During the pre colonial area Africa were renowned to have a flourishing art; the continent were closed to the world and its population followed its own cultures and traditions e.g.: pygmies, Khoisan, Bambara and Segou kingdoms in West Africa… Then arrived the colonization. African arts were pillaged and their cultures denigrated. On the 9th of April 1998, at the United Nation University the then South African deputy president Thabo Mbeki gave an historical speech about the African renaissance. This has triggers a vast movement in all modern African life: politics, economy, music and art. The objectives of this blog are: firstly to denounce the fact that Africans seem to believe other cultures are better than theirs; secondary, to shake African’s minds in order to create awareness about their heritage; thirdly together to use our vast cultural wealth to rebuild our art and express and diffused it via modern communication medias. This Blog will discuss and share views about fashion , architecture and cinema in the modern African society.
african fashion
When one walks through major African cities such as Dakar, Abidjan, Lagos, Johannesburg... we are astonished by the wide variety of clothing styles: it is a mixture of fashion from different parts of the world, such as West Europe, America, Brazilian… I'm always bothered by the fact these influences seem to predominate the traditional African style ofclothing.
Why is it that we do not see more clothes labeled "made in Africa"? Why is it so difficult to characterize a typical African clothing style?
In fact, in the background of trendy creative studios, fashion shows and even some markets, there is an underground boom of creativity in the African fashion design. Some designers are becoming well known in that industry such as: Alphadi (from Niger), Iman Ayissi (from Cameroon), Bongiwe Walaza (from South Africa). They are mostly of them based in Paris, London or Milano...but their creativity takes its roots in Africa. Why is it that they had to emigrate to make a name for them in the fashion design industry?
What about the majority but yet anonymous creators who surely contribute to change the face of clothes worn by some modern urban African citizen? Is it because they live and work in Africa that they lack that broad exposure to the fashion design industry?
Top models originating from the continent are also very well represented in the Fashion Industry. Examples are: Alek Wek from Soudan, Lupitha Nyongo from Kenya or Agbani Darego from Nigeria. And once again they all had to migrate to the Western world to achieve success even though they mainly have to wear design clothes made by Western designers.
So the fact is: the creativity and inspirations are here, but the productivity and competitively is lacking. To make things worse, we do see a huge import of fashion goods made in China but not necessarily created by Chinese. What is happening to our own creators and manufacturers?
There is a need for a more aggressive approach into developing the fashion design industry in Africa; hence the concept of African Renaissance art.
Alek Wek, Soudan
Charlize Theron, South Africa
Lupitha Nyongo, Kenya
AFRICAN architecture
African cities are typically organized in modern central city towns surrounded by slums. Modern buildings, tarred roads, electricity, running water, characterize the city center… In contrast the slums, usually bearing local names (e.g.: townships in South Africa, shanti towns in Accra, Yopougong in Abidjan…) characterized by the untidiness, shacks built with recycled materials with no regulation and no modern facilities.
It is difficult to characterize a specific typical African architecture in these towns. What we do see however is a huge amount of creativity in houses built by the growing middle class. People are starting to use local raw material to build houses that look modern but with an African touch.
In rural areas, constructions tend to be more traditional and the use of local material is widespread. Examples: mud houses, thatch houses, wooden houses, shack houses… They do not have all the modern facilities but they are often beautifully decorated by Africans paintings.
In most big African cities, there are many new development projects, these are houses built for African in Africa by African architects. They tend to look modern and offer modern facilities but they have a touch in their design that definitely makes them look African. This is still not enough to give a whole image of a modern African town.
Should we promote the idea that only African architect should be given the task to conceive buildings, monuments? In my view this would impose African touch, which is lacking so much in our cities
African cinema
The Nollywood phenomenon characterizes African cinema in the modern day. Nollywood is an acronym derived from Hollywood but that is a generic name given to movies produced by the Nigerian cinema industry. The production is vast (thousand of films per year) but lack variety in the themes and technologically less sophisticated than original Hollywood productions.
For me it has a great advantage: these are movies produced in Africa, by Africans, with African actors and talking about African stories. The other positive aspect of the Nollywood phenomenon is the distribution. They can be viewed in many TV channels across the continent, they are translated in different African languages and DVDs are sold all over Africa, even if many of them are pirated versions.
Another positive aspect of the Nollywood phenomenon is that it has created emulations amongst TV producers and actors across many geographic areas in Africa. We then notice a boom in local movie industry in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Cameroon.
There are also several film festivals to further, to promote and distribute African movies across Africa and in the world. The FESPACO held every year for the last thirty years in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) is the most renown in the West Africa. It is the ideal platform for aspiring movie directors, potential distributors and also the place to exchange ideas.
I' m an interior Design student at Inscape College Rosebank. I'm passionate about modern but yet rustic African art. I have started this blog to raise awareness about the low level of representation of African art designers in the Interior design market in major African cities.