THE BLACK CAMPAIGN GOES TO THE DONAU FESTIVAL

In 2009, at the Donau Festival, a collaboration between Slum-Tv, Maasai Mbili Art Gallery and African Maximalism has attempted to recreate if not the reality, the aesthetic at least of a Nairobi slum.

This project had seemed like the ideal place to kick off our Black Campaign but as always the will and the way have found varied tangents. The what is and why of the Black Campaign being clear to us needed a space through which they could be articulated to the rest of the world; this website is it.

But the demands of every day life mean that we are, at present, far too challenged by both time and human resources to package our message, coherently enough for public consumption. But we will disseminate it, still, through this space. Do that by, for a bit of time, maintaining this site as a personal diary, photo and video gallery as well as a repository for topical essays and random musings on issues ranging from development aid, to Africa, trade and the politics of gender and sexuality.

In the meantime we begin with a brief synopsis of what African Maximalism & Co are doing at the City of Krems as part of the Donau Festival. Over the next couple of posts, we will highlight that work and that of others at Donau and hopefully, do critical reviews by and by.

African Maximalism & Co’s work here can be viewed as yet another quirky interpretation of the festival’s theme of fake reality, media for social change, a platform to highlight a status quo in dire need of transformation or even a cool place to hang out in between shows. The extreme points between which interpretations of this installation range represent the real reality: the nature of humanity to bring a mindset to things newly perceived.

And that mindset includes stereotypes. And while this installation can easily be construed of as living off the stereotypes, in a subtle yet self-conscious way, it stands against the limited lens through which the West views Africa: poverty, corruption, disease, sulking natives and skulking game. It means to challenge stereotypes which, created by the media and other agents of socialisation, are transferred by the individual viewer onto the images we produce/ present.

To everyone their own reading of what they are doing for as Sam Hopkins, one of the Slum-Tv founders says, “seeing can be a very active process, rather than just the passive reception of stimuli which we then convert into data. To a large extent people see what they think they are going to see. So a knee-jerk reaction when they see images of Mathare (the real Slum in Nairobi while the one at Donau has been named Migingo Island after an Island on Lake Victoria that is the subject of an ongoing ownership dispute between Kenya and Uganda) is going to be to grab for some previously assimilated stereotypes of poverty and danger. Hopefully when our content proves this not to be all of the picture,” Hopkins argues, “that actually a lot of people have a real laugh in the slum, it might add shades of grey to their black and white picture. Maybe even some colour.”



One Response to “THE BLACK CAMPAIGN GOES TO THE DONAU FESTIVAL”

1. Ducktrap Photo says:

   February 27, 2010 at 03:41

   As an avid photographer, I’m happy to have found your website. It’s always nice to see other’s work and get new ideas; it’s good and gets the creative juices flowing. Everyone’s style is so unique. Check out my site if you’d like at http://www.ducktrapphoto.com