Esiri Erheriene-Essi and her painting The Birthday Party. Photo credit: AM/SWAN

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
BRUSSELS, Mar 4 2025 (IPS)

It’s like walking through several psychedelic halls of history, where bold colours, electrifying compositions and contagious rhythms hit the senses all at once.

This is When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting – a momentous exhibition running at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium, until Aug. 10, 2025.

“One of the most enduring features of the human condition is the inexhaustible desire to see oneself through visual culture and storytelling,” said Koyo Kouoh, co-curator of the exhibition with Tandazani Dhlakama, and executive director and chief curator of Cape Town’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) – which conceived and organized the exhibition.

“Whether living on the continent or within the vast, impressive African diaspora, Black artists have invested in a spectrum of narratives that encompass the experience of blackness, intentionally rejecting limiting tropes of representation,” Kouoh told journalists as the exhibition opened in February.

According to Zoë Gray, Bozar’s director of exhibitions, When We See Us demonstrates how art history is “plural, diverse, and always intertwined”. She said that when she first saw the exhibition in South Africa, she immediately wanted Bozar to host it as well. (The show has now travelled from MOCAA to Basel, to Brussels. It will move on to Stockholm in October for a 10-month stint in the Swedish capital.)

The paintings – from a timely “insider” perspective – are grouped into sections titled “The Everyday”, “Repose”, “Triumph and Emancipation”, “Sensuality”, “Spirituality”, and “Joy and Revelry”. As visitors wander through these sections, they stroll to an accompaniment of global rhythms (arranged by musician and sound artist Neo Muyanga); and the overall effect is of a lively, panoptic world.

An Evening in Mazowe by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami. Photo credit: AM/SWAN

But this is just one noteworthy element. When We See Us can be viewed as an historic art journey, a parade of artistry, a different way of seeing, an explosion of joy.

The curators say the show’s title is “inspired and derived” from the 2019 miniseries directed by US filmmaker Ava DuVernay, When They See Us, which depicts systemic racial prejudice and violence.

“I like shifting things and flipping things … as a way to continue the conversation,” Kouoh said. “So, flipping ‘they’ to ‘we’ allows for a dialectical shift that centres the conversation in a comparative perspective of self-writing, as theorized by Cameroonian political scientist, Professor Achille Mbembe.”

She said it was important for the organizers to show a plurality of experiences and to avoid “reductive” and “myopic” narratives. Pain and injustice are not at the forefront of this exhibition, as black experiences can also be seen “through the lens of joy”.

As for the choice of figurative painting, this reflects the history of the genre throughout the world and especially amid Black artistic practice, she remarked.

Many of the artists have lived in different places and reflect an array of influences or associations; Cuban-born Wifredo Lam, for example, was a long-term resident of Paris, and died there in 1982. He was friends with Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, associated with other European artists including Henri Matisse and Joan Miró, and knew Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. In the exhibition, visitors get to see Lam’s striking 1938 work “Femme Violette” up close.

Meanwhile, works by the “kings of Kinshasha” – Congolese artists Chéri Samba and Moké – stand out for their audacious, animated canvases, as well as their satirical themes.

“They were both pivotal protagonists in the political provocative Zaire School of Popular Painting, a style that developed in Kiinshasha in the 1970s, a decade after Congo’s independence from Belgium in 1960,” state the curators. “The work of both artists was focused on the daily life in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

(For a profile of Chéri Samba see:  Congolese ‘Kings’ of Art on Exhibition in Paris)

In the section “Joy and Revelry”, Netherlands-based British-Nigerian artist Esiri Erherienne-Essi said she wanted to show a different side of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. Her painting “The Birthday Party” depicts a group posing for a photograph at a joyful event. Here, she centres a happy-looking Biko, celebrating his niece’s birthday.

In her work, Erherienne-Essi uses photographs from historical archives as a starting point to create her paintings, according to the curators. She brings to the fore “archives and moments from Black people’s lives with vibrant depth, colour and detail, countering the flatness of the Black figures in the Western art historical narratives,” they added.

This idea of reversing the gaze is central to When We See Us – especially in the section “Sensuality”, where artists explore “various levels of pleasure, leisure and desire” with works in a variety of media. Among these, the remarkable “Never Change Lovers in the Middle of the Night”, by American artist Mickalene Thomas, employs acrylic paint, enamel and rhinestones to depict sexuality.

All the artworks are arranged in such a way as to make visitors feel fully connected to the paintings, said Ilze Wolff, of Cape Town design firm Wolff Architects, responsible for the exhibition’s scenography. Visitors can sit in some sections and become immersed in a particular set of paintings.

Visitors can freely browse some 80 books, loaned by Belgian institutions including the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), local library Muntpunt, and art galleries.

“The books on display give a glimpse of the history of research into Black art, as well as of Black literary writing, philosophy, and political thought,” said Eva Ulrike Pirker, VUB professor of English and comparative literature. “While the exhibition is temporary, the books, including the beautiful catalogue, which offers reproductions of all the artworks, are in Brussels to stay and available at the partner libraries free of charge.”

Pirker said she liked the idea that the exhibition will have a “concrete, lasting impact” on the collections of libraries that have partnered with the show, as it prompted librarians to look into their holdings and acquire new books to fill existing gaps.

Showing the richness of African diasporic art, the documentation section may even spur viewers to seek out more information, as well as related artwork.

“When We See Us is about a historical continuum of Black expression, Black consciousness and joy, and we hope (audiences) will enjoy it,” said co-curator Dhlakama. – AM/SWAN

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.

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.

Dr Daive Dunkley (courtesy of the University of Missouri).

These contributions are highlighted in Dunkley’s latest book, Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement, 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 SWAN about his research, in an interview conducted by email and videoconference.

SWAN: What inspired your research on women’s role in the early Rastafari movement?

Daive Dunkley: 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.

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.

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

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.

SWAN: Were you surprised by the information you discovered?

D.D.:  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.

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.

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.

SWAN: What was the most striking aspect of this story?

D.D.:  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 blog 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.

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.

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.

SWAN: How important is this particular segment of history to Jamaica and the world, given the international contributions of the Rastafari movement?

D.D.: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

SWAN: From a gender standpoint, how significant would you say the research is for Jamaica, the Caribbean?

D.D.:  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.

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.

Women also ensured that they participated in preaching the Rastafari doctrine on the streets 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.

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.

SWAN: Why did the Rastafari movement become so male-oriented in later decades?

D.D.:  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.

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.

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.

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.

SWAN: How did the book come about?

D.D.: 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 Daily Gleaner.

SWAN: What do you hope readers will take away from it overall?

D.D.: 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.

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. – AM / SWAN

Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement is published by Louisiana State University Press.

Extreme weather associated to climate change has resulted in million of dollars in loss and damage in St. Vincent and the Grenadines over the past few years. Credit: Kenton X. Chance/IPS

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
KINGSTON / PARIS, May 17 2021 (IPS)

The “all-virtual” Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week (LACCW) that took place May 11-14 highlighted islands’ particular vulnerabilities in the face of both climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. But the event – hosted by the Dominican Republic – also provided “important momentum for a successful UN Climate Change Conference” (COP 26) in November in Glasgow, according to the United Nations.

