page where words are sounds are signs are ciphers are colours are </span><span style="font-family: arial;">noises are
tastes are notes and nevertheless, never more than words.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: Can
you tell us more about other works that you’ve translated and how you </span></b><b><span style="font-family: arial;">selected
these?</span></b></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>JBN</b>: Last year, I translated <i>African
Journey</i> by Eslanda Goode Robeson, and it was a delight. I have an intense
admiration for Eslanda Robeson, an amazing transnational </span><span style="font-family: arial;">feminist
networker and anticolonial advocate. This book was a great success in the USA
when it was published in 1945, the first popular book about Africa written by
an African American writer. It is a travel diary, at the same time complex and
honest, but I particularly liked how Robeson used this genre to create
commonality between Africans and Americans. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">For the
anecdote, Eslanda Robeson and Claude McKay really disliked each other, their
writing styles are almost opposite, as well as their social backgrounds and cultural
framings; however, I think they were aiming at the same liberation and I love them
both!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: How
important is translation for today’s world, especially for publishing underrepresented
communities? In the Caribbean, as in other regions, it sometimes feels as if
countries are divided by language. How can people in the literary and education
spheres help to bridge these linguistic "borders"? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsDNekMABfy6yF7UxqtGAh4KwgNqxyqd-5EZCjp7NcpzbI0UmpOgpwM8BB2Ws2lwex6w_WstIJRzp0DbznbigpUxjaY9vOLzbEtH3Y-mKaW769AuIc0jwXNbeWJCFlBEW9TBByZDQQVqE/s674/Claude+McKay+-+Amiable.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="441" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsDNekMABfy6yF7UxqtGAh4KwgNqxyqd-5EZCjp7NcpzbI0UmpOgpwM8BB2Ws2lwex6w_WstIJRzp0DbznbigpUxjaY9vOLzbEtH3Y-mKaW769AuIc0jwXNbeWJCFlBEW9TBByZDQQVqE/s320/Claude+McKay+-+Amiable.jpg" width="209" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">JBN</b><b>: </b>When I was a student, I had the
opportunity to study what we call in my country </span>“Francophone
literature”, so literature written by former and present subjects of the French
colonial project. Or raised in the postcolonial remains of the French empire. What
was interesting for me was to try to understand or feel what the colonial condition
was doing to the language itself. How writing or expressing oneself in a foreign
language, an imperial language imposed upon a great variety of cultures, was
transforming the language in return.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At its core, Francophone literature has a poetical
abundance and a political tumult that always seemed to me in synchronization
with the modern condition. Whatever be the scale and the observation point.
What people from my neighbourhood in Paris, coming from all corners of the
world, were doing via the vernacular popular French slang we were talking every
day, the “Francophone” writers were doing the same to literature itself.
Upgrading it to a world-scale. As any other imperial language, French does not belong
to French people, fortunately, and that is the main source of its current
literary potency as well as the only sound reason to continue to use it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The political
side effects of this linguistic colonial and then postcolonial condition astonished me
as well: how this shared imperial language allowed Caribbean peoples, Arabs,
Africans, Indochinese, Indians, Guyanese, to relate and elaborate a common ground. This
tremendous poetic force and its radical cosmopolitan perspective bound me to
translation, especially when I experimentally realized that the situation was
exactly the same with all the other imperial languages, English, Spanish, etc. Suzanne
Césaire was maybe one of the first poets to see the Caribbean not so much as
separated islands (divided by bodies of water, empires, languages, political status)
but as an archipelago, an extremely complex panorama whose unity is undersea
and underseen. I consider that my task as a literary translator working on the
Atlantic world is to help languages undersee each other. I aim to be a pidginizer.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">SWAN: What
are your next projects?</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial;">JBN</b><span style="font-family: arial;">: I am working on several translation
projects. First of all, an amazingly powerful collection of
short stories by South African wonder writer Stacy Hardy. Then, a beautiful and
crucial book by Annette Joseph-Gabriel, </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Reimagining Liberation</i><span style="font-family: arial;">, dealing with
the key role played by Black women in the decolonization of the French empire.
