As this is the last blog roundup before September, I thought it would be interesting to introduce readers to some of the blogs which cover African art and literature. For a continent so rich in all of these areas it is unfortunate that they get relatively little coverage in the blogosphere. The blogs can be divided into two groups – those which report and write commentary and those – mainly poetry blogs – which are post their own and other peoples work.

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ArtspeakAfrica written by Bisi, apart from covering culture and visual art in Nigeria, is a fantastic resource of contemporary art and photography from across the continent. The blog also links to the online sites of Nigerian artists such as Raqib Bashourn, Emmanuel Eni and Ozioma Onuzulike. Bisi recently wrote an obituary for Peter Areh who was stabbed to death in his home by a group of men on the 2 July this year. Areh is a particularly interesting artist who started his adult career as a banker. He founded the Pendulum Art Gallery which has been instrumental in showcasing young new artists as well as established ones. The death of Peter Areh raises many issues around violence and tragedy in Nigeria as shown in this comment from the obituary post:

‘As I reflect on the news of Peter's death, I interrogate the concept of violence in Africa and elsewhere. I interrogate violence in Africa because of the multiple dimensions violence has assumed in this continent. Ranging from large scale, collective ethnocidal violence to various forms of organized individual killings and extending to what Appadurai describes as "extreme forms of political violence against civilian population," I get crossed at the rate of the escalation. Although you cannot divorce these kinds of violence from other continents but the contention here is the alarming senselessness which Africa’s own has assumed. I get worried that the terrains of my country are becoming more dangerous with the passing days.’

Shaa Culture is one of two blogs by Nigerian artist, Alozie Onyirioha who uses scrap and trash in his work as a way of highlighting environmental and social issues.

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This piece uses ‘disposable containers’ of popular everyday products such as tins of Nestle milk. Alozie points out that recycling is not something new as we often fall into the trap of believing, but something that has always existed. It is also an area that poorer countries have been particularly innovative in constructing new out of old – see Afrigadget for examples of African innovations in recycling technology:

‘This work addresses the issue of people’s indifference towards keeping simple laws or rules, especially those relating to environmental issues like recycling, which is ultimately aimed at curbing the dangers of the green house effects of most of these products due to the fact that most of them are not bio-degradable. I believe that apart from the fact that these discarded items can be recycled for functional purposes, they can also be recycled for aesthetic purposes too. The recycling is not a manmade discovery but rather one that has been in existence, and forms the bane of natural balance and sustenance.’

Afriphoto is not strictly a blog but a showcase for African photography by mostly African photographers. Here are a selection of photos by various artists:

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Boyd Oyier-Politics in Black and White is a photo-political blog where he uses photographs of famous politicians and activist as a way of commenting on issues such as leadership, social justice and hope in Africa.

‘On strength: You are not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it- Malcolm X’

Kofi Setordji is a Ghanian artist who created the ‘Genocide Monument’ as a way to remember genocide and the Rwandan genocide in particular. The work is explained in the section ‘The Parts of the monument’. It is built from a mixture of wood, metal, clay, paint and waste materials and a number of sculpture groups and objects.

‘This artwork which weighs more than a ton, depicts the victims, refugees, politicians, judges and eyewitnesses. The directness of the imagery speaks to the conscience of the viewer. Rows of numbered terracotta faces painfully depict the anonymity of the thousands of victims: the monument was created in memory of the more than 800,000 direct and indirect victims of the genocide in Rwanda, lest they be forgotten.’

The piece below represents ‘The perpetrators (politicians) want to be buried in nice coffins.’

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To move on to some of the poetry and literature blogs I will start with Kenyan activist and performance poet, Shailja Patel. Shailja produced the award winning one woman show ‘Migritude I: When Saris Speak’ in which she:

‘unfolds hidden histories of women’s lives in the bootprint of Empire, from India to East Africa’.

Her blog is a mix of poetry, reviews, photos of her own performances and thoughts on her life’s journey.

