Art
Keturah Benson

8 Black Art Moments You Can't Miss During Art Basel Miami 2018

Our guide to Blackness at this year's fair.

It's that time of year again. Art Basel is bringing its magic back to Miami. The annual art fair that showcases modern and contemporary art, is set to have more than 4,000 artists displaying work across all mediums. The Miami iteration of the week-long fair has become a space for artists, galleries, collectors and countless art lovers to connect, be inspired and party for the last 16 years.

Here are some Black art must-sees during Art Basel:


Art Africa Miami Arts Fair presents "Black Art Matters"

This year, the Art Africa Miami Arts Fair turns eight years-old and the theme is "Black Art Matters: It's Not A Choice." The fair will explore the role Black art has played in being an "intellectual, political and artistic rereading, trying to think of the contemporary condition of peoples that have been involved in struggles to stay human." There will be the "Art + Film" event featuring a screening of Through The Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People and " Art + Fashion" a dance party where attendees are the art. Art Africa Miami Arts Fair was founded by visionary and architect, Neil Hall, with not only the intention of showcasing Black art but to celebrate the community that birthed the festival, Overtown. The community that was once called "Colored Town" during the Jim Crow era also became a cultural hub in Miami. The fair has also been credited with amplifying Black Art in Overtown during Art Basel Week.

Zina Saro-Wiwa—Table Manners

Nigeria-born and Brooklyn based artist, Zina Saro-Wiwa, created the video series "Table Manners" that explores the " performative practices of food consumption as indispensable to the imagination of belonging in West Africa." It features Ogoni people eating Nigerian dishes like Roasted Ice Fish and Mu , Sorgor Salad with Palm Wine or Garden Egg and Groundnut Butter. Each video is minimal but colorful, creating an intimacy between the eater and the viewer. Saro-Wiwa said, "A powerful exchange takes place when one not only eats a meal but watches a meal being consumed. One is filled up with an unexplainable and potent metaphysical energy that we normally pay no attention to." The work is a highlights the eating practices with cultural specificity and what it says about self.


PRIZM Art Fair 2018

PRIZM Art Fair, has become one of the leading showcases of international artists from across the African Diaspora and emerging markets at Art Basel. This year, programming comprises of events like PRIZM Film which includes screening of Life is Fare a film that explores three different perspectives of Eritrea and PRIZM Panels that will tackle everything from redlining to the meaning of art. They will also be presenting two exhibitions curated by PRIZM Founder and Director, Mikhaile Solomon and artist William Cordova that are steeped in futurism. Cordova's exhibit will explore the connections between futurism, ritual and the folkloric.Solomon's will focus on re-appropriation, reclamation and creating an inclusive future. Read: 5 Black Artists You Can't Miss at PRIZM


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PUSH

Liberian-American and Philadelphia based artist, Keturah Benson, will be presenting PUSH, a live interactive experience she said,"tears the veil between the artist and the audience." Instead of showing the glamorous finished product of a piece, Benson wants to showcase the often uncomfortable and grueling creative process. After attending Art Basel last year, she immediately began prepping and creating for this one. Whether it was leaving a 9-5 job, scrapping ideas or losing a venue for an exhibit, Benson captured it all. She will be showcasing three works: "The Self-Love Project", "The Quiet Place" and "I Create The Filter." Benson said, "The key is to remember you are not alone in this process, we spend a lot of time on social media comparing ourselves and this whole show is based around transparency.The goal is to motivate artists to push through."

"AfriCOBRA: Messages to the People" Opening Celebration

"AfriCOBRA: Messages to the People" is an exhibition presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) to celebrate of America's longest running artist collectives. AfriCOBRA is a black artist collective that began in 1968 in Chicago. They looked to explore the Black aesthetic and defined it during The Black Arts Movement. This year, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the collective. There will be a meet and greet with Curator Jeffreen M. Hayes and the founding members of AfriCOBRA. Artists like Napolean Jones- Henderson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Carolyn Mims Lawrence and more. They will be discussing their work with AfriCobra as well as their current works.


Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi

South African photographer and visual activist, Zanele Muholi, has spent more than a decade documenting the lives of the LGBTQIA community in South Africa. She will be exhibiting some of her works that span from black and white portraits to colorful displays of individuality.Read an interview with Zanele Muholi

Allison Janae Hamilton's PULSE Miami Special Project: Sweet milk in the badlands.

