The writings, translations and ideas of our dearly departed friend, comrade and co-conspirator Dominique Malaquais (1964-2021), in Chimurenga:
Idia Tales: Three Takes and a Mask
Consider Idia: iy’oba, queen mother to oba Esigie, ruler of the Benin kingdom in the first half of the 1500s. Logo and celebration, advert and call to arms all rolled into one, four decades and two years on, her likeness, patterned on a 16th century ivory pendant looted by colonial troops and held at the British Museum, stands for FESTAC. Read more…
Out of Sight
There are many texts of Yambo Ouologuem’s we could have chosen for this issue of Chimurenga. The man’s our kind of man: rude and lewd and very, very sharp on just those issues this crew holds dear. Read more…
Variations On The Beautiful In The Congolese World Of Sounds
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Congolese rumba and its offshoots exercised an intimate power over the African imaginary. Read more…
Raw Material Academy 2017 – Angazi, But I’m Sure lecture
Archie Shepp’s Shirt Suggests
The moment has stayed with every person who witnessed it. Archie Shepp improvising live on the street, surrounded by hundreds of onlookers in a trance induced by his otherworldly beats. Read more…
Monumental Failures
His name is Mboua Massock. He is the founder, in Douala, of an organisation called Conseil supérieur de la rebellion morale (Superior Council for Moral Rebellion), ‘dedicated to peaceful means of waging battle’. Read more…
All I Can Say For Now
During the last five years of Unathi Sigenu’s life, I was a fellow traveller. Following his participation in Urban Scénos/Johannesburg, an artists’ residency run by two artists’ collectives – my own ScU2 (based in Paris) and the Joubert Park Project – we developed an ongoing working fellowship. Read more…
De L’art De Vivre L’art
Goddy Leye nous a quittés. C’était le 19 février 2011, peu après minuit. Read more…
Anti-Teleology: Re-Mapping The Imag(In)Ed City
For some years now, scholars in a range of fields have been arguing that canonical approaches to urban space fall short when faced with cities like Kinshasa. Despite claims to universal applicability, such approaches tend to be thoroughly Eurocentric. Read more…
That Thing We Dreamed
The term ‘architecture’ has historically been defined by and in relation to Europe. Read more…
Rumblin’
April 1st 1974.1 Before a room packed with reporters, President Mobutu Sese Seko’s Press Secretary, Bula Mandungu, makes an announcement: on September 25th, the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship will take place in Zaire. Read more…
Joker’s Wild (Slight Return)
It was close to seven when I put the key in the lock of my apartment and the key refused to turn. It fitted, but the lock wouldn’t budge. Read more…
On The Bridge
On the eve of the events I recount here, Sma’Boy, in a dream, saw Little-Cow-Tail come fetch President on the Old Bridge. She was with General Abibi; he was driving a hearse. Read more…
Frantz – a story of bones
Frantz is frowning. He is having trouble with his homework again. I would help, but I have nothing much to offer. Read more…
Sexing Africa, Again – Pop as Politics: Watch It Tonight on HBO
In December 2002, hip hop diva Lil’ Kim appeared on the cover of a magazine in a burka. But for a few folds of cloth strategically draped, she was naked from the shoulders down. Read more…
Blood Money – A Douala Chronicle
Reader, if you do not have a strong stomach, may I suggest you put these pages down? Pictures follow – in image, in word – that are excruciating. Read more…
Lindela (The Winnie Suite)
listen, now. prisons are nothing new to me. not that i’ve done time – no. but i’ve been to see. walked through penitentiaries. past tiers and rows and bars, the stench of men howling silence. Read more…
The Franc-Maçonnerie Suite
Il y a plus de gens qui savent lire et écrire de la littérature que de personnes sachant lire et écrire de la musique, qui a plus d’impact que la littérature. Il est plus aisé d’écouter et/ou d’entendre que de lire ou de voir. Read more…
Paint the White House Black – A Call to Arms
The year is 1975 and the nation is grooving. Funk is the music and Parliament is in the House. Read more…
Koltan Kills Kids
Dear Bridger:
Following our conversation of November 23, I met with our team in Dallas. Karen Schools, Director of our Challenging Terrains Division and Skip Alpenhous, Ph.D., J. E. Hoover Chair in Communication Strategies, Murdoch University, were present as well.
The meeting began with an updated assessment of Sweetwater’s Valuable Assets-DRC subsidiary. Read more…
Ground / Overground / Underground
GROUND / OVERGROUND / UNDERGROUND is a project of the Congolese trans-disciplinary collective Mowoso. Its first showing took place in November 2010 at Afropolis, an exhibition on African cities curated by Christian Hanussek and Kerstin Pinther. Read more…
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