Lesotho blogger, Rethabile Masilo who often writes on Black Looks authors his own excellent and consistent poetry blog Poefrika described as ‘A green weblog of creative, African inspired writing’. Rethabile publishes poetry, including his own, from across the continent and the diaspora and has over the years introduced an eclectic range of poets and writers as well as creating a ‘poetic’ community. Poetry is one of those arts that most of us have practiced at some point even if it’s just the product of a momentary thought sitting on a bus, or jarred by some hopeless or hopeful experience. In a recent post ‘Poetry? Dead? Naaaah....’ he published an essay by Katha Pollitt on what she calls ‘the paradox of poetry’:

‘But obviously, there is something unkillable about poetry, because people keep writing it — in the privacy of their bedrooms after a long day of work and children, in writing groups, creative writing classes and MFA programs, in workshops at libraries and Ys and youth centres and senior centres and afterschool programs and even prisons...

‘The paradox of poetry is that so many more people write it than read it. In this, it’s a little different than the other arts: People who play instruments listen to music all the time. Would-be painters spend lots of time in museums and galleries. I’m not sure why this disconnect exists.’

Rethabile also authors a second poetry blog, Canopic Jar and Basotho on Lesotho

Mshairi who started her poetry and gender activism blog in September 2004, is one of the most consistent African women bloggers. She is also one of the founders of the Kenya Unlimited blog aggregator – a community of Kenyan bloggers and friends of Kenya. Mshairi has recently begun to tweeting on Twitter.com and posted the poem ’7 Hours in Twitterland’ which speaks to the sometimes banality and obsessiveness of the twittering experience:

About 6 hours ago in reply to mamajunkyard
Trying to be as cool as Jean-Luc Picard

About 5 hours ago from txt
Twitted…but followers perplexed

About 4 hours ago from TweetDeck
Gotta stop twitting without spellcheck

About 3 hours ago in reply to blacklooks
Twitted but really outta be on school books

About 2 hours ago from the web
The twitting verve never seems to ebb

About 1 hour ago in reply to jke
Following a short pause for afternoon tea

About 30 minutes ago Twitter is over capacity
Just as I went to twit something very witty

Too many tweets!
The stupid thing bleats

Please wait a moment & try again
Arrg!This is driving me insane

StoryMoja is a collaboration of 5 writers celebrating East African writing and has been going for about 9 months. The blog publishes short stories, reviews and reports from across East Africa and aims to encourage and support fiction writing. They are in the process of organising the ‘Storymoja Hay Festival’, which will feature 132 events on diverse themes such as gender, environment, literature and health, and which hopes to:

‘encourage Africans to ‘own’ their problems by exploring our situations/stories, and search for solutions by generating platforms for discussion and debate. To achieve our 2030 vision, Kenyans need to read widely, discuss ideas, and exploit our diversity of stories/backgrounds for the greater good. It is also part of a longer-term campaign to get East Africa to value reading, writing and ideas in general.’

The festival runs from Friday 31 July to Sunday 2 August 2009 in Nairobi.

Some of the other blogs by and on African writers are Bernadine Evaristo author of Blond Roots and Soul Tourists. African Writers has a comprehensive list of authors, reviews, features and interviews.

I am going to end this week’s roundup with two food blogs – from Kenya and Nigeria. When it comes to sheer variety of foods and deliciousness, Nigeria has to be up there in the top five countries of the world – for me the top – but then I am possibly biased.

I am am not sure how I managed to miss Alhaji’s Goorve El Toro Negro – Alhaji’s Groove El Toro Negro ‘blogging Naija Chef’ which ha been active since 2007, but I did. Alhaji’s blog is mostly photos of what I presume to be his own creations – a mix of Nigerian traditional and ‘neo’ dishes and food from around the world. It’s a shame that he doesn't include at least some recipes to go with the mouth watering photographs which then become a visual tease feast. Here’s his Neo-Egusi stew with Eba and the Eba and Okra with party stew:

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From Kenya, Porky Gourmand again is a mixture of world foods and he at least includes recipes with his photos although I couldn't find anything which looked particularly Kenyan but nonetheless an excellent blog. Here’s a pineapple dish called Pineapple Chop a la Thomas Keller. Fried pineapple browned in butter with caramel sauce – 10,000 calories in 10 minutes!

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* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.