Bubblegum Club

Tag: African cultures

  • ‘Tap Your Afro Source Code’ – The Fak’ugesi 2018 Illustration Competition // Where Creativity and Innovation Meet

    ‘Tap Your Afro Source Code’ – The Fak’ugesi 2018 Illustration Competition // Where Creativity and Innovation Meet

    The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival is generated around collaboration, conversation and projects – for Africans by Africans. An “African celebration of digital technology, art and culture”. Taking place in Johannesburg, the festival is gaged towards encouraging not only people in the city but inhabitants of the continent, to embrace their innovative thoughts and creativity and to gear them towards the digital, African visualizations of their city and future imaginaries. This year’s theme, ‘Afro Source Code’ was introduced by the open call for entries to illustrate the 2018 poster, prompting creatives to “tap [their] Afro Source Code” for inventive Afro futurist, tech and African aesthetics inspired illustration concepts. “Ungaphthelwa Innovation Yako” / “Own Your Innovation”.

    The winner of this year’s illustration competition, Sonwabo Valashiya‘s design took its influence from the popular Marvel Afro futurist release, Black Panther. Connecting the vision of the film with that of the festival, Sonwabo explains that both act to spotlight Africa as an innovation hub and thought leader. African creativity, ingenuity and innovation are articulated in illustration.

    The “Wakanda forever!” salute from the film was the driving force for the visual actualization of Sonwabo’s design, taking this symbol as a means of expressing the theme of the festival this year.

    “This poster also speaks to how Africa is rich in all these “sources” of wealth and how the world feeds off these resources, this notion is also found on Black Panther as they use Vibranium as a “source” to create their weapons and all their innovations but they have to fight to keep their Afro Source Code – (the vibranium) a secret from the world.” Sonwabo expresses.

    Illustration by Sonwabo Valashiya

    Growing up in Sterkspruit in the Eastern Cape, Sonwabo is a Graphic Designer by profession with a passion for illustration. He completed his studies in Visual Communication at the Tshwane University of Technology. Influenced by his cultural heritage and identity, Sonwabo’s work is a celebration of African aesthetics, Afro Futurism and the diversity of African cultures.

    Sonwabo’s participation in the competition was motivated by the interactivity of the festival and the amalgamation of various disciplines under a single umbrella. He further articulates that collaboration with the intent of sparking innovation and critical thinking around solutions to existing socio-economic issues on the continent, a focus of the festival, is of importance to him.

    Seeing the competition announcement ignited his interest to participate in the challenge. “…the three key words that caught my eye were Futuristic, African aesthetics and illustration.”

    With the already existing direction provided by the brief, such as, “add hands and the traditional lightning bolt icon”– identifiers of the Fak’ugesi brand, Sonwabo set out to create an Afro Futuristic poster design. “I wanted to create something that is relatable and that is a true representation of African beauty and power.” Sonwabo shares.

    With a given colour palette stipulated in the brief, Sonwabo added dark brown outlines to his illustration, representative of the rich melanin skin tone of Africans as well as to provide contrast to his completed design. Iconography inspired by technology. The iconic Fak’ugesi lightning bolt, a symbol of power and light are met with shapes mimicking a circuit board. It is visually expressed as African body art patterns in Sonwabo’s design.

    On his illustrative use of the circuit board and body art markings Sonwabo states that, “I drew inspiration from the armour of Black Panther and added some of the line and dot patterns that I think can be traced from a couple of African Tribes like Mursi Tribe of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia and the Igbo tribe of Nigeria. However, the whole design of the patterns was meant to be like the lines on a circuit board to represent the pathway of energy and to play on the technology and futuristic concept for Fak’ugesi.”

    Illustration by Shayne Capazorio

    Runner-up in this year’s competition, Shayne Capazorio‘s design took its inspiration from science fiction, comic books as well as intricate African patterns – “combining elements from the past and remixing them to move forward into the digital future.”

    Shayne is a Graphic Designer by profession taking on the city of Joburg and its inhabitants as his muse. He completed his studies at TUKS and shares that, “I’m inspired by South African pop culture and I like to incorporate Jozi’s eclectic flavours in my work – bold, colourful, loud, dangerous & strange.”

    Holding the belief that Africa is the future, Shayne has become captivated by Afrofuturism in recent times, inspired by the genre to create his own series of robotic characters that take influence from African aesthetics drawn from a future imagining of Mzansi. Shayne’s motivation to participate in the illustration competition was prompted by the concept of African innovation that he feels aligns with his own Afro futuristic vision.

    A digital line illustration of a robotic rocket hand blasting into the future. A representation of progress and ingenuity. Robotics used as a signifier of the tech festival. Execution implemented with Afrocentric sensibilities. The African continent becomes a background element in the design, shaped through the use of binary code and speaks to the festival theme, Afro Source Code. With the use of overlapping vector layers, Shayne was able to construct a digital imitation (his illustration) of dynamic movement evocative of the early millennium digital wireframe aesthetic of computing.

    Illustration by Lwazi Gwijane

    Runner-up Lwazi Gwijane considers himself to be a Creative Designer and completed his studies at Vega in Durban. Becoming interested in the festival identity and the overall activities of the festival in 2017, he decided to enter the illustration competition this year to take part in an experience and an aesthetic that appealed to his sensibilities.

    Inspired by Africa he looked to the past of the continent in order to shape an illustrative design of a technological future. “I looked into the past e.g ancient Kemetic which was ruled by Africans which is currently called Egypt today because of years of invasions from Rome, Greece, Arabia. I then placed myself in current day South Africa so to tap into my Afro source which allowed me to be able to imagine a creative Afro future.”