When that conference takes place, island states will no doubt be among the most vocal in calling for urgent climate action, again – just as they did at COP 21, joining the “1.5-to-stay-alive” stance in the runup to the Paris Agreement. Yet, island governments and their supporters aren’t just waiting around for the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to listen to them (or to commit fully to limiting the rise in global warming to 1.5C). Instead, many are banding together to exchange ideas and to come up with sustainable measures, confronted by ever-present disaster.

James Ellsmoor

Besides LACCW, initiatives that have been bringing islands together include Island Innovation, a group founded and directed by James Ellsmoor, who organized a high-level “Island Finance Forum” in April. This four-day virtual event featured a line-up of entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, academics and other experts.

Also participating were officials like Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda (which suffered a devastating hurricane in 2017), and Pearnel Charles Jr., a senator and government minister in Jamaica – which has warned about the severe economic problems linked to climate change.

Ellsmoor told IPS that Island Innovation began with a newsletter and a series of virtual events, and has evolved into a community of more than 100,000 members. In addition, Ellsmoor is the co-founder of the NGO Solar Head of State (SHOS), which “works with governments to push action on renewable energy”.

The NGO has focused on small island developing states, with solar installations on the Office of the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Government House in Saint Lucia and the Presidential Palace of the Maldives. Ellsmoor said that SHOS is now working with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and the Pacific Island Development Forum to install solar on the official residences “across these organizations’ combined 24 member states”.

Besides working in the Caribbean, Ellsmoor (who grew up on a farm in Shropshire, England) has worked in the United States and Colombia and is now based in Lisbon, Portugal.

The next global event that he and Island Innovation are organizing will be the Virtual Island Summit, Sept. 6 – 12. He spoke with IPS reporter A.D. McKenzie via email about these and other ventures. An edited version of the interview follows.

IPS: Islands are on the frontline of the battle against climate change. Over the past years, you have been highlighting this through a series of initiatives and conferences. Can you tell us how this work began?

JAMES ELLSMOOR: Island Innovation initially started as a network, sharing sustainable development stories from rural, remote and island communities across the globe. I saw that these island communities were facing many similar issues, and there was an opportunity for them to connect on a bigger scale and collaborate. Islands as different as Greenland, Barbados, Okinawa and Saint Helena share certain commonalities and we created opportunities to build “digital bridges” to connect them. The community now include over 100,000 participants from across the globe.

Although islands are so diverse, they share many common issues, of course the effects of climate change being among the most pressing. By creating this virtual space, remote islands from opposite corners of the globe can come together to highlight challenges they face, share solutions and promote solutions for sustainable development.

IPS: At the recent Leaders Summit on Climate, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Mother Nature is not waiting. The past decade was the hottest on record. Dangerous greenhouse gases are at levels not seen in 3 million years. Global temperature has already risen 1.2 degrees Celsius – racing toward the threshold of catastrophe. Meanwhile, we see ever rising sea-levels, scorching temperatures, devastating tropical cyclones and epic wildfires.” What can islands do amidst this crisis?

J.E.: I think it’s important to note that although islands, and particularly Small Island Developing States (SIDS), are very much on at the frontline of climate change, they have been a clear voice in pushing climate change to the forefront of the agenda, as well as proving their resilience. Promotion of innovative finance models and economic diversification is key to support island communities and SIDS, and this was one of the main focal points in our recent Island Finance Forum. At the United Nations, the leaders calling for climate action are often from islands, but these efforts to call for change affect everyone.

IPS: Your most recent conference, organized by your group Island Innovation and held virtually, focused on finance. It attracted some 6,000 registrants, with 70 speakers that included prime ministers, climate finance experts, activists and others. What was the motivation for organizing this conference?

J.E.: Our annual event, the Virtual Island Summit covers a wide range of topics. Listening to attendee feedback is important to me and I found that a common question that came out of the Virtual Island Summit was how island communities can get access to the sustainable finance solutions and projects on offer. We launched the Island Finance Forum as a way to connect our island stakeholders with the financial experts, with a focus on sustainable and inclusive finance structures for island communities. So often there is enthusiasm for change but there need to be channels for financing action.

IPS: What did you look for in the potential speakers?

J.E.: The Island Finance Forum was a high-level event and we wanted to have the senior financiers and experts who are responsible for projects that are making sustainable and economic changes in island communities. It’s also very important for us to have island speakers at our events who can give that first-hand insight and experience. We included high-level island politicians such as the Prime Ministers of Fiji, Vanuatu and Antigua & Barbuda. Speakers also hailed from multinational finance institutions such as BNP Paribas and local island banks such as NCB Capital Markets in the Caribbean.

IPS: What do you think participants gained from the information provided and the discussions that took place?

J.E.: I believe we achieved what we had set out to do, which is connect island stakeholders with “decision-makers” and financial experts. As with all our events, we created a space to share and exchange knowledge and I hope that our stakeholders can take away these updates on successful and sustainable projects that can be implemented on their own islands. Our events include hundreds of islands and this diversity of participation is really exciting.

IPS: Your next conference will be the Virtual Island Summit, Sept. 6 – 12. What will be the major themes of this gathering?

J.E.: The Virtual Island Summit is much broader in scope and will cover all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There will of course be a strong focus on solutions to mitigating climate change, as well as discussion on the blue economy, agriculture, tourism and post-Covid recovery. The Virtual Island Summit will also feed into our involvement at the COP26, where we are planning to create an “Island Space” to share insights into island communities. A big part of this work is breaking down silos and we always ensure we include representatives from government, NGOs, academia and the private sector.

IPS: How do you expect this conference to help islands in their fight against climate change and in addressing other issues that affect them, including the Covid-19 pandemic?

J.E.: Through facilitating these important global conversations and collaborations. Not just during the week of the event but beyond, through our online community where conversations flourish, and we continue to learn from each other. Our events highlight that island communities experience similar problems, but if we can continue to make connections between them to exchange knowledge on how to respond and act on issues, this can only be a good thing.

Malay hawker prepares satay (seasoned and skewered meat grilled over hot charcoal). © Mohamad Hafiz, contestant of #OurHawkerCulture photography contest 2019, Singapore, 2019

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
PARIS, Dec 23 2020 (IPS)

Cuisine formed a notable portion of the latest inscriptions on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, with hawker food in Singapore and couscous traditions in North Africa being celebrated.

The two were among 29 elements inscribed when the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage met virtually Dec. 14 to 19, hosted by Jamaica and chaired by the island’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange.

“This year … the experience that we all had in sharing and experiencing the cultures of different countries made us realize that in spite of the pandemic, in spite of us being apart, we were still able to share in each other’s culture, and what it did for all of us was to bring us closer together,” Grange said at the end of the meeting.

The inscription of Singapore’s “hawker culture, community dining and culinary practices in a multicultural urban context” marks the first time that the Southeast Asian island state has an element inscribed on the List.

Hawker culture is “present throughout Singapore”, with these food centres seen as a kind of “community dining room”, officials said. Here, people from diverse backgrounds dine and mingle, in an atmosphere of conviviality and enjoyment of the scents and flavours on offer.

