With prohibitive educational expenses and time commitments, the field of architecture still looks much like it did in the early fifties. According to at least one source over 80% of U.S. architects are white males and less than one percent are African-American women. With these statistics, it's no wonder that the recent election of Marshall E. Purnell as the 2008 AIA president is such big news. Until now, the AIA has never been headed by a black architect in its history. We figure Purnell is one of only 1602 black architects in the land and is half of the Washington D.C.-based firm Devrouax + Purnell, responsible for such noted landmarks as the Howard University Information Lab, The African-American Civil War memorial, and the Potomac power and water company in Washington D.C.
It may seem outdated to have a catalog of black professionals in any field. How often do people go looking for an African-American doctor or dentist in the 21st century? There's an underlying assumption that the notion of being a professional has erased the notion of race, and many black professionals concede this point, choosing to focus more on their skills than on their race. It seems an almost antiquated notion to think of "The first black…" anything anymore. Except in the realm of architecture.
Purnell will be walking with tall fellows. The current president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture is Ted Landsmark. If you don't know him from his architectural work, you may recognize him from this picture. He's the one about to get hit. And Mr. Landsmark was preceded in his position by Mr. Bradford Grant, chair of the premiere HBCU architectural master's program. It seems that today, if one wishes to be an African-American in architecture, one must be as strong and dedicated as Landsmark, as steadfast as Mr. Grant, and as innovative as Mr. Purnell. We here at Code Z salute not only these men, but all African-Americans making their way in the field of architecture.
African cinema is left with the permanence of greatness following the passing of Ousmane Sembène, le père du cinéma africain, the trinity of African film. The Senegalese director, producer, and writer passed away at age 84 on Friday, June 9 in Dakar, Senegal leaving his legacy Black Girl (1966), the first feature film by an African director, and birthing a visual aesthetic for African identity and values while continually challenging colonial, then post-colonial leadership on paper and film.
As a pioneer of African cinema, Sembène (or Sembène Ousmane in French publications) carried the forceful voice of African society, self-identity and reflection from novels to film. Sembène captured Africa's oral tradition, and extended it beyond the reach of the cultural literati to the common people using color, motion, and sound.
Xala (1974) first a novel, then one of Sembène's most acknowledged films, explores the varying effects of a post-colonial Senegal through the story of an impotent Senegalese bourgeoisie businessman (xala in Wolof). Though most notable for his cinematic masterpieces, Sembène's early literary works carry a forceful voice for African society and social ills found in the works of Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. The Black Docker and God's Bits of Wood, his earlier works, challenge colonial motives and oppression--economic and racial. After publishing Oh Country, My Beautiful People, Sembène served as a guest of the Cuban, Chinese, and Russian governments, where he was afforded the opportunity to study film at Gorki Studios in Moscow.
Sembène, the son of a fisherman from Casamance, was expelled from school at the 13, but through self-education became a writer and union organizer while working as a docker in Marseilles, his home until 1960. Living in France, Sembène read about, learned from, and exchanged with fellow artists such as Claude McKay, Richard Wright, and Ricardo Neftali Reyes (Pablo Neruda), all of whom influenced his political views and art.
In 2004, Sembène's final film Moolaadé (2004), a film addressing female genital mutilation, won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the FESPACO Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, a festival that Sembène helped create in 1969. Five novels, 5 collections of short stories, and 17 films and documentaries later, le père du cinéma leaves African cinema and literature with a coarse optimism for post-colonial Africa that speaks to and for the people and challenges leadership to be accountable.
On November 8, 2005, Jacques Chirac, former PM of France, declares a state of emergency, a product of the riots born in Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris. In this particular banlieue, there is no Paris metro, no regional nor suburban rail service available to or from the city. Despite the relative isolation, explosive anger, and discontent found its way into the hands of French youth who took to the streets in over 200 French cities airing their frustration with high unemployment rates and the government’s general disregard for youth of African, Arab, and Caribbean descent.
When President Chirac declared a state of emergency, Alexis Peskine erected the French Evolution.
Alexis Peskine unveiled his exhibit, French Evolution: Race, Politics, and the 2005 Riots at MoCADA last month. Peskine, a visual artist of French and Brazilian descent, deemed it necessary to resurrect the greater Parisian community from its collective historical myopia by pointing out that, "France has evolved as a culturally, ethnically, and religiously diverse country" thus "making it difficult for Black and Arab French people who don’t feel at home in our own country." French Evolution explores the social and political implications of the 2005 riots and everyday discriminatory realities via 15 mixed-media works set to the backdrop of video footage including Peskine’s dimensional "nail pieces" or pictorial images constructed with nails.
