“Mandela was not the only head of state taken in by Koagne. Le king kept snapshots of himself with many a man of power, among them Mobutu Sese Seko and Denis Sassou Nguesso […] He took Mobutu for 15 million dollars. Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso lost 40 million to him. Sassou, Etienne Eyadéma of Togo, several high officials of Gabon, Tanzania and Kenya, a member of the Spanish government and an ex-operative of the Israeli Mossad were bamboozled as well.” – Dominique Malaquais (Blood Money: A Douala Chronicle).
Bantu Serenade by Ntone Edjabe (featuring Nah-ee-lah) (read excerpt)
Santu Mofokeng: Trajectory of a street photographer (part1) (read excerpt)
Binyavanga Wainaina: Hell In Bed With Mrs Peprah (read excerpt)
Dominique Malaquais: Lindela (the winnie suite) (read excerpt)
Boubacar Boris Diop: Myriem (read excerpt)
Cover:
Neo Muyanga
The Distance Between Yesterday and Tomorrow was curated by Favour Ritario in 2021. The publication explored the notions of African identity through the works of contemporary East African artists including Sungi Mlengeya, Tahir Carl Karmali, Lemek Tompoika, Eria Nsubuga Sane, Agnes Waruguru, Migadde Adrian, and Aloka Trevor. Favour Ritaro is a Nigerian curator whose research and curatorial work is focused on personal and cultural identities. She was the first ARAK Collection 2021 Curatorial Residency Fellowship Recipient. Exploring themes of memory, migration, place, and gender, the publication aims to dialogue with present-day events and past happenings in hopes of imagining alternative realities in the future. Working with various media, each artist in this book dialogues with the complexities of the African identity, and challenges the preconceived notion of what it means to be African. The book examines the multiple understanding of what it means to be African within historical and political context.