Allison Janae Hamilton is a multi-disciplinary visual artist. Her work comprises of photography, video, sculpture, installation and even taxidermy. The Kentucky-born and Florida raised artist will be presenting Sweet milk in the badlands. at PULSE. The photo series explores landscape and its role in our understanding of the past and the present. It is described as a look "toward ritual, storytelling, and trance in search of the connections between landscape and selfhood, place and disturbance. It invites an uncanny cast of haints to lead the viewer through the beginnings of an epic tale that animates the land as a guide and witness."


Serge Attukwei Clottey at UNTITLED Miami

Based in Accra, Ghana, Serge Attukwei Clottey is a Ghanaian artist with a broad discipline in sculpture, drawing, performance and video.

His work showcases and explores the power and presence in everyday objects. Clottey is known as the creator of "Afrogallonism"—a creative practice that sits at the intersection of environmental and social justice. He took the highly prevalent yellow gallon containers in Ghana and turned it into art that not only is a critique on overconsumption and an exploration of restoration. Catch Clottey showing work with Ghana's Gallery 1957 in Booth C7 at UNTITLEDMiami.

Arts + Culture
Photo courtesy of Kombo Chapfika.

Zimbabwean Artist Kombo Chapfika on Using AI and AR in Art

Whether he’s creating animation for Cartoon Network or doing product design for Nespresso, the multidisciplinary artist always brings the full range of his skills to his work – as seen in his latest exhibition in Harare.

Experimentation, social commentary, visual energy – these are the tenets of Kombo Chapfika’s work. And it’s these tenets that give rise to his latest exhibition, at his TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read) exhibition at Artillery Gallery in Harare. For over a decade, he’s been exploring themes of social commentary on local and global issues through his work. From digital art on canvas to hand-tufted yarn on fabric, as well as aerosol paintings on tobacco painting, Chapfika’s exhibition showcases the range of talents he’s been developing over the years.

Skilled in drawing, painting, design, animation, coding, and installations, the Zimbabwean artist believes art transcends a single medium, and that each discipline informs the other. As an indicator of this belief, his TLDR exhibition also features augmented reality (AR), with custom Instagram filters that Chapfika has developed to enhance the gallery experience.

The Zimbabwean artist has become known for combining elements of African and Western pop iconography, patterns, installations, and surreal elements to reveal unspoken subconscious narratives. Growing up, Chapfika had always been interested in visual art, and his curiosity inspired him to experiment with painting from as early as the age of 5. An economics graduate from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, he is a mostly self-taught artist whose passion for art inspired him to learn design. Over the years, he honed his craft by creating visual art in various disciplines, picking up design skills on YouTube and being taught by friends who had learned design formally.

While in the U.S., Chapfika refined his digital skills working at Cartoon Network for a period of two years, amongst other roles. To date, he has created work for Netflix, Nespresso, Interactive, The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and numerous other non-profit and corporate organizations. His latest exhibition at Artillery Gallery, which runs until the end of the month, allows him to stage work in his hometown, Harare.

He talked to OkayAfrica to share more about his exhibition and his thoughts on AI and AR.

The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

As a multidisciplinary artist, which medium do you feel most comfortable with?

I'm most comfortable with drawing since I've done that since childhood. Beyond comfort, I like variety and balance. Some mediums are more physically taxing — large paintings, tufting — others are more mentally/technically challenging — digital/code-based work. What works for me is mixing them. There will be weeks when one takes precedence, but that's always temporary.

You've collaborated with several brands internationally, with Cartoon Network, Netflix and Nespresso being a part of your catalog. Which project has challenged you the most?

Each project is quite different; different people with different goals, timelines, and ways of working. The Cartoon Network/Adult Swim team was easy to work with as it was a playful work environment where everyone had a sense of humor. The actual work of concept designing for a Netflix feature was great; I basically was digitally drawing and painting. The multiple rounds of revisions and inevitably discarded options was very different to Cartoon Network, where we were encouraged to make decisions because we had one week to create each episode, as opposed to months on a feature film.

An image of the artist Kombo Chapfika looking at the camera.Kombo Chapfika’s ‘TLDR’ exhibition is currently on show at Artillery Gallery in his hometown of Harare.Photo courtesy of Kombo Chapfika.

Can you tell us more about your TLDR exhibition at Artillery?

TLDR is my first show with Artillery, and my first show in Zimbabwe for a few years. It came together beautifully with Peter Kaunda being a pleasure to work with. I chose the title TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) to mark a milestone. I'm showing tufted work for the first time (a first in Zim, I think) and it's a return more to color and images after a very text-heavy period, which came in response to the media climate these last few years — that spawned Eish-Metro. I'm glad to reconcile the textual work with the graphic image and the tufted forms. As the AR aspects activate, I believe it will be my most coherent fusion of the different media to date.