Hawker centres grew out of street-food culture, housing cooks who provide meals in a bustling communal setting with different stalls. The centres have, however, seen closures and fewer customers because of the Covid-19 pandemic, making the 2020 inscription a bitter-sweet one.

Couscous © Centre national de recherches préhistoriques, anthropologiques et historiques (CNRPAH), Algérie, 2018.

The couscous submission – which focused on the knowledge, know-how and practices pertaining to the production and consumption of the dish – was made by Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, and it naturally sparked an online debate about the absence of other countries that are known for this food, and about favourite recipes.

The inscription encompasses “the methods of production, manufacturing conditions and tools, associated artefacts and circumstances of couscous consumption in the communities concerned,” according to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Originating from the Berber culture of Algeria and Morocco, couscous is now eaten around the world, accompanied by a variety of vegetables and meats – depending on the region, the season and the occasion.

It comes “replete with symbols, meanings and social and cultural dimensions linked to solidarity, conviviality and the sharing of meals,” UNESCO said.

Food was also indirectly highlighted with the inscription of “Zlakusa pottery making, hand-wheel pottery making in the village of Zlakusa”. This comprises the practice of making unglazed food vessels that are used in households and restaurants across Serbia, originating from a tiny village in the west of the country.

Olivia “Babsy” Grange, Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport.

Some gastronomes claim that dishes prepared in Zlakusa earthenware have a unique taste, and the pottery’s “close association with the village of Zlakusa and its environs reflects its close link with the natural environment,” the inscription stated.

Away from food, several music and art practices were also inscribed, and the meeting saw three elements added to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, while another three were added to the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.

The latter “facilitates the sharing of successful safeguarding experiences” and “showcases examples of the effective transmission of living cultural practices and knowledge to future generations,” UNESCO said. Elements inscribed this year include the Martinique yole (a light boat), whose tradition goes back several centuries in the Caribbean.

The committee stated that a “spontaneous movement to safeguard these boats developed while they faced the threat of disappearing” and that the safeguarding programme has grown over the years. The main purpose is to “preserve the know-how of local boat builders”, transmit expertise on sailing, and create a federation to organize major events.

In a year that has seen the cultural sector hit hard globally by the Covid-19 pandemic, the inscriptions brought some cheer to the 141 countries attending and the more than one thousand people participating in the virtual meeting. During an online press briefing on Dec. 18, committee chairperson Grange noted that Jamaica was of course also affected by the health crisis, but that the population was very “resilient”.

“It impacted aspects of our culture, primarily the entertainment industry, and also various sectors in the creative industry,” she said in response to a question. “It has impacted the economy … and our creative people who depend on their creative works to earn an income. However, we were still able to take our music to the world, through technology.”

Grange said that hosting the huge virtual meeting of the Intangible Cultural Heritage committee posed some technological challenges, but nothing that could not be overcome. She said it showed the importance of working together, of sharing cultures, and of finding ways to overcome obstacles to “ensure that we continue to use culture to unite the world.”

This year saw the highest number of multi-country nominations – 14 inscriptions “testifying to the ability of intangible cultural heritage to bring people together and promote international cooperation,” Grange said.

“These are great achievements for all of humanity,” she declared, recalling her country’s pride and the global celebration when reggae music of Jamaica was added to the List in 2018.

Ecuador’s entry for the 2021 Academy Awards’ International Feature section is a surprising movie, highlighting a story that up to now has been little-known. Titled Vacío / Emptiness and directed by self-taught filmmaker Paúl Venegas, the work focuses on how increasing numbers of Chinese migrants have ended up in Latin America over the past 15 years, and it features a cast of mainly non-professional actors – speaking Mandarin, Spanish, English and some Cantonese.

Even viewers familiar with stories of migration will find this an unexpected look at the issue, after decades of news articles about Europe and the United States. The migrants here are Chinese individuals arriving clandestinely in Ecuador and other Latin American countries, trying to make a living while dreaming of going elsewhere, and speaking not a word of the local language.

Paúl Venegas

This is Venegas’ first feature (after producing several documentaries since 2003), and he clearly draws on his own Ecuadorian background as well as his time living in Asia, where he worked in finance in the Philippines and China. Viewers get a sense of both worlds, the one the characters have fled for various personal reasons, and the new one that is merely a way station for some but still filled with peril for the “paper-less”, the undocumented.

The film follows Lei (Fu Jing) and Wong (Lidan Zhu) who arrive clandestinely in Ecuador after having met on a packed boat heading to what they think will be a land of opportunity. Lei’s objective is to get to New York, while Wong’s aim is to make enough money working so that he can bring his 12-year-old son from China to South America.

Before long, we see them falling into the hands of a seemingly charming but sinister individual, the bipolar gangster Chang (Meng Day Min), who has his own devious agenda, especially as regards Lei. They will have to figure out a way to escape, helped by friends including a fun-loving, good-hearted young Ecuadorian (played by Ricardo Velastegui) and an older immigrant (Yin Baode), who himself yearns to return to his homeland. Yet, even if escaping should prove successful, perhaps this won’t change their fate of forever having to live in the shadows.

Vacío could have been an unbearably bleak movie if Venegas hadn’t pulled back from leaving the main characters in despair. With his cast, we get a depiction of the many hazards of migration, but also a message of optimism. Lei’s dream could take a long time to be realized; still, she may eventually get to New York and follow the career path she has set herself.

In a videocall, Venegas told SWAN how and why he made Vacío (which had its première at South Korea’s 2020 Busan International Film Festival in October and has already won awards in Latin America). The edited interview follows.

SWAN: Migration is a universal topic, but your story is special because not many know of this particular movement of people. Can you tell us about the background?

Paúl Venegas: Well, Chinese communities have been migrating all over the world since more than 150 years. In Ecuador and Latin America in general, they started arriving about 120 years ago. Lima (Peru) has a huge Chinatown. They were brought as coolies to work on the Panama Canal too. And then there have been waves of immigration to countries in southeast Asia, for instance. I remember in Cambodia, literally in the middle of the jungle, I found a Chinese community that had been there for over a hundred years. They were farmers. They were just hidden somehow.

So, there’s been this spirit of always leaving … something that has permeated the culture.

Regarding the script, my co-writer (Carlos Terán Vargas) studied filmmaking in Cuba around 2005, and he began to write a script about Chinatown in Havana, because in the late 1800s, there were Chinese helping to fight the war of independence of Cuba. So there’s this long history, and when we met in 2008, I was already going back and forth to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for my work, and whenever I went to a corner shop, it was run by an Argentinian. But as the years went by – and starting around 2012, 2013 – all of a sudden around 99 percent of all these mid-size supermarkets, across all neighbourhoods, became run by Chinese, to the point that nowadays you don’t say I’m going to the supermarket. The expression translated from Spanish in Buenos Aires is: I’m going to the Chinese. It’s amazing.

So, I started observing this phenomenon, and seeing the same thing happening in São Paulo, also in Madrid, in Milan, in Valencia. I took inspiration from what’s happening all over the world, and the script developed and changed.