Finally, I will work on the first French translation of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">The Practice of
Diaspora</i><span style="font-family: arial;">, an essential book by Brent Hayes Edwards, focusing on Paris as a
node of the Black Atlantic culture in the interwar years. Its subtitle says it
all: </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Literature, translation and the rise of Black internationalism</i><span style="font-family: arial;">.
This masterwork constructs an analytical frame to relate together René Maran,
Alain Locke, Paulette Nardal, Claude McKay, Lamine Senghor, George Padmore,
Jessie Fauset, Langston Hughes, C.L.R. James, Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté, and so
many more. As you can easily imagine, it is a mind-blowing book, and I am
extremely proud to work on it. </span><b style="font-family: arial;"><i>- AM /SWAN</i></b></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Photos: top to
bottom: the cover of </i>Les Brebis noires de Dieu<i>; </i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Jean-Baptiste Naudy in Paris (photo by AM); </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Voyage Africain</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;"> by Eslanda Robeson; </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Libération</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;"> article on the translation of Claude McKay’s work; </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Middle Passages</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;"> by Kamau Brathwaite (New Directions); </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Aimable with Big Teeth<i> (Penguin)</i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">.</span></b></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056775801677231242.post-43156463206796589182021-10-21T11:59:00.007-07:002021-11-01T05:11:28.634-07:00ARTIST ASKS UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS AT PARIS FAIR<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How does
injustice make you feel? Do you see yourself as a perpetrator, or as a victim?
Is there any such thing as neutrality? These are some of the questions that
Dorian Sari asks through their artwork, which includes blurry photographs with violently shattered glass frames.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The award-winning Turco-Swiss artist - who uses the pronoun they - has a solo booth at the current International Contemporary Art Fair in Paris (FIAC), and their work invites viewers to question reactions and stances when it comes to societal norms. Who, for instance, has thrown the stone that is glued to the cracked glass?</span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7Cilkfz_WENjwPiz5iZqDmvX1vnI441ygF-nCRBnKksHEmHWsCJGf2FyX1ez2niD4mCLRj_YWEF-bwEl7yhV1e5GJToRJgJYxdFg29Z0-9vMPvZKu6IbWJSd6hoTlPYONTc3KnAjjNk/s2048/FIAC+-+Dorian+1.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1968" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7Cilkfz_WENjwPiz5iZqDmvX1vnI441ygF-nCRBnKksHEmHWsCJGf2FyX1ez2niD4mCLRj_YWEF-bwEl7yhV1e5GJToRJgJYxdFg29Z0-9vMPvZKu6IbWJSd6hoTlPYONTc3KnAjjNk/s320/FIAC+-+Dorian+1.jpeg" width="308" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">“When people
look at this, they rarely see themselves as the perpetrator, but we all do
things that exclude others,” says Sari, who is represented by Turkish gallery
Öktem Aykut, one of 170 galleries taking part in FIAC this year.</div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On from Oct. 21
to 24, the annual fair did not happen in 2020 because of Covid-19, and its
return sees a range of artwork addressing global political and pandemic issues.
Sari, who studied political science and literature before art, wonders however if
the world has learned anything from the events of the past two years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The works on
display - a tiny chewed-up whistle, a retractable “wall” with spaces for
communication if one wishes, two large photographs and a book titled <i>Texts
on Post-Truth, Violence, Anger - </i>are meant to spark even deeper reflections about identity and affiliation. (The book was published by the Kunstmuseum
Basel when Sari had an exhibition earlier this year, after winning the Manor
Art Prize - an award that promotes young visual artists working in Switzerland.)
