High Fashion During Wartime
Italian photographer Daniele Tamagni has a new book, Gentlemen of Bacongo, that delves into the lives of sapeurs, fantastically well-dressed Congolese men who live in both Kinshasa and Paris. The hook is that, despite living under the weight of catastrophic civil war in the Congo, these men — and only men — attire themselves in exquisite clothes, shoes and accessories.
The result is often dazzling.
I wonder why there aren’t women who are part of this expensive subset. After all, the Congo is much like West Africa in the sense that lush, high-quality and elaborately-styled fabrics and jewelry are the norm for both men and women. The division may hint at the skewed male-female relations in Congo. But I completely reject the idea that there’s anything “strange” about these Congolese men dressing well. Fashion is not limited to the Western world. Nor is it limited to people who have wealth or who are not living during wartime, as these photos brilliantly illustrate.
Photos via Jezebel.com
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Tags: africa, civil war, congo, fashion, photography, style
The AP ran a story last week about the growing force of indigenous political awakenings in Latin America. From the Shuar in Ecuador who are defending their ancestral lands to the Mapuche demanding basic social services in Chile, more appears to be happening than just Evo Morales’ historic win in Bolivia. Morales, the first Indian president of Bolivia, recently oversaw a constitutional amendment to allow the country’s 36 indigenous groups to rule themselves. Indians make up at least one in ten of Latin America’s 500 million residents. But they’re often the poorest, living in the most rural areas and under threat from exploitative oil and mining companies and their own neglectful governments.
From the article: “In Guatemala, three in four indigenous people are illiterate, the U.N. says. In Mexico, where 6 percent of the population is illiterate, 22 percent of adult Indians are. Even in Bolivia, only 55 percent of indigenous children finish primary school, compared to 81 percent of other kids.”
Morales famously said that Bolivia is no longer the South Africa of South America, and the country is heralded as the biggest Indian rights success story on the continent to date. But is the struggle over yet? As Bolivia’s presidential elections approach in December, Morales is facing an entrenched white elite that refuses to let go of its power in a nation where three out of five inhabitants are indigenous. Morales may well win despite fierce right-wing competition, but depending on that election’s outcome, indigenous apartheid may not be over just yet.
Photo via the AP
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Tags: bolivia, indians, indigenous, latin america, politics, protests, south america
Is Mexico following China’s suit and trying to make inroads into Africa’s natural resources? With its new position as permanent observer of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), Mexico has direct relations with the officials of each West African member state in the economic union. Such member states include oil giants like Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, and budding oil producers like Ghana.
From the Nigerian newspaper This Day: “With the reopening of the Embassy of Mexico to Nigeria in October 2008, Mexico is pushing forward its relations with the country and all the other countries of the Sub-Saharan region, exploring all the possibilities in order to boost the bilateral relations with each one of them, especially on the economic-commercial sector.”
Ideally, it will be a mutually beneficial relationship. Though China’s own involvement in Africa is murky, at best.
Photo via Farafina
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Tags: china, economy, ecowas, mexico, nigeria, oil, west africa
I have a new musical obsession, and it’s slightly surprising considering it doesn’t fall into one of the global musical categories I usually adore (South African rock, West African pop, Latin hip-hop). Heloise and The Savoir Faire are a glam, punk, dance, party band from good ol’ Brooklyn, and their music is a psychedelic, fun trip with dizzingly catchy beats and irreverent lyrics. And thank God, they don’t take themselves too seriously.
Listen to “Odyle” below.
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Tags: brooklyn, heloise and the savoir faire, music, nyc, punk
Turning a Drug War into Art
Over five thousand dead in the past year, gruesome beheadings, child kidnappings and murders and a helpless populace: Mexico has become consumed by a never-ending drug war. So it’s not surprising that drug violence has seeped into the work of Mexican artists, most notably the country’s current representative to the Venice Biennale. Teresa Margolles brought to Venice art that tells of a scarred story, from her upbringing in drug lord-ruled Sinaloa to her job at a morgue sifting through the bodies of battle victims.
Her work is moralistic and confrontational. Paintings in a misted room. Only later is it explained the mist is from the water found on dead drug violence victims, and the paintings are created with dipping paper used to clean bodies at the morgue. Jewelry with centerpieces that are actually shattered — the broken pieces are taken from cars at score-settling crime scenes. Margolles says her art is macabre because so is the rising death toll in her home. And now she’s back with a new exhibit at LABOR Gallery in Mexico City.
In the photo above from the Tate Liverpool Biennial in 2006, Margolles’ piece “Untitled” represents a post-mortem examination table.
From the description of the work: “An internal element heats the top surface of the metal sculpture while a device suspended from the ceiling intermittently releases drops of water onto the boiling hot surface below. The droplets, formed by water used to wash bodies in a morgue in Mexico City, hit the surface with a sound like gunshot, instantly evaporating and surrounding the viewer in their vapor.”