SWAN: And in Ecuador, specifically?

PV: Here particularly, in 2008, the government opened up the borders completely. You didn’t need a visa, and a lot of nationalities came in, using this as a transit point for the traditional migration to the United States. A lot of Asians came, and also people from Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, and from the Middle East as well. They’ve come in large numbers to Ecuador. They stay a few weeks, and then they go to the United States by land or other ways. But a lot of them will also stay and go to southern cities like São Paulo or Buenos Aires.

In 2008 to 2009, around 30,000 Chinese nationals came to Guayaquil (the second biggest city in Ecuador) especially, and it’s said that around 20,000 of them stayed, and they began to enlarge the already existing Chinatown – which had been there for generations but without the name. Last year it was recognized that there is a Chinatown, but even today, when you speak to people from the city about this, they say: What? Where’s the Chinatown? What I mean to say is that Chinese migration is very low-profile. It’s not marginalisation. They arrive under different conditions (from other migrants), and they arrive to already existing economic networks. So, it’s very silent, but it’s very permanent.

That is the interesting fact, I think, about the film – that people don’t realize … because they’re more aware of the terrible conditions of other migrations, with all the tragic things that we know. Still there are a few Chinese nationals now being caught at the border between Mexico and the United States, but not in the numbers compared to Latin Americans.

SWAN: How did you find the members of the cast?

PV: The casting process was one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had with this film. I’ve worked with natural actors before on projects with other directors, and it was always a good result. But it wasn’t my original idea for this film. I started out aiming to co-produce with China, so I went through the process of the Beijing International Film Festival Pitch Forum. I applied there in 2014 and the film won “best project”.

After this, many producers came on … so I started doing casting with professional actors, but they just demanded so much money – half a million dollars! After ten times of going back and forth to China, I gave up. It became so difficult. I said to myself, I’m gonna go for natural actors and do a casting in the Chinese community in Guayaquil. The first thing that we did is that I got in touch with the Chinese immigrant associations in Guayaquil. This was around Chinese New Year in 2017, and they invited me to take part in their celebrations, at big banquets in restaurants. There we were presented in society and we went up to the podium and talked about the film.

So, the word got out and the Chinatown doors opened to me. They used social media to announce the castings … and we did six months of castings and eventually we found the right people. They all have very interesting stories. I interviewed them extensively, and this gave me a deep insight into what human beings they were and what happened to them when they migrated to Ecuador or somewhere else. We rehearsed a lot, every day, and we watched a lot of Wong Kar-wai films – I do take a lot of influence from him, I like his cinema a lot.

The cast gave me feedback about things, too, about how to say certain things. So, we adapted the script, and I adapted the story to their personalities. (The natural actors include a teacher of Mandarin and a miner.)

SWAN: Coming back to the story, the ending is not as sad as one might expect. It could have ended in a much worse way, particularly where the women characters are concerned. You seem to have pulled back from that. Why?

PV: Well, the female character that I try to portray is, to me, this liberated, empowered woman of the new China that is basically somehow escaping chauvinism. It’s clear that she does what she wants, and she manipulates males, in a good way as I see it, to get what she wants. I wished to portray this character as someone that keeps going, even when she has all these things that could stop her. To me, the transition at the end is a metaphor, it’s not complete disappointment, but she is empty inside.

SWAN: It’s probably a good choice because we know of the other story, other endings.

PV: Yes, I didn’t want to fall into the typical abuse story. Actually, there are other films that have done that, by a director in France, for example, where the Chinese migrant character ends up in a prostitution ring. I know this happens, but I don’t see migration like that. It was not my point for the story I wanted to tell. I’ve migrated a lot during my life and I’ve gone through a lot of the emotions, and I’ve seen people go through the emotions. So, that’s what I aimed to do with the film. The criminal aspect is there but that’s not the main point.

SWAN: What do you want the audience to take from your film?

PV: To reflect on the harshness of migration, on these journeys that we go through, the emotions that we go through. I like to say that migration is like jumping into emptiness: you really don’t know what’s going to happen, so you take a jump into a hole, basically. And perhaps what I want to say to people is that: before you take that jump, to think about it, about whether you’re going to be better off in your home country with your own people.

I also think audiences will see that you don’t just migrate for economic reasons, you migrate for existential reasons too. And it’s hard, no matter where you go.

SWAN: And the Academy Awards? How do you feel about the film being selected as Ecuador’s entry?

PV: Of course, I’m very happy about that. It raises the value of the film for distribution and gives more awareness to my film career and to filmmaking in Ecuador. Hollywood is not my thing, and the film is a small film and probably has little chance of making the shortlist. But it gives the story a higher profile. And I’m already in the game, so I have to play the game.

Vacío / Emptiness is an Ecuador-Uruguay coproduction.

This article is published in association with Southern World Arts News (SWAN).

The show "Kings of Kin" - brings together the work of Chéri Samba (pictured above), Bodys Isek Kingelez and Moké, known affectionately as the kings of Kinshasa, as their art is closely linked with the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their home and work base. Credit: AD McKenzie

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
PARIS, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Chéri Samba has a sly sense of humour, both in person and in his work. Standing in front of his 2018 painting “J’aime le jeu de relais” (I Love the Relays) – which criticizes politicians who cling to power instead of passing the baton – Samba is asked about the resemblance of one of his subjects to a famous statesman.

“Oh, I was just portraying a politician in general. I didn’t really have a particular person in mind because they all have certain characteristics,” he responds. Then he adds mischievously, “Isn’t it me though? Doesn’t it look like me?”

In this case it doesn’t, but the Congolese artist sometimes depicts himself in various guises in his paintings. Visitors to the current exhibition in Paris featuring his work and those of two of his equally acclaimed countrymen will have fun trying to spot him on canvas.

The show – Kings of Kin – brings together the work of Samba, Bodys Isek Kingelez and Moké, known affectionately as the kings of Kinshasa, as their art is closely linked with the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their home and work base. All three have participated in numerous exhibitions around the world, in group and solo shows, but this is the first time they’re being shown together in galleries.

Kings of Kin is being held jointly at the MAGNIN-A and the Natalie Seroussi galleries (running until Oct. 30) and features some 30 works, including Samba’s latest paintings. He is undoubtedly the star attraction with his bold, massive canvases commenting on social and political issues in Africa and elsewhere, but the others command attention as well.

Samba also is the only surviving “king” as Moké died in 2001 and Kingelez in 2015.

On a recent unseasonably hot afternoon, the artist is present at the MAGNIN-A gallery, speaking with a visitor who’s wearing a mask, although he himself is without one. He says he came to Paris in January, then got caught in the lockdown as the Covid-19 pandemic spread in France. He has used the time to complete several paintings for the current show.

Asked if he doesn’t miss the “inspiration” that Kinshasa provides, Samba replies that all artists should be able to produce work wherever they find themselves.

“I live in the world, and I breathe as if I’m in Kinshasa,” he says. “In my head, I want to live where I can speak with people and where they understand me. I travel with the same brain. I would like to be in Kinshasa, but this doesn’t prevent me from creating. The world belongs to all of us.”