    Lwazi’s design takes yellow as it’s overarching colour and he explains that though the colour pallet was provided by the competition brief, he chose to bring yellow to the fore as it is his favourite colour. Unpacking his design, Lwazi states that the hand in his design takes precedence because humans use their hands every day. The heru (horus) eye located on the tip of the third finger is symbolic to the gesture of opening yourself to the use of your Third Eye. Music comes into play with his illustration of a microphone suspended mid-air in the back of the digital illustration. He expresses that the arrow is representative of the Afro pathway which Africans must follow. Lastly, the South African flag is combined with the afore mentioned elements to round off his illustration – a visual marker of where the event is taking place.

    Clean, minimalist, eye-catching digital illustrations were created by all three of these creatives bringing African innovation, African aesthetics and the voice of the festival to the fore.

  • CINEWAX | A Cross Continental Network Nurturing a Love for African Cinema

    CINEWAX | A Cross Continental Network Nurturing a Love for African Cinema

    Jean Fall is the founder of CINEWAX, a cross continental film network that operates in both Senegal and France. “We want to create a network of local cinemas, to promote cultural diversity, and offer jobs locally. We want to promote creativity and African films for African citizens. We promote African cinema in France by organising film screenings, festivals, and film premieres.”

    The title of the network was inspired by colourful wax prints and Jean explains that it represents the heterogeneous nature of African cultures. This is an embodiment of their vision – to share cultures and a duplicity of viewpoints.

    On their Facebook page, it is stated that “wax” is reflective of speaking. Jean tells me more, “Cinewax is also ‘wax’ (or ‘wakh’) in wolof, the main tongue used in Senegal. It means ‘talk, discuss’. So I believed in a cinema that allows us to talk. If you can talk, then you can share. Cinema is for sharing. I want people to learn something when they come, and leave with new ideas, or emotions. And of course, remember what they learned about African cultures.”

    Describing himself as a young French-Senegalese cultural entrepreneur, Jean shares with me how the project was fostered. On his travels to Senegal in 2014, it came to his attention that there were very few cinemas in the country and that the ones that did exist were situated within foreign country halls such as the French Institute and the Goethe Institute.

    His next reflection was a personal one, “I noticed that I knew nothing about African films.” His deep passion for cinema brought him to the realization that he longed to not only consume more African cinema, but he wanted to rectify the inaccessibility of this form of cultural production and enjoyment for African people. Furthermore, he wished to make African cinema more readily available for African people living in Europe, and to all people in general. “Africa has suffered from a sound historical wipe out. Its stories, values, ideas vanished through time, because of colonization, and the process is still going on.”

    Jean describes the inception of CINEWAX as follows, “In 2015, I came to Senegal, bringing French volunteers and I created a local team. We made several screenings with the means that we had thanks to a crowdfunding campaign made in Paris.” Jean now has a team of 20 volunteers that work alongside him fulfilling positions in communications, photography, cinematography, media, film critique, event organization, a database team and other volunteers that assist with the smooth running of planned events.

    CINEWAX is still working towards building the access to African cinema they envision for Senegal. While growing capital for their end goal, the network runs some local programs. One such endeavour is the Kino Teranga program – a short film educational session which includes a chance to put the camera in people’s hands.

    This project has been in development in Paris since 2016, and has hosted over 40 events and seen over 9000 visitors. Jean tells me that to make a success of these proceedings a collaborative approach was adopted – working with festivals, cinemas, cultural events, distributors and associations.

    For 2018 their attention is on the creation of an African cinema pass, granting a larger audience access to African cinema. The ticket will grant its owner discounts and exclusive offers with CINEWAX and their afro cultural partners.

    Another large-scale project they have launched is an African film database with the intention of making content accessible to industry professionals and create more opportunities and awareness of completed works for African film makers.

    “I think cinema and image have a great power. It allows people to project their dreams and imagination into a picture. Dreams need to be nurtured. They need to live and evolve. And cinema allows that (through creativity and diversity). People can access these images, visions, and dreams, and it really changes everything. Cinema can really change lives, and our perception of things. You don’t need any education to access it, because it relies on images. You don’t need any translation to understand an image or an emotion. Cinema acts as an ‘exchange between cultures’.”

    CINEWAX has big ambitions which lead me to enquire as to how they are hoping to accomplish these milestones. The steps are set out to me as follows: CINEWAX will situate itself within the right communities and business model for each city and neighbourhood they find themselves in adjusting their approach where needed.

    Jean shares with me that funding is not essentially the concern but that other factors need to be taken into account. CINEWAX is not the first initiative of its kind that have attempted to rectify this gap. He tells me that others with good funding have failed in their attempts.

    What is important is a venue to host film screenings and other initiatives from. What needs to be considered is the local inhabitants’ cultural interests, habits and activities, Jean tells me.

    “That is also why I knew for sure that cinema, as we think of it in Europe, is not possible in this form in African countries (at least in West Africa). People have their own way to enjoy culture and cinema. I want to be inspired by what already exist (tv cinema, Bibandas in Uganda…) and bring a more sustainable organization. That’s why I think that implementing other activities like concerts, co-working, expositions, restaurants, can only benefit these places.”

    In order for CINEWAX to be successful in their endeavours and high hopes for creating sustainable spaces for cultural enjoyment and production they require support from the Senegalese government.

    CINEWAX as a network and initiative holds a strong cultural significance in the fact that their efforts have already welcomed thousands of guests as well as volunteers. African cinema is drastically underrepresented and their attempt to bridge the gap and instil cultural exchange is necessary. The fact that this organizations attempts to do so by adjusting their tactics of showcasing their films and other events to be more in line with what people in a specific region would resonate with is remarkable. One can only hope that soon CINEWAX will accomplish all it has set out to do.