Aaron P Kohn

A story about new “African Fabrics” from the top of the line Dutch Fabric company, Vlisco.

My first essay published in The Current is an encounter I had over the summer.

This is immigration. No more Ellis Island. No obvious estrangement. Possibly wait months or years to save money. Endure lines and frustration at an embassy where young State Department servants learn to block out the stories in order to see the statistics. Win a lottery for a residence permit and make a Facebook update. Take the last gaze at a familiar country, at home, for the foreseeable future.

With the final click on Facebook and one’s past can be erased. Put behind. Out of mind. Off the web. Forgotten. Deleted. A blank CV. A migrant with a one-way ticket. A new Act I at age 25, with a love of Oprah.

I had a unique chance to talk to the engineering firm behind Yinka Shonibare’s replica of Nelson’s Ship that has been in Trafalgar Square for the last year. Here’s the article via Cool Hunting!

Today is World AIDS Day. December 1 is the annual date.

Though in the USA, HIV is no longer a death sentence, there is still no cure, no vaccine, and in many parts of the world, ARVs are still not available.

Phaswane Mpe, a South African writer, who passed away in 2004 wrote about the virus and its effects on the society around him. Here is a poem published in Words Gone Two Soon, edited by Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane, p91.

loveLife - Phaswane Mpe

the only roll-on every woman wants

the billboards say

& we say …

we are not that woman

 

now that they say you are positive

bone of my heart

i will write you this loveLetter

 

i am waiting for words to run

to the tip of my fingers

but they enjoy the warmth

in the heart of my heart

feeding on the placenta

of my dreams for tomorrow

 

silence too is love

bone of my heart

let us lie on the green

& bask

p.50 Studio Magazine Summer/Fall 2011. The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York.

Pulane Mpotokwane, an architect from Botswana, wrote the poem above for the Harlem Studio Museum Magazine. The poem is of the same title as the museum’s recent acquisition by Robert Pruitt (seen below on the page).

The two works evoke the irony of chains from slavery and chains we know as fashionable “bling”; both featured around one’s neck. 

On Friday I finally got to see Baloji live. We chatted after the show…more on that soon. He has an album release and new videos on the way, so keep an eye on this “Afropean” guy.

I’m going to start tagging African things I find online in this weekly collage that you can follow. Comments always appreciated.

I met Sebastian Lindstrom on a rainy night in NYC last spring. He brought me camel milk to taste from Nairobi and we chatted about the film that he, Alicia Sully and Phillippa Young have been working on. I recommend reading up on the What Took You So Long film projects and find out a bit more about camel milk!

The team is here in London this weekend to talk about their filmmaking in Africa and to preview a cut of Hot Chocolate for Bedouins at the London Experimental Food Fair (the photo is of Sebastian sticking his head into the screening).

On a personal level, I am certainly inspired by these three–Alicia, Sebastian and Phillippa–who are examples of the potential of filmmaking (in Africa), making things happen (hence their foundation’s name) and enthusiasm (their willingness to meet with people, network and try things). Thanks guys for involving me from time to time!

Step into a Wagamama restaurant and you expect friendly service served alongside contemporary Asian dishes. U.K. visitors to the chain will now get a taste of nine emerging English artists too. Working with Moniker Projects, the new program goes by the name Art and Eat. With Moniker, Wagamama started…

Here are some wonderful album covers from Analog Africa. Their releases of Africa’s great hits from the early years of independence are a fine tribute on their own, but their attention to visuals is superb.

Most of the physical albums can be virtually purchased at Amazon.

I’m in London and looking through my African Music Picks to see if any are coming to town (typically African bands come to Europe more than the US because of distance and more demand…newer diaspora etc.).

Here’s my list of African music that comes to mind (the list is all over the place and in no specific order):

1. Freshlyground
2. Amadou and Mariam
3. Fela Kuti (deceased) and sons Femi and Seun Kuti
4. Abdullah Ibrahim (“Dollar Brand”)
5. Vusi Mahlasela
6. Baloji
7. Nneka
8. Asa
9. Moses Taiwa Molelekwa (deceased)
10. Miriam Makeba (deceased)
11. Papa Wemba
12. Die Antwoord
13. Blitz the Ambassador
14. Hip Hop Pantsula
15. Konono No1
16. Hugh Masekela

A series of experimental audio guides asks listeners to discern the truth about art

My 48 hours in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

I’m really not sure if the man next to me is the one who hasn’t taken a shower in a week, or if the woman who walked down the aisle blew my own sweat into my olfactory. Looking out over the wing of the vintage McDonnell Douglas, the South African pilot doesn’t seem to mind the blistering sun as he walks across the runway for a smoke. I might want one too if after every landing, the engineers have to pour water on the brakes to cool them down. The engineer and a couple baggage handlers fly with the plane everywhere so that the rural Congolese airports the airline flies to, sometimes just once a week, don’t have to duplicate their staff. I never thought about just how solitary it might feel to be a pilot in a big western airline. Often you arrive at a different gate, a new crew shows up, and your co-pilot is still delayed from her earlier flight, so the fill-in is a new face.