Photo via the Tate
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Tags: art, drug war, drugs, mexico, sinaloa, teresa margolles
In a story about the perilous lives of narcoabogados (narco-lawyers) last week, the LA Times briefly mentions a fascinating legal technique called “amparo.” Amparo is commonly known in Mexico as a get-narcos-out-of-jail-free card. Here’s why:
Technically, amparo is a way to protect individual constitutional rights and is embedded in the legal systems of several Latin American countries and the Philippines. But some Mexicans believe the broad reach of this human rights protection technique prevents the government from adequately going after drug cartels. Originally intended as a Habeas Corpus-type right and to protect average citizens from abuse, it has also become a tool used by drug criminals to avoid detention and arrest by buying them time to cover up evidence or escape arrest. Since drug lords have tons of dirty money and corrupt politicians at their disposal, amparo is only icing on the cake.
On top of that, Mexican police have very limited powers of arrest. Under a principle known as flagrancia, police officers are confined to a set of rules for any arrest they make without a specific warrant — drug lord investigations included. Much has been written on Mexico’s flawed criminal justice system, but the irony of amparo is begging for more investigation.
Photo by Brian Frank
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Tags: criminal justice, drug cartels, drug war, mexican supreme court, mexico, narcos
Mexican Art Giants
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting artists Miguel Calderón and Yoshua Okon, the former joint owners of the art gallery La Panadería and two of the biggest stars the Mexican art world has produced as of late.
Converted from a bakery, La Pandería was one of the first of its kind in the early 90’s — it was a non-profit space that encouraged the new, experimental work of young artists and its memory is a testament to the fusion of rebellious, non-conformist art and lush parties that can now be found in galleries all over Mexico City.
Calderón and Okon fell out and disbanded the gallery, but the careers of both have soared. Okon just had a showing of recent pieces at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil. And I interviewed Calderón here about his own rise.
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Tags: art, la panadería, mexico, mexico city, miguel calderón, yoshua okon
I’ve become a big fan of Indian-Kenyan photographer Priya Ramrakha. Killed at the age of 33 during the Nigerian Civil War in 1968, Ramrakha roved the continent, documenting under-reported stories and capturing effortless scenes of daily life across Africa. I feel a certain kinship to this photographer, who made covering Africa his life and even took photos during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
More of his photos are here. There is also a documentary.
Photos via the Priya Foundation and The New York Times
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Tags: africa, civil rights movement, civil war, india, kenya, life magazine, nigeria, photography, priya ramrahka
The Morelia Film Festival
The annual Morelia International Film Festival began again on Saturday and will continue until October 11. The festival in the picturesque town four hours away from Mexico City has only grown in prestige and size over the past few years. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now gives Morelia winning fiction and animation short films the opportunity to be considered for an Oscar nomination. The only other Latin American film festivals recognized by the Academy are in Cartagena and Río de Janeiro.
Quentin Tarantino and his Inglorious Basterds inaugurated this year’s events, but the Morelia festival is more important for the stage it gives emerging Mexican directors rather than the American films it pulls. Headed by the formidable veteran festival organizer Daniela Michel (pictured above), Morelia has been key in highlighting the work of talented local filmmakers, like the Mexican women directors I wrote about here.
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Tags: film, film festivals, mexico, morelia, morelia international film festival, movies
A Look at Mexican Women Migrants
It’s hard out there for a woman migrant. Especially, in this case, if you’re Mexican.
The illegal, dangerous journey across the U.S.-Mexico border has always been a more horrific one for Mexican women. It’s now de rigeur for would-be woman migrants to start taking birth control pills before their trips, so expected is rape and other sexual crimes. That still doesn’t protect against the transmission of HIV/AIDS, though, and other STDS. To scare the women even more, “rape trees” are popping up along the border, where cartel members and coyotes rape female border crossers and hang their clothes, specifically their underwear, on trees to mark their “conquests” and territory.
Coyotes, U.S. Border Patrol agents, drug cartels — women migrants face threats on all sides and little to no recourse to stop it. What they are doing is illegal but it isn’t an excuse to ignore this massive sexual exploitation, since women will keep trying their luck across the desert. The sweet, quirky girl who works in the shop on my street wants to try her luck, too. We tell her it’s too much of a risk, but she hasn’t changed her mind.
Photo via Latina
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Tags: border, illegal immigrants, immigration, mexico, united states, violence, women
Recent Entries
- High Fashion During Wartime
- Indian Uprisings in Latin America?
- Mexico Makes Economic Headway into Africa
- In with Heloise and The Savoir Faire
- Turning a Drug War into Art
- Amparo, or the Get Narcos Out of Jail Free Card
- Mexican Art Giants
- Priya Ramrakha and Africa (and the Civil Rights Movement)
- The Morelia Film Festival
- A Look at Mexican Women Migrants
- New African Fashion Mags
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