His new paintings fill the entry and the main hall of the MAGNIN-A gallery, with bright greens, reds, blues – inviting viewers into his mind or current state of world awareness. 

The first work that strikes the eye is “Merci, merci je suis dans la zone verte” (Thank you, thank you I’m in the green zone), which depicts a man – the artist – seemingly caught in a vortex of some sort. Painted this year, the painting reflects the current global upheavals with the Covid-19 and other ills. It could also be referencing the DRC’s past under brutal colonialism and the difficulties of the present.

Another equally compelling work features the faces of six girls of different ethnicities, produced in acrylic with particles of glitter, and titled: “On Est Tout Pareils” (We’re All the Same). Samba says that his daughter served as the model and that the painting is a call for peace, equality and the ability to live together without discord.

The oldest of his paintings on display dates from 1989 and reveals a very different style, with softer colours and intricate workmanship, as he portrays a Congolese singer – the late feminist performer M’Pongo Love – wearing an attractive dress. Here the broad strokes are absent, and the designs on the dress are meticulously captured.

He says that although viewers may notice variations between his earlier output and the new works, he tends not to take note of such differences.

“All the paintings are like my children,” he says. “I can’t make distinctions between them.”

In contrast to Samba, the paintings by Moké comprise softer hues and have a more earthy feel, but they also compel the viewer to see into the lives of those depicted. Moké’s subjects nearly always elicit a certain empathy, a certain melancholy, and sometimes hope – whether these subjects are performers or an older couple simply having dinner together.

Moké lived for only 51 years, but his output was impressive – dating from the time he arrived in Kinshasa as a child and began painting urban landscapes on cardboard. He considered himself a “painter-journalist” and portrayed the everyday life of the capital, including political happenings. One of his paintings from 1965 depicts then-general Mobutu Sese Seko waving to the crowds as he came to power in Zaire (the previous name of the DRC).

In the Paris show, Moké’s paintings depict boxers, performers, frenetic city scenes, and portraits of women staring out with expressions that are both bold and solemn.

Meanwhile, the work of Kingelez takes viewers into a sphere of colourful towers and other “weird and wonderful” structures with a utopian bent, as he imagines a world that might possibly rise from the ravages of colonialism, inequity and bad urban planning.

The first Congolese artist to have a retrospective exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (“City Dreams” in 2018), Kingelez used everyday objects such as paper, cardboard and plastic to produce his first individual sculptures before creating whole fantastical cities.

His futuristic urban settings, which also address social issues, thus form a perfect companion to the “surreal earthliness” of Samba and Moké in Kings of Kin.

“These are artists who worked because of deep necessity, because they had something to say. It wasn’t about the art market or commerce,” said French gallery owner and independent curator André Magnin, who first encountered their work in the 1980s in Kinshasa.

The author of several books on Congolese art, Magnin said he hoped visitors to the exhibition would discover the unique “artistic richness” of the Congo region as exemplified by the “kings”. As for “queens”, he said that there weren’t many women artists working at the time, but that more are now becoming known and should be the focus of coming shows.

Dorine, a French art student of African descent who visited the exhibition, said she admired the artists and particularly Samba because he “speaks of African reality”.

“Their work is very interesting, and the message is extremely strong,” she told SWAN.

The members of Megative, with Gus van Go (far left). Credit: Daviston Jeffers

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
PARIS, Sep 2 2020 (IPS)

Even as their income dries up and their touring opportunities disappear because of the Covid-19 pandemic, some artists are using their work to call out injustice, criticize inept leaders and spark social change.

The members of Megative – a Brooklyn-based, reggae-dub-punk collective – are among those aiming to fight negative global currents, and they’re doing so through edgy, scorching music.

“I think activism is the most important thing we have right now in 2020. It’s do or die right now for humanity. The injustice absolutely must end, and it will not end with silence,” says music producer Gus van Go, leader and co-founder of the group.

In a year of uncertainty and division, Megative stands out for its multicultural composition as well as its fusion of styles and thought-provoking lyrics. This past July, watching the incompetence of certain heads of state in the face of the pandemic, the group released the song The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum, a cover of the Fun Boy Three hit from the early Eighties, combining dub and punk music.

The original was a critique of the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher era, and Megative thinks the track is just as pertinent in 2020, with the current presence of problematic leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.

“We still believe the message is important, and it’s almost more relevant now,” van Go told SWAN in a telephone interview from Montréal, Canada, where he grew up, and where he has a studio along with one in Brooklyn.

The group was due to take their songs on the road – scheduled to perform at “five or six festivals” in France, for instance – but the pandemic has caused all these events to be cancelled. The musicians now find themselves, like so many other artists, struggling to maintain an income and to keep their overall work going.

“I think Covid-19 is exposing something that I’ve always thought about in the music industry,” said van Go. “So much inequality. We’ve always had this one percent of artists who have been insanely rich … and the rest of us are working our asses off, in order to eke out a living.”

“The universe took away the one single piece of the pie that the artist still had. All of a sudden, nearly every single musician cannot make a cent. One day, the universe just said ‘no you cant have that’. There is no income for all these artists. You see how dangerous it is to have just one source of income? Do we not need music in this world?

He explained that with the massive decline in album sales over the past decade, musicians had turned to touring in order to “just barely make a living – travelling together in a shitty old van”. But now even that has dried up with the global health crisis.

“Covid has shone this giant light on it,” he added. “The universe took away the one single piece of the pie that the artist still had. All of a sudden, nearly every single musician cannot make a cent. One day, the universe just said ‘no you cant have that’. There is no income for all these artists. You see how dangerous it is to have just one source of income? Do we not need music in this world? What if Covid continues for two or three years, what if this goes on for multiple years?”

He said it’s time for artists to band together and demand change – in their industries, communities and countries. “Megative supports activism,” he declared.

Discussing the origins of the group, van Go said the idea for the collective grew out of an overnight drive from New Mexico to California that he took with fellow musician Tim Fletcher 10 years ago. There were only two CDS available in the car – Combat Rock by The Clash, and More Specials by the 2 Tone and ska revival band The Specials, both English. The sounds got van Go thinking about the “conscious lyrics” and the history of the musical styles and their influences.

“We have a love for Jamaican reggae and dub culture of the early Eighties with bands like Steel Pulse and The Clash. But reggae in North America, where we are from, is associated with vacation spots, coconut trees and irie vibes. We were lamenting the darker reggae of the early Eighties. Our Clash discussion morphed into how a reggae band would look in 2018,” he said.

Back in New York, they invited a producing-engineering duo called Likeminds and Jamaican MC Screechy Dan to join the conversation. The enthusiasm for the project was so strong that they recorded three songs which almost immediately led to a signing with Last Gang Records and the subsequent release of their debut album in summer 2018.

The collective now brings together disparate artists including the Grammy-nominated Likeminds (Chris Soper and Jesse Singer); Jamaican-born singer, MC and dancehall veteran Screechy Dan; singer-guitarist and punk rocker Alex Crow; percussionist-DJ-singer JonnyGo Figure; and the rising Brooklyn drummer Demetrius “Mech” Pass.

