“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
Barnabas Ticha Muvuthi was the first recipient of the ARAK Collection Art Writing Residency Fellowship, May-November 2023. He researched five artists from five different SADC countries: Rudolf Seibeb (Namibia), Nelly Guambe (Mozambique), Thebe Phetogo (Botswana), Victor Mutale Kalinosi Chishimba (Zambia) and Lutanda Zemba Luzamba (Democratic Republic of Congo).
Barnabas Ticha Muvuthi is Deputy Vice Chancellor of Open Window University for the Creative Arts in Lusaka, Zambia, and is the resident art critic at The Post Newspapers. He was awarded the 2012 CNN African Journalist of the Year for Art and Culture and a Media Institute of Southern Africa award in 2015 for his work in arts journalism.