Your work focuses on a lot of societal themes. How important is it for art to speak on issues affected by people?

What is art there for? I enjoy decorative art, but even decorative art can have some substance behind it. Artists have many roles in society and culture. Among them are to express difficult ideas, to inspire and encourage other people, to make us all freer, and help us understand each other.

The Eish-Metro installation brilliantly uses satire to speak on a lot of important issues. How did it come about and what do you think is the importance of media literacy?

I believe media literacy is extremely important as people spend more and more of their time consuming media. A lot of the ideas people carry they got via media rather than from people in their immediate circles. A lot of media is deceptive, and a lot is designed to draw attention, clicks, and outrage from people rather than inform them. People have never consumed as much media and propaganda as we do now and this affects how people think. I started Eish-Metro during lockdown when we were subjected to a torrent of propaganda. I chose to use satire to show people how manipulative a lot of it is and how it can be subverted by simple wordplay mixed with irreverence.

The curatorial statement for the TLDR exhibition was generated with the use of Chat GPT. What impact do you think AI will have on traditional art?

I wrote an essay about this. I think AI will affect most creative fields. It's already making major changes in digital arts. I think traditional art will be affected less, but it will [be], in some ways. There may be a movement towards very embodied, hand-made work, but a lot of these trends are built up via advertising rather than grassroots sentiment. If people are too passive and hooked on social media, everything will be AI shortly. I encourage more artists and art lovers to share their opinions on what art means to them, and why speed and efficiency are not really about art, but rather about technology corporations' interests. I make a distinction between art and content. It's blurry, but it's one we'll have to make more and more.

Your previous work has featured augmented reality. How do you think it can be used to amplify the gallery experience?

AR can add value to artworks. In the current show, I'll release AR filters during the run of the show to encourage return visits. I like my art to work on many levels — raw sensation, color, language, subtext, and sometimes a digital overlay using AR. If a precocious child and a very thoughtful adult can both enjoy it, that's mission accomplished.

What do you want visitors of the TLDR exhibition to leave with?

I want them to leave energized, smiling, eyes a little clearer, and minds a little sharper and [more] creative than they arrived.

Art
Image courtesy of Oyinkansola Dada/Okra Agency

Oyinkansola Dada Is Mastering The Art of Discussing Art

OkayAfrica sat down with the Nigerian lawyer and gallerist to discuss the blossoming African art scene and the ingenuity it offers the world at large.

At just 26 years old, Oyinkansola Dada is creating the art world of her dreams.

Named one of Forbes’s 30 under 30 in its 2023 Arts & Culture category, the young Nigerian gallerist is stoking the flames of the international art world as she spotlights African artists, and marches the continent’s blossoming creative scene to center stage. Dada is a full-time solicitor, and part-time gallerist living in London after having moved there from Lagos, Nigeria to pursue a law degree at King’s College London. While waiting to convert to training as a Solicitor, Dada moved back to Nigeria to surrender to the energy of homecoming and explore Nigeria’s emerging art scene.

Now, the emerging art mover and shaker is connecting continents, both in person and through her online art publication, DADA Magazine, an art collector’s dream dedicated to highlighting the unfathomable talent found in the motherland.

A woman holds a copy of DADA Magazine and stands in front of a painting in a gallery. Image courtesy of Oyinkansola Dada/Okra Agency

POLARTICS and a London law degree

Dada began her ascent into the art world in 2015, when she started her online art blog POLARTICS, while in her second year of law school. “It became a very fundamental part of how things grew into what they’ve become,” she told OkayAfrica. “I wrote about art, politics, and the literature that I was reading and just sort of shared my thoughts on the things that I liked. And then I’d post it." The exposure saw Dada seek out more opportunities to engage with the art world by attending exhibitions, shows, and museums to get a keener understanding of the people behind the creations. Perhaps one of the most underrated gifts that exploring art can give is the tendency to trigger a rediscovering of self — something that Dada can speak to. “It was also a very important time in my life because I started to understand Blackness and my identity,” she said. “Moving to London after living in Nigeria, and what that felt like, and really understanding my place in the world. That was the beginning of everything.”