Flying south along the Congo River, one of the world’s most notorious and largest countries looms off the port side, King Leopold’s Democratic Republic of Congo. Off the starboard wing is the oil wealthy Republic of Congo. Less than a century ago, explorers were trying to go deeper and deeper into the forests, extracting as much rubber and ivory as possible. Now the explorers flock to the small Atlantic coastlines where they hope to find oil and a lucrative deal with the government.

A stewardess who says little, pulls out three drinks at a time and holds them out for the passengers to choose from. My guess is that her food-cart just has some cans of juice and Coke. In Congo you don’t ask for a “Coke”, but “Coca”. Luckily I grab a Coca. The canned juices have as much sugar as any soda, but lack all the carbonation. In South Africa the Coke comes in small cans and big ones. I think a Pepsi can once called it the Afri”can”. In Congo the only difference is that the writing is in French, usually on recyclable glass bottles. On the plane is the first time I’ve seen a can of soda.

The plane is turning. Out the window the river looks more like a lake. We’ve reached the “Pool”. Going farther south we would see the river turn into a series of “Rapides” that lead to the ocean. The Pool is where the world’s two closest capitals are flanked on each side of the river. The same pool is where Conrad writes about starting his journey up river one hundred years ago in the search of Kurtz.

The plane circles on approach. Across the river is a city bigger than New York, Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo. With ten million inhabitants, it outnumbers Brazzaville, below the plane now, with a population barely a tenth the size.

Pollution on the ground and in the air surround the center of Brazzaville, seated on the river’s edge. The amount of development since the country’s civil war is a literal sign of “development”, but the number of completed buildings don’t come close to the amount of construction cranes set up around town. 

The plane makes its final approach, flying over the sprawling quartiers which the majority of Brazzans call home. To the untrained eye, it’s easy to write off the scene as the signature of the “third world”. Tin roofs cover the residential areas, interspersed with the occasional shop painted the colors of the cell phone companies; yellow for MTN and red for Airtel.

Even the rickety plane and smell of my neighbors can be a negative reality of travel in Africa, but I think it’s exciting. Three airlines now fly to Impfondo once a week. A few years ago, there was just one flight a month. Before that, the only route to the country’s capital was by river, as there still is no road.

Looking at Brazzaville from the air, it’s hard not to appreciate the ingenuity. Train tracks have been turned into sidewalks, since they’re clear of traffic most of the time. Certain hills have become well known workout lanes. Boulevards with street lights and grass are the places to find students studying under the illumination at night. 

The plane’s approach brushes the roves of a famous suburb, Bacongo. Since at least the 1950s, a group of men and women written off as “dandies” have been dressing in brightly colored suits. Known now on both sides of the river, “les sapeurs” cherish their $1,000+ outfits and get together to see who is the most chic. Dancing to old Congolese Rumba and Afro-Cuban tunes, sometimes imbibing in Coca or beer, the Sapeurs and Congolese alike often smile, laugh, and dance. Life in what we consider “the slums” can be lived as refined as one along the Seine.

In a recent song, “Les Jours d’Après”, Belgian-Kinshasan rapper Baloji revisits the hope the nation had at independence in 1960. Using parts of the well-known song in Congo-Kinshasa from the days when Kinshasa’s first black Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba inspired hope, “Independence Cha Cha Cha”, Baloji asks what happened? Lumumba was killed less than a year into the nation’s independence. Is Baloji suggesting happiness in Congo equates to living in the past? It seems to me that Baloji wants to inspire the sort of positive energy from the days of independence once again.

Though years of war, corruption and numerous other problems have struck Congo(s) hard, it’s  hard to ignore the peoples’ resiliency, ingenuity and progress. Not everything is good, but it’s not all bad either.

A trash bag comes down the aisle and I take a final gulp of the Coca. Sure, some things in Africa aren’t “good”, but the Coca-Cola here is brewed with real sugar, not fructose syrup. It’s always better in Africa.