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The intended
discomfort is even evident in Sari’s choice of title: “Ding-dong, the itch is
back!”, and countries aren’t exempt. Can a nation claim neutrality when they
sell arms, the artist also asks, through an illustration showing a gun emitting
a red flag that has a white “x” in the middle.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sari took time
out from their busy schedule at FIAC to discuss these concerns. Following is the
edited interview.</span></div></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nZg4S40CbKDG16lm1rZP7lsRrAcF47lkp5plmwe0VneHMbgNpKB3-LdV8bV9gmMzbmDNZgWU31EkncQOKvlTQgW_HF3y1DLoGqFrq8VrM5YmWymuIeU8r-pvHJiX8dUBGD9R5hCJCSU/s2048/FIAC+-+Dorian+2.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1846" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nZg4S40CbKDG16lm1rZP7lsRrAcF47lkp5plmwe0VneHMbgNpKB3-LdV8bV9gmMzbmDNZgWU31EkncQOKvlTQgW_HF3y1DLoGqFrq8VrM5YmWymuIeU8r-pvHJiX8dUBGD9R5hCJCSU/s320/FIAC+-+Dorian+2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: What inspires
your work?</b><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SARI: </b>My latest
research was on the topic of post-truth, a political adjective for what’s
happening in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. It means that we’re bombarded with
information every day, but at the same time nobody knows if this information is
true or not. We also live in a technological period where algorithms … just
want people to consume more. To keep you on the platform, they show you
something that you like, then a more radical version, and then something even
more radical. There is so much polarisation and separation in the world, and
this is one of my biggest interests. At the FIAC, I’m showing some of the works
I showed at the Kunstmuseum in Basel and also at Öktem Aykut in Istanbul. With
this series of photographs, I was interested in seeing the relationship between
the victim and the perpetrator because we always think that what we do is the
right thing, and it is always others’ fault. I wanted to change this position.
Whoever is looking at the photograph is the stone-thrower but even though I
give this position, people still prefer to identify as the victim. But even if
you’re neither, and you’re just watching and being silent, that third option is
also problematic.</span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SWAN: What is
behind the “itch” in the title of the photograph series?</b></div><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SARI</b>: It’s a
series of 10 photos, and the “itch is back” means there’s an uncomfortable
feeling inside, so you scratch your body. Maybe this discomfort comes because
there’s something that the stone-thrower doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to
see. It can be anything.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKvgXrKTs9kSW6M7AYb7eSuIrh69f2JPGsAnqW1Nea-Qbx-azH8nVlWaWEn7Lt_ZpAbRJLvhQXbimDwlj8FbJgdNFgON-v-pOVbJmVEXu1QB4ACgk8L9NUq8wnDgIuw9X8JAaJV8Yf7wo/s2048/FIAC+-+Dorian+4.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKvgXrKTs9kSW6M7AYb7eSuIrh69f2JPGsAnqW1Nea-Qbx-azH8nVlWaWEn7Lt_ZpAbRJLvhQXbimDwlj8FbJgdNFgON-v-pOVbJmVEXu1QB4ACgk8L9NUq8wnDgIuw9X8JAaJV8Yf7wo/s320/FIAC+-+Dorian+4.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: So, the
aim is to make us question our own itch?<br /></b><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SARI</b>: Exactly.
And to question what we reject, what we throw stones at in daily life, because
we do it so much. We exclude so many things. I always believe we’re separated
through the adjectives: the moment we’re born, they tell us our gender, they
tell us our nationality, they tell us our religion, they tell us our social
class, language, everything. Everything is automatically put on us, and it’s
already part of our separation because one group doesn’t want the other group,
and di-di-di-di-di-di. But after all, I believe in love, and I believe love
doesn’t have a gender, race, social class. Love is love. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SWAN: And the
whistle?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SARI</b>: There are
so many people who wear a whistle as a necklace, or carry it on a keychain or
in their bag, so that in case of something violent in the streets, they can raise
an alarm, make their voices heard. Or, in case there’s an earthquake… I was
thinking that someone could have so much fear and anxiety, waiting for
something to happen. And the whistle could be like a pencil - when you don’t use
it, you chew on the end. And I thought that someone waiting for something bad
to happen would chew on the whistle. So, it’s like auto-destruction: you eat
your own voice in order to be heard because of fear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Photos (top to bottom): Dorian Sari with artwork at FIAC; the exterior of the art fair venue in Paris. Photos by AM/SWAN.</b></i></span></p>SWANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04814798190636636905noreply@blogger.com