This introduction was enough to inspire Dada to use her experience to carve out physical space for all of the Black and African creators she connects with along the way. Presently, DADA Museum’s first manifestation sits in London on a temporary basis. “We don’t have to hold the space all year long. So, it’s not quite permanent, but it’s still a physical space,” the gallerist said. Next on the agenda is carving out a permanent gallery in Lagos to fully embrace and house Nigeria’s buzzing art scene. The benefits of an online gallery are great, but, as Dada puts it, “With art, a lot is lost by looking at images”. The young solicitor’s recipe for prioritizing community engagement and support seems to be one made for success. Dada’s bi-continental experiences have given her a certain advantage— assimilating to the needs of two markets and cultures that undeniably bleed into one another.

Spending time between the two bustling cities guided and championed Dada’s decision to create a physical space in Lagos, hopefully opening up later this year. The city is home to a community of artists that has galvanized Dada’s desire to emerge fully into developing and nurturing the talent that is so often overlooked. “It just feels like home to me,” she says, “It’s more personal.” And the importance of community sits at the heart of Dada’s “why”, as the gallery owner explains, “Apart from selling art or finding collectors, physical spaces and exhibitions are sites of engagement and for building community. I think for an artist to grow, both in their practice and in their career, it's very important for them to engage with people in person and let them see the work with their own eyes. London presents chances for expansion because there’s a lot happening in terms of market activity. Although there are amazing artists in Lagos, we also need international exposure.”

DADA Magazine

Staying close to her roots ingrained in the internet, the curator launched DADA Magazine in December 2022, highlighting the maturation and artistic exposure that Dada has experienced since her first online-based project POLARTICS. “I thought there was a gap, in terms of art magazines and representation of Black artists, and I wanted to fill it.” Dada favored extending the conversations beyond seasonal exhibitions, creating a community of engaged audiences who could interact with one another all year round. “It’s something that anybody can buy, at any point,” Dada said. “I also wanted some sort of knowledge bank and archive for younger collectors and art enthusiasts that are trying to figure out and demystify the art scene. It’s not a magazine that’s hard to understand or too critical.”

The relationship between African artists and the internet has been shown to be mutually beneficial. Having an online presence offers interconnectedness and the ability to be discovered outside of an artist’s own space, something Dada has witnessed firsthand. The discovery of new cultures and artistic approaches isn’t just set for international audiences, either. Africa is home to a myriad of styles, ideologies, and crafts, and Dada continues to learn and grow alongside her company in understanding the range and reach. “It has been eye-opening to experience things that are just so different from where I’m from and to be able to travel. It’s been good to come out of the bubble of what I understand. I think a lot of times people think that their reality is the only one that exists.”

A DADA Magazine cover. Image courtesy of Oyinkansola Dada/Okra Agency

Dada bases a lot of her work and outreach and an inherent desire to build community

Her wildest dream for the continent and industry lies in something that comes naturally to Africans — community. To center ourselves and rid Africans of the historically compromising act of participation. A world where artists on and from the continent can be self-sufficient, with the support of institutions that affirm creators, collectors, and galleries in their pursuit of personal and professional success. Too often, African stories of triumph become stronger the further away you get from home. Although Dada is still a full-time lawyer, the decision to pivot toward the art world did not initially sit well with her family. “In the beginning, there wasn’t any support, so I had to do a lot of it on my own, with the assistance of any other artists who were willing to take a chance. I would have liked to get an art degree, but it just wasn’t a possibility.” And then, the Universe stepped in: “I got funding from the firm that I was working with while at law school. I was able to save money and plant the first seeds of the business. That’s how I was able to get started otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible.”

Arguably, rejecting creative education or careers is a common theme within generations of Africans. And it makes sense. Many are forced to make those choices based on survival, not passion. However, as institutions grow – in both funding and their ability to offer serviceable degrees and experiences – so will the tolerance for those who are artistically inclined. “It needs to be seen as something that’s valubale,”, Dada says. “An actual career path. Then, I think people would be more incentivized to let their children do it.” As we continue to see ourselves in positions of power and leadership, the reality of what is achievable widens for those who look like us.

Issue #1 of Dada Magazine is available for £29.95.

A DADA Magazine cover showing a man painted gold.

Image courtesy of Oyinkansola Dada/Okra Agency

Music

Mr Eazi Launches New Group ChopLife Soundsystem

Listen to the new 14-song album Chop Life, Vol. 1 Mzansi Chronicles.

Mr Eazi, the acclaimed music superstar, business visionary, and globe-trotter, extends a heartfelt invitation to music enthusiasts to embark on a sonic journey to South Africa with the release of Chop Life, Vol. 1: Mzansi Chronicles (Choplife Limited/emPawa Africa), the inaugural offering from his newly-formed pan-African music collective, ChopLife Soundsystem.

