Bubblegum Club

Tag: African Futurism

  • Who is the hero? // A reflection on African Sci-Fi Films

    Who is the hero? // A reflection on African Sci-Fi Films

    In a post-apocalyptic Ethiopian landscape, where Michael Jordan is enshrined, masked Nazi-clad bandits steal Ninja-turtle amulets, and witches trade in Michael Jackson records, we meet Birdy and Candy.

    As a rusted spaceship hovers in the sky, and a defunct bowling ball machine returns to life, Candy embarks on a quest to find Santa Claus. As he follows the wrangled train tracks to an unnamed city, he meets hauntingly strange characters in desolate places. Birdy stays at home, tormented by bad dreams and unsettling sounds.

    A reel film of Superman has been playing for forty years, and a caged lion shows the way. In a film that could easily become garish and absurd, Spanish director Miguel Llanso, based in Addis Ababa, delivers a profound and whimsical work. Daniel Tadesse (Candy) takes us on (anti) adventure, one that defies the Hollywood science fiction convention of spectacle. There will be no CGI (computer generated images), not a gunshot, no army of soldiers, not even a computer. At only just over an hour, Llanso has completed his task. The viewer is left with both a sense of emptiness, and fulfilment. Is this a movie about hope, about love, about companionship in adversity? What do we treasure when we navigate the wreckage that is our earth?

    Still from Pumzi

    The film Crumbs was released in 2015 and filmed in the Ethiopian ghost town of Dallol. Films like these are a celebration of African excellence and skill – and as Five Fingers for Marseilles graces our cinemas, it becomes apparent that African cinema is beginning to transcend and redefine its boundaries.

    Closer to home we have Sweetheart directed by Phat Motel. The sparse Karoo landscape juxtaposes the abandoned cityscape, a husband and child lost, a desperate wife seeking her family. We see all too familiar aesthetics, reminiscent of Blade Runner and Intersteller. Sometimes still we see I am Legend or the Wizard of Oz, as we traverse the rural countryside, and find our way to the hostile, decaying city.

    We return to East Africa, where after the Water War, World War III, we meet Asha, asleep at her desk, dreaming of a tree. A computer buzzes “Dream detected – take dream suppressant pills.” She takes a tablet.

    Still from Pumzi

    Asha stands, walks past grey-clad figures working out. Kinetic energy – 0% pollution, a sign reads. We find Asha in a queue, a barcode on her arm is scanned, and she receives her pitiful water allowance. In this post-apocalyptic short film directed by Kenyan Wanuri Kahiu, we see a futuristic ‘East Africa’, most likely Kenya, that competes with any Western science fiction thriller. Pumzi, which means breathe in Swahili, manages in just 25 minutes to make us consider the greed and egotism of a world divided by resources, the power of bureaucracy, the importance of survival.

    While Black Panther celebrates the superhero, the Marvel-clad wonder, these African directors consider a subtler hero. A hero confronted with the challenges of sparsity, of isolation, of decay and desolation. These are films that embrace silence. As we begin to consider what makes an African hero, and what an African futurism looks like, we need to consider whether there really is a Wakanda, or if heroism comes from those who face adversity in an ‘Africa’ closer to home.

    Often, we forget of the innovation in film coming from our own country and continent, and this is partially but not exclusively because of lack of access. We need to stop District 9 becoming the archetypal ‘African’ sci fi movie and celebrate the diversity of our own industries. Perhaps it is time for a African Science Fiction Film Fest – because now, more than ever, we should salute the African hero.

    Still from Sweetheart
    Still from Sweetheart

  • Mukhtara Yusuf // ColabNowNow Storyteller

    Mukhtara Yusuf is a Yoruba Muslim visual artist, designer, storyteller and cultural activist from Nigeria. In my interview with her we discuss her process, ideas behind her work and the ColabNowNow residency.

    Cultural activism surfaces in Mukhtara’s practice systematically, philosophically and with regards to representation. “My work comes from a place of seeing how art and design are part of popular and personal things that are often overlooked relating to political power and structural issues. As a maker it is important to talk about those things through pieces that reflect personal, vulnerable responses to happenings in the world – especially those linked to inequality.”

    With her interest in designing systems and an investment in access, Mukhtara’s designs consist of more than images and objects. Mukhtara makes use of community participation in many of her projects thereby involving the people it will serve.

    The philosophical arch of her work revolves around the idea of power and questions whose knowledge is published as academic texts. “I prioritize the challenging of existing value systems and the dominance of European ways of knowing as a way to enter my making.”

    Mukhtara tells me that architecture and environment play into her textile and clothing designs as wearable surface designs or objects. Mukhtara’s architectural practice takes the form of buildings, organizational principles and systems. She attempts to understand urban ecologies that she wishes to improve with the objects she creates or by transforming them into practical systems.

    Black speculative design pedagogy is term that Mukhtara developed and came about for her out of frustration by speculative design and the issues that it address. Mukhtara explains that the issues that speculative design addresses overlook the history of colonialism and creates a space in which these values become unrelenting. “Who owns the future? Who gets to dream, whose difficulties are seen as worthy of being considered in something as lofty and idealistic as speculative design. This is the ethos of my work, that I am trying to cultivate practically. By doing so it goes beyond a philosophy.”

    Speaking of a future vision she frequently creates work from speculation or imagination. “What would it be like if European knowledge wasn’t the epistemology that dominated design thinking?” Mukhtara has a desire to make it more than just fantasy.

    African futurism, Afrofuturism and black speculative pedagogy are terms she chooses to use in relation to one another. She explains that these terms begin to narrow in on what she conveys in her conceptual practice. “I am considering critically what time is as a field of knowledge and how it influences people’s notions of knowing as well as ideas on social oppression.” Mukhtara sees time as a construct and feels that the linear understanding of time comes from colonialism. She continues to say that Africans were placed at the beginning of a timeline that is in need of a second stage of modernity. Her interest lies in how the conception of time is used as a means of creating disgrace and disregard towards the pain that stems from structural and private concerns.

    The challenges Mukhtara is faced with in regards to creating in Nigeria has been the supreme inspiration for her cultural activism.  “It has really shown me how much influence infrastructure and class have on people’s ability to create.”

    Mukhtara’s motivation for applying to ColabNowNow came from her desire to work in collaboration with other like-minded African makers. She wishes to learn from other participants’ practices and build on her own knowledge. With a hope that the residency will create long-term collaborations, Mukhtara hopes to gain resources in order to create positive change in Nigeria. Her art tells the stories of her people.