First Thursdays is a public event and free to attend. Art galleries and cultural events around Cape Town’s central city stay open until 9pm or later on the first Thursday of every month, allowing anyone to explore the city on foot and experience the cultural wealth this city has to offer. There is no tour, schedule, or guided walk; tha...
Artistic freedom was always tenuous in Kenya, but it’s become even less so since Uhuru Kenyatta became president in 2013. The political pendulum has swung against political dissenters, intellectuals and a handful of media institutions that still believed in objective journalism.Progressive gains made under the previous administration o...
When two recently discovered paintings by revered South African artist Gerard Sekoto(1913-1993) – Portrait of a Man (Lentswana) and Three School Girls – went on auction at Bonhams London early in September 2018, there was some anticipation about what kind of prices they would fetch. When the hammer fell they garnered just over £38...
In the first week of every February, the streets of Ségou in Mali come to life. Residents from the capital, Bamako, flock to the secondary city to escape the busyness of everyday life and absorb the sights, sounds and colours of the Festival sur le Niger, along the banks of the Niger River. The attractions include traditional dan...
Over two decades Okwui Enwezor emerged as a dominant and highly influential voice in curatorial practice and contemporary art history. He was a curator and art historian who engaged and grappled with the various iterations of what might be broadly construed as the post-colonial and global turns in visual art.Born in Nigeria in 1963, En...
There is no better place to assess the state of “auteur” African cinema than at its premier showcase, the biennial film festival in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Popularly known by its acronym, Fespaco, the Festival panafrica...
English has achieved prime status by becoming the most widely spoken language in the world – if one disregards proficiency – ahead of Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English is spoken in 101 countries, while Arabic is spoken in 60, Fr...