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deeplezstonerwitch:

dynamicafrica:

Select artworks from Nigerian artist Njideka Akunyili:

“Nigeria is almost a third character in my work,” she said. “A lot of my work is about investigating my love for Nigeria and my life in America.

“I met my husband at college and there was some anxiety that if I married outside my culture I would lose my identity, but there is a space in my work where these things come together.”

Akunyili is hoping to help change attitudes to art in Nigeria, where she said appreciation is growing slowly.

“If I hadn’t left Nigeria, I wouldn’t be an artist, I would be a doctor,” she said. “When I told my parents I wanted to be an artist, they couldn’t get their heads around why an educated person who went to college in America would want to be an artist.

“If people think of artists, it’s somebody by the side of the road painting signs.”

[…]

“When I was young, the less Nigerian you were the cooler you were, but now we have gone back to tradition,” said Akunyili. “There’s a nice energy about the country that’s finally coming into its own.”

x

(via blackcontemporaryart)

eatcakey:

 

Young Lords Party 
Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!! 

"What makes a really great person, a really great writer, a really great rebel? Someone who listens. Someone listens more than he or she talks. Someone who goes to find where the silence is, and tries to understand why the silence is there."

- - Alice Walker, introducing Arundhati Roy (via amiiira)

(via asdarkthingsareloved)

leebasays:

Kuti

"One American critic was so angry she chased me to the exit to inform me, ‘This film is a call to racial violence!’ I thought not. I thought it was a call to empathy, which of all human qualities is the one this past century seemed most to need."

- Roger Ebert on Do The Right Thing. (via jsmooth995)

lhaaff:

See the film and enjoy a Q&A discussion with filmmaker Tiona McClodden on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival, Seattle WA - presented in partnership with Sistah Sinema. Sistah Sinema started in Seattle, WA in January 2011. In the Spring of 2012, Women of Plenty launched Sistah Sinema - San Antonio (curently in hiatus). In June 2012, Sistah Sinema - Cleveland was launched. Sistah Sinema - Portland & Atlanta launched in January of 2013. Sistah Sinema - Greensboro went live in April 2013 and Sistah Sinema - Kingston in May. For details on bringing Sistah Sinema to your city, click here. Our goal is to become an international distribution network for Queer Women of Color cinema.
Bumming Cigarettes (USA, 2012) 22 minutes
Directed by Tiona McClodden
Bumming Cigarettesis a short film about a brief and intimate meeting between a young Black lesbian woman who is in the process of taking an HIV test and a middle aged Black Gay HIV Positive man. Coming off of the devastation of a bad breakup with a girlfriend, Vee musters up the courage to go and take an HIV test to put her worst fears to rest. What she experiences during her trip to a local clinic is much more than she expects while sharing a cigarette with a stranger, Jimmy, during the 10 minutes that she awaits her test results.
Alia Hatch makes a strong debut in this short film, as a young Black lesbian woman looking to discover her status. This is a breakthrough performance for James Tolbert, a native Philadelphian and professional actor living with HIV for 21 years. Alia and James deliver a moving performance in this film that explores complex issues surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic including the loss of intimacy and stigma that persons living with HIV/AIDS may encounter, while also encouraging awareness around HIV/AIDS testing and the way we treat persons living with the disease.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/51232736
Shown with Zanele Muholi’s Difficult Love
Difficult Love (South Africa, 2011) 48 minutes
Zanele Muholi / Peter Goldsmid 
 
A highly personal take on the challenges facing black lesbians in South Africa today emerges through the life, work, friends and associates of “visual activist” and internationally celebrated photographer, Zanele Muholi. How real are the freedoms of newly won democracy for this diverse minority? This documentary offers a moving answer - and a compelling plea for understanding and tolerance. It offers a poignant personal journey illustrated by Zanele’s photographs and a diverse range of encounters - lesbian activists, critics, commentators, victims and even a lesbian sangoma (traditional healer). It counters the charge head-on that being lesbian or gay is “unAfrican” or unChristian.