Crafted amidst the vibrant locales of Cape Town and Johannesburg, this 14-track album serves as an exuberant tribute to amapiano, the electrifying dance music genre that has burst forth from South Africa and garnered international recognition. Joining forces with an excellent lineup of South African music luminaries such as Moonchild Sanelly, Focalistic, Nkosazana Daughter, Ami Faku, and Major League Djz, alongside a host of emerging talents, Mr Eazi presents his interpretation of the scene's captivating elements.

Mzansi Chronicles is an ode to the amapiano sound that has been the soundtrack to my parties and me going to clubs,” Mr Eazi said of the project. “It’s me working with some of my favorite artists and capturing my interpretation of elements I love from the scene.”

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Film
Photo courtesy Directors’ Fortnight.

Rosine Mbakam on the Power of Family and Returning Home in Filmmaking

The Cameroonian filmmaker uses her documentary skills to create her first fictional feature, Mambar Pierrette, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this week.

After a critically lauded career as a documentary filmmaker, writer/director Rosine Mbakam arrives at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight program with her first narrative feature: Mambar Pierrette. The film sees Mbakam returning to her homeland of Cameroon to tell the story of a dressmaker — Pierrette (Pierrette Aboheu Njeuthat) — as she deals with mounting financial calamities that threaten her children’s school year and the health of her business.

It’s a conceit that feels familiar to Vittorio De Sica’s film, but with a different, uniquely African touch. While Mbakam has switched mediums for this film, the story, and its translation is similar to the director’s previous films, such as Chez Jolie Coiffure, Delphin’s Prayer, and The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman in their focus on Black women who use their respective craft to cope with the hurdles they encounter. For Mambar Pierrette, Mbakam retools these familiar themes for Cameroon. The result indicates a change of direction for the filmmaker with regard to mood and tone, switching from ruminative to joyous, from staid to colorful and vibrant. Because all around Pierrette is life: It’s her children, it’s her village; it’s her vivid customers and the lively dresses she designs.

With Mambar Pierrette, Mbakam offers the unique cultural lens she’s spent nearly a decade crafting to give viewers a vision of radical empathy and a change in perspective. After having spent several years working in television, she attended film school in Belgium, where she is now based, before going on to create her first trio of feature-length documentaries that shared stories of Cameroonian women.

She talks to OkayAfrica about wanting to show a different Africa, making a film with her family, and subverting the traditions of Western filmmaking.

The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve spent your career doing documentaries, but this is your first fictional film. Why did you feel you needed to switch for this particular story?

Fictional features were my first desire. I discovered documentaries when I was in film school. But my desire when I wanted to do cinema was to do features because it was what I was seeing on television in Cameroon. It was not documentaries. When I was in film school I really didn't know what kind of fiction I wanted to do. And when I discovered the documentary [form], it gave me a lot of freedom to be myself, to really experience what I wanted to, because I didn't want an intermediary between me and the people that I wanted to film.

Because of all the legacy of colonialism — I was in Belgium — I didn't want to use a white person or a person that didn't know what I wanted to question. But the documentary really helped me to deconstruct my gaze, and to just find my way and really see what kind of fiction I could do. Because the fiction that I learned in film school was Western fiction, and it was difficult for me to apply it in my reality in Cameroon. I'm really happy to come to my first desire of cinema, of doing fiction and really the fiction that I want to do with all the knowledge that I had from documentaries.

An image of the filmmaker, Rosine Mabakam, holding a microphone.Rosine Mabakam speaks at the premiere of her film in the Directors’ Fortnight program at the Cannes Film Festival.Photo courtesy Directors’ Fortnight / Delphine Pincet.

Your previous films are set in Belgium, but for this one you returned to Cameroon. Why did it make sense to return now?

Because when I was in Belgium I was there in the context of the legacy of colonialism. And I was confronting it every day. I wanted to really find my position there because I chose to live there, even though my inspiration was Cameroon. I wanted to deconstruct that and find my way because I knew that when I was deconstructing it that it would help me to see my reality differently. Because when I was in Cameroon, I was colonized. I didn't know I was reproducing all the things that I was seeing from the films I was watching in Cameroon. I wanted to discover how the rest of the world saw people like me in Belgium. It was important for me to deconstruct that first and to go back to Cameroon afterwards because I didn't want to reproduce the power of Western cinema on people that I wanted to film in Cameroon.