Peskine’s work juxtaposes the sentiments and experiences witnessed among the African, Arab, and Caribbean Parisian community with emblematic symbols of abandonment. Appreciated and owned by musicians Common, Donald Byrd and Talib Kweli, Peskine’s work challenges the audience to reexamine the idea of marginalization.
French Evolution not only exposes inequality, but exposes Americans to a Europe less traveled. It allows African American youth to become "aware of contrast, and provides a context for one’s own existence, exposure, and knowledge of place and time," explains Kimberli Grant, exhibit curator at MoCADA. Although public transport disregards accessibility to Clichy-sous-Bois, Peskine’s French Evolution creates a visual footpath for French youth abroad.
The exhibition also includes the following public programs designed to foster exchange and dialogue between museum visitors and Alexis Peskine:
Thursday, June 14
Artist’s Talk with Alexis Peskine (English/French)
Location: MoCADA
Saturday, June 23
Panel Discussion: Racial Dynamics in France
Location: Brooklyn Central Library, Grand Army Plaza
Saturday, July 14
Public Program: A Celebration of Liberation: Bastille Day
Location: MoCADA
Friday, July 27
Film Screening: La Haine (Hate)
Location: Spike Lee Screening Room, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
Friday, August 10
Film Screening: Days of Glory
Location: Spike Lee Screening Room, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
Not too long ago, Code Z noted Obsidian Arts, Inc.'s Afro Cuba: Cognoscenti, which flashed the light on Cuba. Every once in a while, the stars will align and a veritable cornucopia of good ‘ish will burst open. Right about now is such a time. We've noted a convergence of three joints that further that Cuban dialogue.
Weighing in with seventy-plus artists, New York’s Exit Art has offered up Killing Time: An Exhibition of Cuban Artists from the 1980s to the Present (May 12-July 28). Curated by Elvis Fuentes, Yuneikys Villalonga, and Glexis Novoa, Killing Time provides myriad works in a variety of media that illustrate how the personal can be very political, and how the compression of time can be both debilitating and invigorating. In the curator’s own words," The Revolution has been a symbolic intervention on Cuban Time. In return, time has shaped discourses of and on the Cuban Revolution." Considering that these works span the period from the Carter administration to our Post 9-11/Guantanamo era, we’re sure that there’s plenty to feast on.
A part of the annual Urban Film Series held in D.C., Black Docs 2007 will roll out six documentaries beginning with writer and director J. Plunky Branch’s Under the Radar--A Survey of Afro-Cuban Music on June 28. Under the Radar, which apparently was created under the radar, serves as a reversed cultural Underground Railroad--taking viewers inside the belly of the beast to expose creative survival methods of indigenous Cuban music, its relationship to outside influences, and vice-versa. Under the Radar will be shown at Landmark Theatre in Washington D.C. A discussion with J. Plunky Branch precedes the screening.
Rounding out the trio is the Frost's installation of the five finalists for the 2007 Emelio Sánchez Award in the Visual Arts at FIU. Although writer and assemblage artist Gean Moreno took the $15,000 prize, all five finalists--including Alexandre Arrechea, María Martínez-Cañas, Wilfredo Prieto and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova--are represented. All five artists are of Cuban lineage, and the current exhibition is heavy on installation work from the quintet, though it also includes photo-based work from Martínez-Cañas. The exhibition was curated by Cintas Fellows collection manager Ingrid LaFleur Rogers.
Every winter, the Cintas Foundation invites applications in the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, installation art, design, video art, photography and filmmaking from artists of Cuban descent. The award carries a $15,000 cash prize, which is used by the winner to further his or her creative development. Submissions for the 2008 fellowship are due 14 January 2008.
Remember how much Afro Samurai sucked? No, really it sucked. We had a friend working on the video game planned to accompany the series, and they took homie's job right out from under him after the series ended. That's how much it sucked. Well, you know why it sucked? Because it didn't have a sense of authenticity. There was no uniquely Afro struggle to relate to. It was all giant teddy bear heads and Samuel L. Jackson, cooning like the last negro on the plantation (Sorry Sam, you know we love you but we gotta call it like we see it.)