All the members have their own individual projects but contribute their respective skills to create the Megative sound – a fusion of UK-style punk, Jamaican dub and reggae, and American hip-hop. The music is a response to today’s world, to everything that’s happening including the “hyper-noise of incessant information”, according to the collective.

The overarching theme is existentialist angst amidst precarious conditions. Tracks such as Have Mercy, Bad Advice and More Time call upon listeners to take control and rely on their own sense of what’s right, with lyrics set against dub beats and a punk vibe, and skilful singing mixed with mindful rapping.

For van Go, born Gustavo Coriandoli in Argentina and raised in Canada, the historical alliance between punk and reggae was central to Megative’s formation. He recalls growing up in Montréal in the late 1980s and early 90s, when the “punk rock movement was taking hold” among the youth.

“The shows had trouble finding venues, so they always tried to rent space … and sometimes that would be at Jamaican community centres. All these punks would be at these shows, but also the Rastafarian community. So, dub music was playing. I was 16, had never heard dub, had never been been to a punk show, so it fused in my brain,” he told SWAN.

Similar congregations or collaborations in the UK had led singer Bob Marley to release Punky Reggae Party in 1977, a reflection of the bridging of cultural divides; and punk-dub pioneer Don Letts wrote about the movement in his 2006 autobiography Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers.

“It’s all about social message – in punk and reggae, so they’re natural allies or they should be,” said van Go. “There’s a positivity but also a dark side. I love the energy that this creates, in punk and reggae and in early hiphop.”

When asked about Megative’s views on the current discussion around cultural appropriation in the arts, van Go answered: “This is an ongoing discussion with us, and we really encourage dialogue on the subject.” He added that the group takes a multicultural approach to creating music, as can be seen from their output so far.

Regarding the future of the collective, van Go said Megative planned to continue producing music with a cause, and to get back to touring when possible. They are currently “writing new material” but aren’t certain in which format(s) it will be released.

“Like nothing else can, I think music can definitely help heal,” van Go told SWAN. “We have to topple these terrible people who are in power right now. We have to find concrete ways to end systemic racism. Music has to play a part as it did in the Sixties. It needs to.”

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has announced it is “launching initiatives” to support cultural industries and cultural heritage, sectors hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 has put many intangible cultural heritage practices, including rituals and ceremonies, on hold, impacting communities everywhere,” the organization stated April 9. “It has also cost many jobs, and across the globe, artists … are now unable to make ends meet.”

UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay. Credit: UNESCO/Calix

Many arts businesses will find it economically difficult to recover, officials have acknowledged. Bookshops too have had to close their doors, while publishers have largely postponed the publication of books. Numerous international visual-art, literary and music events have been cancelled as well, including the UNESCO-sponsored International Jazz Day main concerts, which were scheduled to take place in South Africa April 30.

The UN had already launched measures to assist the estimated 1.5 billion students affected by school closures, but this is the first time its cultural agency has directly addressed the impact on the arts.

“UNESCO is committed to leading a global discussion on how best to support artists and cultural institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, and ensuring everyone can stay in touch with the heritage and culture that connects them to their humanity,” stated UNESO’s Director General Audrey Azoulay on Thursday.

The agency (whose headquarters in Paris remain closed, in line with French lockdown rules) will convene a virtual meeting of the world’s culture ministers on April 22, to discuss the impact of COVID-19 in their countries and to “identify remedial policy measures appropriate to their various national contexts”.

UNESCO’s Paris headquarters are closed during France’s lockdown. Credit: SWAN

This follows an emergency online meeting of education ministers hosted on March 10, and a meeting of science ministries’ representatives on March 30. Earlier this month, the organization introduced a “CodeTheCurve” Hackathon to “support young innovators, data scientists and designers across the world to develop digital solutions to counter the COVID-19 pandemic”. The Hackathon will run until April 30, in partnership with IBM and SAP, UNESCO said.

For culture, the organization said it was launching an international social media campaign, #ShareOurHeritage and initiating an online exhibition of “dozens of heritage properties across the globe”, with technical support from Google Arts & Culture.

It will give information via its website and social media on the impact of COVID-19 on World Heritage sites, which are partly or fully closed to visitors in most countries because of the pandemic.

Children around the world will be invited to share drawings of World Heritage properties, giving them the chance to “express their creativity and their connection to heritage”, UNESCO added.

On World Art Day, 15 April 2020, the organization will partner with musician and Goodwill Ambassador Jean Michel Jarre to host an online debate and social media campaign, the “ResiliArt Debate”. This will bring together “artists and key industry actors to sound the alarm on the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods of artists and cultural professionals”, UNESCO said.

The Eiffel Tower is one of many World Heritage sites closed to the public during the pandemic. Credit: SWAN

Since the health crisis started, artists have been providing online concerts, sharing artwork digitally and taking other steps to reach out to audiences, as “billions of people around the world turn to culture for comfort and to overcome social isolation”, to use UNESCO’s words.

“Now, more than ever, people need culture,” said Ernesto Ottone Ramirez, assistant UNESCO director-general for the sector.

“Culture makes us resilient. It gives us hope. It reminds us that we are not alone,” he added.

For an earlier article on the impact of COVID-19 on cultural and creative industries, please see: https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/03/arts-culture-trying-keep-lights-amid-covid-19/

Follow SWAN’s founder on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

Writers who were supposed to be at the now cancelled PEN World Voices Festival. (Courtesy of PEN America)

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
Mar 24 2020 (IPS-Partners)

With the spread of the Covid-19 disease, the arts and culture sectors have seen a flood of cancellations and postponements, affecting artists around the world and putting the global 2,000-billion-dollar creative industry at risk.

Concerts, book fairs, film and literary festivals – including the famed Cannes Film Festival – and a range of other events have had to move their dates or cancel outright, while bookshops, museums and cinemas have been forced to close their doors.

The sectors, which employ some 30 million people worldwide, will be among those hit hardest by the pandemic, according to analysts, and individual artists are already fighting to maintain their livelihood.

“Everyone is impacted and suffering,” says American jazz singer Denise King. “As a member of the artist/musician community, I’ve gone from a fairly heavy touring and gig schedule … to nothing. To face this sudden loss of income is devastating. Many artists like myself are scrambling to come up with creative ways to generate income.”

With some 210,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide, and 8,778 deaths by March 19 (about three months after the outbreak in Wuhan, China), both wealthy and low-income countries are affected, but vulnerable states are particularly at risk, according to the UN. Along with the health sector, culture and other areas will struggle to recover.

In the Caribbean, several festivals have announced postponements. The popular Calabash literary festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, will now take place in September 2020 instead of May, while the national Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago is similarly postponed.

“We watched and waited to make this decision,” stated Calabash co-organizers Justine Henzell and Kwame Dawes, who stressed that there was no other option given the travel restrictions.

Jamaica was among the first in the region to order lockdowns and to restrict travel from several affected countries. The minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, announced the closure of cultural and sport facilities, including museums, galleries, and stadia run by the government, on March 13, with effect from the following day.