I love that you see it as a deconstruction of the image white people have of people from Cameroon or really any African country. You always get to the inner lives of the people you capture by looking at their craft. With Chez Jolie Coiffure, for instance, you focus on hairdressers. What draws you to a person's relationship with their craft, and why did you choose a dressmaker for this film?

In Cameroon, in my culture, all of those small spaces are where people come and drop stories and drop pain and also reconstruct their mental health. And I want to underline those spaces that sometimes people neglect because for them, maybe, it's not important. For me, for Chez Jolie Coiffure, with the hairdressers, it's the same thing. It's the space where women, and some men, come to just drop something and or take something.

I want to make people understand that sometimes it's not big spaces or important spaces that make us feel confident or that make us feel fine. I grew up in those smaller spaces. My mother was a dressmaker and my grand sister was her hairdresser. I really know those spaces and I know how it's built my imagery for stories of strong women. I wanted to show that.

I love the designs of the dresses; they’re so vibrant and vivid. What do they represent to you and to the character of Peirrette?

It's the dresses and how people can rebuild themselves through them. It's the space where your life can change with the world, with solidarity and also with love that people have brought to you through those spaces. You are surrounded not only by one woman, but by all these people who are coming. And yes, I really like fashion and also the colors.

In Cameroon, we don't have enough confidence in what we have. Even in fashion, we’re always looking at the West and how the West dresses without taking into account what we have. I wanted to show that it's beautiful and our story is important by just talking to ordinary people to show that even if we are ordinary, we have something important to say.


A still from the film of a group of women outside a rural dress shop.Rosine Mbakam’s first narrative feature is set in Cameroon.Photo courtesy Directors’ Fortnight.

The actress who plays Pierrette is your first cousin, correct? And it’s her first time acting?

It's not only my cousin. All of the cast are members of my family except for two people. But the rest are my mother, my aunts, my cousins, my sisters, my grand sisters.

Did you find it challenging directing people who you're not only related to but are in a situation where they’ve probably never acted before?

It's more challenging. There is a power in cinema and we know how that power has been used to stereotype Africans. I know the consequences of that power. And even more so with my family. Because they didn't really don't know what is the cinema, and how that power can be destructive. It's easy to take that power and to make them do what I want. It's important for me to be more vigilant and to give them the space to express themselves. That was really challenging because I had to be more careful about that.

With all of the travesties that befall Pierrette, a woman on an economic edge, I was really reminded of Vittorio De Sica’s films like Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D. And yet, you don’t remain on a track toward heartbreak like those films do. It’s almost like a De Sica film would be impossible to pull off because the idea of community is so present here?

I didn't feel it was possible to end like that because, usually, it doesn’t end like that in my family. With every problem you have people going together to resolve something, to bring joy, even if there is something very painful. For me, it was a perspective that I wanted to give to that story. And I wanted to give the perspective of that power that I can see in Pierrette and all of the members of my family. I wanted to show that power is higher than the difficulty. That was the intention behind that ending with the mannequin, and of all the neocolonialism that exists. Our power can overtake those problems.

A still from the film, 'Mambar Pierrette,' of a woman walking next to a girl carrying a bucket on her head.In ‘Mambar Pierrette,’ Rosine Mbakam enlisted family members for the film.Photo courtesy Directors’ Fortnight.

Her shop is also very small, yet open. Whenever Pierrette is making dresses, in the background you can see the street and you can see the life of her neighborhood. Could you talk a bit about why you framed her in that way as opposed, to say, close-ups?

If you see my film Chez Jolie Coiffure, you’ll notice it's really close. But if I close the perspective, here, it's not how we live in Cameroon. There is always a door open somewhere or someone can open the door to give you something, to give you help, to give a testimony. But in Chez Jolie Coiffure, in the West, Black people are closed into their space. In Cameroon it's different. There is always a perspective, there is always a solution. And I wanted to show that, to open that place, even if it's small. In Chez Jolie Coiffure, in the salon there is no door open anywhere. It's really close. It's like a prison. It's really close. In this film, it’s different. You can see the life of the earth coming, you can see light coming.

What do you hope people take away from this film when they’re finished?

I hope people will see another Africa and another way of filming Africa, another way to imagine Africa, and how we can look at Africa differently. I don't think we usually see that perspective, to be in the position of someone in Africa. I want people to be with these people and to help them understand what they want to say. I hope that people will watch the film and will remember the images and the words of this Black woman.

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