Truth of fact is Mark and Mike Davis, creators of the franchise Blokhedz, should have been on that project. If they had touched it, maybe Afro Samurai would have felt more…real. Code Z isn't doing anything new covering these young men with a herculean D.I.Y. attitude. CNN, FOX, and The Source have already written about their novelty. But it's the business savvy nature of these Boston born twins that has us mesmerized. Already they've got a merchandizing deal with DKE Toys and International Enterprise, not to mention an animated short on their website. And not one of those jinky flash animations; this is some real deal digital stop motion with a hip-hop soundtrack. Word is a movie isn't long in the coming.
With no mainstream play these brothers have been pushing Blokhedz Graphic Novel #1 non-stop since 2003. I'm not saying the book is perfect, but it's just as readable as any of the animated Hellboy books of the same size and demeanor. Plus, well, you know…It has Black people in it! The book is available at your usual suspects of online retailers.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (New York City)
Public Relations Associate
Development/Marketing Assistants
Videotape Archives Assistant
Museum for African Art (New York City)
Assistant Curator
Big Thought (Dallas, TX)
ArtsPartners Campus Representative
Vice President of Marketing and Communications (with multicultural marketing experience)
Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center (Cambridge, MA)
Program Assistant
Essence Magazine (New York City)
Assistant Marketing Manager
Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco)
Accountant (pdf)
Director of Finance (pdf)
StoryCorps (Fort Greene, New York)
Coordinator, Facilities & Archive Department
Manager, Community Relations Department
On the westernmost street in West Oakland, in a warehouse-turned-art gallery known as the Black New World, a meeting inspired by arts and politics occurred on June 7th that would have turned Hoover's COINTELPRO on its ear. Fred Hampton, Jr. of the Prisoners of Consciousness Committee and Emory Douglas, lead propagandist and master political cartoonist of The Black Panther Party served up heaping spoonfuls of knowledge to a small but eager crowd. In attendance was Yuri Kochiyama, Japanese American political activist from the days of Malcolm X to now, and a contingent of Native American activists who invited both Hampton and Douglas on the sacred long walk, a remembrance of the forced relocations of their people.
For those unfamiliar with Emory Douglas's work, artist Sam Durant recently edited and published Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas. The Forward by Danny Glover, the preface by Bobby Seale, and the host of famous author essays sprinkled throughout the book do nothing more than validate what most who witness Douglas's work already know; Emory Douglas's art is the symbolic representation of the Black Panther Party. But to examine the work indicates not only a strong connection with the party but also with notions of informative, provocative art dealing with symbols of oppression. While soviet propaganda dealt with the reinforcing of the group ego's struggle for power, Douglas's art implicates the erroneous assumption of oppression as normative.
Those looking for more Emory Douglas will want to be at the SF8 rally in San Francisco on June 18. His next book signing will be in L.A. at Eso Won Bookstore on June 23. For those who don't have access to the Black Panther archives and are interested in revolutionary arts, the Emory Douglas book is a good primer.
Venice Arts (Venice, CA)
Project Manager: International & Documentary Projects
(Focus on projects with South African women living with HIV and Mozambiqan children orphaned by AIDS)
The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African
American History and Culture
Director of Collections & Exhibitions
Children's Studio School, 2 positions (Washington, DC)
Artist/Teachers
Internships for Emerging Artists & Arts Administrators
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Chair, Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Department Assistant, Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa
Coming a year after its first outing, the West African Documentary Forum has just opened Ghana's Real Life Documentary Film Festival for a second go-round. The festival opened Saturday, 2 June in Accra, Ghana and will run through Friday, 8 June. The festival repeats in Kumasi from 11 through 17 June.
The Forum's membership is drawn from around the world, and the current festival is designed to "encourage the emergence of new voices in documentary filmmaking," according to the Forum's web site, and to promote research and scholarship on the documentary form.
The Festival features dozens of film screenings, including works by John Akomfrah, St.Clair Bourne, Raquel Cepeda, and Cameroun's Pascale Obolo. The Festival has also scheduled a battery of workshops and discussions. We note in particular the National Black Programming Consortium's support of a workshop designed to help 20 young Ghanaian and US film students produce socially relevant, short form content geared toward distribution in the online environment.
This year's festival coincides with Ghana's celebration of 50 years of independence, and organizers say the context is an opportunity to showcase more documentaries on independence movements throughout Africa.
Real Life joins a growing parade of major African film events, such as Tanzania's ZIFF and Ouagadougou's FESPACO, not to mention the newcomer International Film Festival of Zambia.
