Eritrea, photo essay by photographer Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak.
why does the last one look sooo familiar -_-
(via kemetically-ankhtified)
Gabazzini Zuo. Enugu, Nigeria, 2008.
from Nollywood series by Pieter Hugo
(Source: , via wine-loving-vagabond)
Born in the southwestern city of Lagos, Daniel Gbenga Orimoloye is an award-winning Nigerian artist, based in London, who works with several paint mediums including oil, watercolour and acrylic. Through these mediums, Orimoloye uses his artwork and artistic freedom of expression as a means to explore various socio-cultural features throughout the African continent
About his work, Orimoloye says,
“We must look at concepts, ideas and avenues by which we can change our reality. We must create instances with which to empower the society…My artistic mission is to portray and advocate through allegorical representation and through relationships with organisations committed to working for humanity like Freedom Foundation, a lively and “colourful” hope.”
Visit his site to see more of his work and order prints.
Wearing pride and her pink Queen of Rosary secondary school uniform, Agatha Anene, poses for a photograph in the small village of Eziowelle, Nigeria, hometown of Cardinal Francis Arinze.
Ph: Barbara Davidson
The Dutch-born photographer Viviane Sassen is not an artist who is easy to define, not when it comes to her art, her world view or even her sense of nationality.
Having spent three years in Kenya as a very young child, her return to her native land aged six was a traumatic experience, leaving Sassen with a perennial feeling of being an outsider both in Europe and in Africa. This air of dislocation has consistently run through her work across the fields of fashion photography, journalism and art, where she creates images striking for their hyper-vivid coloration that serves to emphasize the mystery of their intent.
Her latest collection of images are a return to the Africa of her childhood, the place she will always consider home, and yet where she can never fit in. Titled Parasomnia, referencing the sleeping sickness that encompasses sleepwalking and the strange emotions that occur while the body is trapped between wakefulness and sleep, it is a series of photographs breathtaking for their beauty, their oddness, and their supreme ambiguity.
The all-powerful African sun is harnessed to both illuminate and eradicate, with figures either burning brightly in its glare, or rendered as contoured shadows against an iridescent skyline. A disjointed arm pours a bottle of fiery orange fluid into a drain, its depths blocked out by the silhouette of an unseen figure; a small boy sat in the shade of a washing line is bathed in an unearthly green glow; a man gazes at the camera, light picking out the white of his vest, the yellow of his belt, and the unexplained blue string he holds in his mouth.
This series of photographs is an entry into an inexplicable world of undefined locations, blistering colours and configurations without rational order. The viewer lingers to apply their own narrative, and then eternally questions it, for there can be no satisfactory answer. “I try to make images that confuse me,” Sassen says, “And I hope they confuse others too.” In the juxtaposition of the bold graphical nature of the photography itself, partnered with the impossibility of explanation, Sassen has created a fitting testament to her emotional perception of a continent where she never truly belonged.
Viviane Sassen: Parasomnia: A short story by Moses Isegawa is out now, published by Prestel. The images are also on show as part of the New Photography 2011 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which runs until January 16, 2012.
George Lilanga (1934–2005) was a Tanzanian artist.
He was of the Makonde tribe and lived in Dar es Salaam. His work was exhibited in international expositions of African contemporaries including Africa Remix in Düsseldorf, Paris,London and Tokyo.
cooollll
Many of the world’s diamonds are harvested using practices that exploit and degrade children, communities, the labor force, and the local environment. Workers are subject to brutality, degrading working conditions, low pay, and sometimes death. Labor abuses are built into the industry in many parts of the world, community development remains stagnant, and environmental degradation continues apace.
Small-scale mining is usually an illegal activity carried out under dangerous, often unhealthy conditions, and without safety equipment, proper tools, or recognition from the state. Gender imbalances and child labor also plague the sector, which is composed of some of the poorest people in the world. Without formal training or education in their trade, small-scale miners often rely on harmful practices that can leave the earth ruined for future agricultural development.
Lack of regulation, harsh labor conditions, and poor wages make child labor a regular practice in the diamond trade. Children are commonly considered an easy source of cheap labor and are often sent into small areas of mines that adults aren’t able to enter. They are often given dangerous and physically challenging tasks, such as moving earth from pits, or descending from ropes into small holes or pits where landslides may claim their lives.
In Angola, a recent study found 46% of miners are under the age of 16, with many of the children working because of war, poverty, and the absence of education. And in India, where more than half of the world’s diamonds are processed, child labor is commonly used for cutting and polishing diamonds. Taken on as “apprentices,” these children suffer for years in dangerous conditions for little to no pay until they are replaced, often by younger siblings.
While over half of the Congo’s foreign exchange earnings are derived from the export of diamonds, and an estimated 700,000 people dig for them, most are unregistered, and their efforts are largely unrecognized. In fact, more than 90% of the country’s $700 million in diamond exports is produced by small-scale entrepreneurs earning wages of a dollar a day - the international standard for extreme poverty.
In Angola, a recent study found 46% of miners are under the age of 16, with many of the children working because of war, poverty, and the absence of education. And in India, where more than half of the world’s diamonds are processed, child labor is commonly used for cutting and polishing diamonds. Taken on as “apprentices,” these children suffer for years in dangerous conditions for little to no pay until they are replaced, often by younger siblings.
In Sierra Leone, diamond-rich regions remain poor in absolute terms. Partnership Africa Canada found that Kono District, which has produced billions of dollars worth of diamonds and is home to the largest concentration of artisanal miners, has a far higher level of poverty than Pujehun District, a largely agricultural area.