She said the closures were “in keeping with the government’s strategy to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in Jamaica and to minimise the potential health impact on the country”, and she urged those in the cultural, sport and entertainment sectors to “take all necessary precautions and follow the guidance of the health authorities”.

The island had 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of March 19, and the government has been commended by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for its response to the pandemic. But officials are aware of the fiscal effects of the crisis.

The Caribbean economy is strongly tied to tourism, including cultural tourism, with the sector representing around 14% of the region’s total GDP, while the arts and culture fields employ thousands of workers.

UNESCO HQ shuttered. Credit: AD McKenzie

According to the United Nations agency UNESCO (which has had to close its doors in Paris), the cultural and creative industry sectors generate annual revenues of US$2,250 billion and global exports of more than US$250 billion.

These industries currently provide nearly 30 million jobs worldwide and employ more people aged 15 – 29 than any other sector, the agency said in a 2018 report, “Reshaping Cultural Policies”. Nearly half of the people working in the cultural and creative industries are women, the report showed.

For states such as France, which is the most visited country in the world with 90 million tourists annually, the shuttering of the cultural sector is unprecedented in peacetime.

The Paris Book Fair, or Livre Paris, was the first major event to announce its cancellation. Normally attracting about 160,000 visitors each year, the Fair was scheduled for March 20-23 and was set to put Indian literature in the spotlight. But when France banned events with gatherings of 5,000 or more people in early March, there was no choice but to cancel.

“Everyone is going to lose a lot of money. Some of us won’t survive,” an independent Paris-based publisher, who asked not to be named, told SWAN. “Those who do manage to keep going will have to push back their planned publications.”

The owners of some bookshops had hoped to stay open, arguing that people need material to read when in confinement, but they too have had to pull down the shutters, although newsagents can remain in operation.

The Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, first closed its doors for a few days at the beginning of March because staffers invoked their right to walk off the job if they felt at risk. It reopened, but soon it and all museums, galleries and cinemas had to close because of the government’s decree on March 16, putting the population in lockdown.

“We’re at war” against the virus, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address, ordering the confinement. Since March 17, only places offering essential services are allowed to be open, and residents may leave their home for brief periods only after filling in a form, on their honour, called the “attestation de déplacement dérogatoire”.

With confirmed Covid-19 cases above 10,000 in France, the organisers of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival said on March 19 they had decided to postpone the event. The festival had earlier announced that American director Spike Lee would head the competition jury – the first person of African descent to have this role – and he is expected to be present for the new dates.

“The Festival de Cannes cannot be held on the scheduled dates, from May 12 to 23. Several options are considered in order to preserve its running, the main one being a simple postponement, in Cannes, until the end of June-beginning of July 2020,” the festival team stated.

The organisers said they would make their final decision known following ongoing consultation with the French government and Cannes City Hall.

In the United States, where the government has been widely criticised for being slow to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, cultural events are being cancelled one after the other as well.

PEN, the international association of writers, said it was with “heavy hearts” that it had decided to cancel the 2020 PEN America World Voices Festival scheduled for May 6 – 12.

“We were hoping that this awful public health crisis might ebb by May, and that we could emerge with the exciting events we had curated for audiences in New York and Los Angeles. It’s now plain such plans are neither realistic nor safe for our participants and our audiences,” stated Suzanne Nossel, CEO, PEN America, and Chip Rolley, director of the festival.

“We join the ranks of cultural institutions in New York, Los Angeles, and across the country that will temporarily go dark this spring,” they added. “The World Voices Festival was founded in the wake of 9/11 to provide a beacon for writers and audiences from around the world and to build bridges across borders as an antidote to cultural isolationism. As a new and unexpected isolation is thrust upon us, we regret deeply that we won’t be able to shine that light or foster those vital in-person connections.”

The organisation said it was “seeking new means” to bring directly to audiences the “words, ideas, and artistry” of the writers who’d been invited, including Arundhati Roy and Colm Tóibín. This might be done “through a variety of digital means”, including a new podcast set to launch soon.

The branch of PEN in England, English PEN, meanwhile said it was “with great sadness” that the organization had decided to postpone or cancel all its events “at least until 30 April 2020 following the latest public health advice from the government”. The group announced the creation of an Authors Emergency Fund on March 20, to “help support authors impacted financially by the growing health crisis”.

In the face of the pandemic, not all is doom and gloom in the cultural sector, however. Singers such as John Legend and Chris Martin have been streaming concerts via their social media accounts, as part of the “Sessions: Together, At Home” series – an initiative launched by the Global Citizen Festival and the World Health Organization.

In addition, some publishers are offering significant discounts on their books, while others have made stories, poetry and textbooks available online. From confinement, one can also view many of the world’s art masterpieces via museum web platforms and see films that festivals have decided to stream for free.

King, the jazz vocalist, said she will present a performance on FB live, and she called on the public to assist at-risk artists in whatever way they can.

“We have to hold each other up,” she told SWAN. “Perhaps this virus serves as way to help us focus on what really matters and to reconnect.”

This article is published with permission from Southern World Arts News and editor A. D. McKenzie.

The works of Caribbean-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (pictured here) are on display in the the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. It presents Basquiat in a new light, emphasising his status as a major figure in the history of art, 30 years after his death at the age of 27. Credit: CC by 2.0

By SWAN / A.D. McKenzie
PARIS, Oct 8 2018 (IPS)

When Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings were shown in France a few years ago, a visitor overheard a teenager remarking that the artwork seemed to have come from “a very angry little boy”.

Now, that sense of artistic fury or frenetic energy is put into context in a stunning new exhibition that comprises more than 120 works displayed in the remarkable setting of the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris  –  the museum and cultural centre designed by the architect Frank Gehry and launched in 2014.

The Foundation’s spacious galleries present the Caribbean-American artist in a new light, emphasising Basquiat’s status as a major figure in the history of art, 30 years after his death at the age of 27.

“The Foundation spotlights an artist I personally consider to be among the most important of the second half of the twentieth century,” said Bernard Arnault, president of the Foundation, and CEO of global luxury-goods company LMVH, which sponsors the museum.

In a foreword to the exhibition, Arnault, an avid art collector, added that the “complexity of Basquiat’s work is equalled only by the spontaneity” of the feelings it arouses.

“He figures among the origins of my collection and I owe him a tremendous amount for inspiring my passion for art in general, and for contemporary art in particular,” wrote Arnault, whose collection has contributed to that of the Foundation.

The exhibition comprises an impressive range of huge paintings and drawings on canvas, wood and other materials. They are shown in a thematic fashion that takes viewers into Basquiat’s thoughts and feelings about issues such as discrimination and inequality, and one can’t help being impressed by the immense number of works he produced in his short life.

The show runs in tandem with an exhibition on Austrian painter Egon Schiele, who also died in his twenties – 70 years before Basquiat, in 1918. Both artists are “signal figures in the art of their time, the early and late twentieth century respectively,” says Suzanne Pagé, artistic director of the Louis Vuitton Foundation.

Although their art is presented separately, in different parts of the museum, the artists are linked by “their breath-taking, youth-driven work” which has made them “icons” for new generations, according to Pagé.

The “Jean-Michel Basquiat” exhibition certainly addresses his iconic stature: his work is easily identifiable from his graphic style of painting, his use of vibrant colours and the subjects he addressed. As viewers walk through the eight galleries, over four flours of the museum, the works form a searing biography of the artist.

Born in Brooklyn in 1960 to a mother of Puerto Rican descent and a father from Haiti, Basquiat grew up with a love for art, as his mother took him to museums in New York and enrolled him in art lessons.

His childhood was marked by an accident in 1968 when, at the age of seven, he was hit by a car as he played in the street. While recovering from a broken arm and internal injuries, his mother gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, a book on human anatomy with illustrations of body parts, skulls and skeletons.

More than 120 works of Caribbean-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat are on display in the the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. Pictured here is his work Taking Venus. Credit: Thomas Hawk/CC by 2.0

According to biographers, this book would have a great influence on his work; indeed, a theme in the current exhibition is Basquiat’s preoccupation with the inner functions of the body and with dying.

As a child, Basquiat also experienced his parents’ separation and his mother’s mental illness, as the family moved between New York and Puerto Rico. He dropped out of high school at age 17 and was homeless for a while, producing postcards and other items to support himself. But his precocious talent soon caught the eye of gallery owners, collectors and fellow artists including the influential Andy Warhol.

“With a natural instinct for openness, linked to his twin Haitian and Puerto Rican roots, Basquiat absorbed everything like a sponge, mixing the lessons of the street with a repertoire of images, heroes, and symbols from a wide range of cultures,” Pagé said in a text introducing the exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation.

The sequence of his works at the show begins with the 1980 painting Untitled (Car Crash) and ends with Riding With Death – a striking painting that depicts a figure on a horse-like skeleton and which Basquiat produced shortly before he died in 1988 of a heroin overdose.

In between, visitors can view the works portraying boxers such as Sugar Ray Robinson and Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali, and see Basquiat’s artistic and political commentary on exploitation and the slave trade through paintings that include Price of Gasoline in the Third World and Slave Auction.

“Basquiat mirrored himself in his figures of black boxers and jazz musicians, as well as in victims of police brutality and everyday racism,” said Dieter Buchhart, curator of the exhibition, in an interview published by Le Journal de la Fondation Louis Vuitton.

“He connected the Black Atlantic, African diaspora, slavery, colonialism, suppression and exploitation with his time in New York in the 1980s, always keeping his own circumstances in view as well as those of humanity in general.”

For Basquiat, who was a forerunner of hip-hop culture, music and musicians were an essential part of the diaspora experience, and he paid homage to jazz artists, particularly Charlie Parker, with Horn Players, Discography and other works in his signature style of skulls, teeth, frantic figures, and text that send cryptic messages.

His collaborations with Warhol also form a significant part of the exhibition, with huge mural-type paintings that they jointly produced. The painting Eiffel Tower illustrates their respective styles as they playfully depict the most symbolic structure in the French capital. It’s a fitting inclusion in this Paris-based retrospective.

• This article is published in association with Southern World Arts News (SWAN) and editor A.D. McKenzie. 

The 2018 Paris Book Fair (Livre Paris) took place against the backdrop of demonstrations in Mayotte that echoed similar protests a year ago in French Guiana, putting the topics of literary activism and popular disaffection high on the agenda at the March 16-19 event.

Writers from France’s overseas regions and departments, which include Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, spoke out about their role and contribution to French literature, highlighting the social and economic conditions in their territories.

Launching an anthology of short stories titled Guyane: Nou gon ké sa (We’re fed up), Guyanese authors said they felt compelled to address on-going struggles.

Literary representatives from French Guiana at Livre Paris.

“The demonstrations were for better security, healthcare, infrastructure, transportation, all of which affects everybody,” said Joël Roy, one of the contributors. “Writers aren’t separate from this.”

In March 2017, strikes and protests in Guiana blocked streets, caused the temporary closure of schools and some businesses, and delayed the launch of a rocket from the aerospace centre that is run by France and the European Space Agency.

Reports of the demonstrations filled the airwaves in mainland France, with some commentators making it seem as if the population was being unreasonable (“We can’t keep sending money there,” said one Parisian). But writers have been among those spotlighting the hypocrisy in government policy, where money can be found to launch rockets but not to improve access to healthcare or to control crime.

French President Emmanuel Macron eventually visited Guiana to address the concerns of the 250,000 residents, and to make a number of pledges; but there was no political representation at the launch of Nou gon ké sa in Paris

French President Emmanuel Macron eventually visited Guiana to address the concerns of the 250,000 residents, and to make a number of pledges; but there was no political representation at the launch of Nou gon ké sa in Paris, despite invitations having been extended, said Tchisséka Lobelt, who chaired the literary panel at the fair.

While the authors and activists present (such as Sylviane Vayaboury and France Nay) evoked the grievances and injustice that led to the protests, they aren’t just waiting around for political support, although this would be welcome.

Lobelt, for instance, is one of the movers behind promoting the literature of Guiana and providing a platform for writers. In 1996, she founded an association called Promolivres, which in turn created the Salon du Livre de Cayenne – a biennial book fair that had its 10^th “edition” last November.

The Salon attracts participants from neighbouring countries such as Brazil and Suriname, and the 2017 “guest of honour” was Colombia.

For Lobelt, intra-regional literary cooperation is important, and she believes translation can help to pave the way for readers to know more about the literature of France’s overseas departments and regions.

“Translation is key, and we have to develop a real policy to get books translated from French and Creole into other regional languages and vice versa,” she said in an interview.

Anglophone Caribbean writers such as Guyana’s Pauline Melville and Jamaica’s Alecia McKenzie (founder of the Caribbean Translation Project) have been able to participate in the Cayenne book fair because of translation, Lobelt said. Both have been winners of the Prix Carbet des lycéens, a prize awarded by French high-school students in Guadeloupe, Guiana, Martinique and (now) London.

In addition, French writer Jean-François Tifiou, who has written an absorbing and well-researched book about the women prisoners sent to Guiana when it was a notorious French penal colony, is looking at getting his work translated into English and Spanish. Tifiou visited schools in the region to present De Quimper à Cayenne (From Quimper to Cayenne), and many readers believe that the book deserves to be more widely known.

A visitor checks out some titles at Livre Paris.

“Even if we translated one book per year, that would already be something,” said Lobelt. “We can do a lot on our own, but we still need institutional help.”

At the Paris Book Fair, the French “Outre-Mer” Ministry emphasized support for writers and publishers from the overseas departments and regions, which are traditionally grouped at a special pavilion. The ministry cited the international stature and unique “witnessing” of writers such as Maryse Condé, Patrick Chamoiseau and Aimé Césaire, among others.

“Literature from the overseas departments has a true specificity, far from clichés and stereotypes,” said an official brochure. “As Chantal Spitz (Tahiti) has declared: ‘My country is not a postcard’.”

This was certainly borne out by some of the debates at Livre Paris (which, uncomfortably, had Russia as the 2018 “guest of honour”).

More than anything, what was notable was that many writers and publishing professionals seemed determined to open the eyes of those who would perhaps prefer not to see certain social situations.