The Spear (of the nation)

Published by Drum in Nigeria and later also Kenya and Ghana in the early 60s, African Film was just one of the many photo comics or "look books" that flooded English-speaking West Africa in the early post colonial era. Catering to the new urban youth, the series featured the mythical persona of Lance Spearman, a.k.a. "The Spear," a black James Bond-like crime fighter as the central character.
In contrast to the racist stereotype of the uncivilised, uneducated, spear-carrying cannibal, or the eroticised "noble savage" that characterised the depictions of Africans in most Western comic books from the time, Spearman was sharp, stylish and sophisticated. Combining re-appropriated Western references with a distinctly African cultural identity, he reflected a newly defined black Atlantic modernity. Here was a comic book hero that presented a potential critique of colonialism, as well as a significant variation in how the genre classically figured normality and otherness.

Since then The Spear and the comics that featured him have disappeared, but not from their fan's memory. As the comments on the Chimurenga Library website testify The Spear is one sought after individual:

"Looking up on the Chimurenga Library website, I came across so many nostalgic comments on the Boom and Film mags from those who lived in East Africa in the 60's and early 70's like myself, which brought back so many heart-wrenching memories of yester-years.... I certainly would give anything if I could get hold of that collection today... Where have the old dummy prints in the old publishing places that used to publish these mags gone? If those were found or maybe the kids or grand kids of the editor/s(who would be grown-ups now) could be traced, there may be a chance that these wonderfully entertaining photo comics-BOOM and FILM could be resurected. My God, how blessed myself and all of us would be to be able to re-live our childhoods-those glorious years again!"

More here.

We investigate the legacy and the grip of the infamous Spear on the imagination of a generation. It's also a treasure hunt: where is the Spear today and who has the lost stash of African Film magazines?

Women soljas

A lot of this is propaganda:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5323140.stm

(SA army now giving self props for women soldiers vs rape in DRC).

But Ryan Lobo's photo-journalism piece in Chimu 14, a more personal take.

La Chinafrique: Photography by Paolo Woods

These photos are excerpts from a larger series that appear in the book La Chinafrique available here

source

Roger Ballen

The backdrops in the photographs are filled with these eerie, surreal drawings and hanging wires – like something you’d find in Purgatory – is that something you staged? Or was it already there?

Nothing is staged. And nothing is already there. Everything is transformed through the camera. So what you’re looking at is not necessarily what’s there. The thing that’s there is the photograph. You’re seeing a photographic view of reality. Everything is transformed through my mind and through a camera. What you see is the photograph. The photograph, no matter what you do, is staged. You make a decision when and where to pull the trigger. There’s an act of subjectivity in every photograph.

source

Staged photographs

The Algerian Mohammed Bourouizza grew up in the banlieue of Paris. The images from his Périphéries series seem to be documentary. They correspond point by point to the clichés we might have of Paris suburbs from what we've seen on the press. Yet, you realize that you shouldn't trust the clichés. The locations are scouted, the protagonists are carefully selected models and the lighting is the result of research and artistic strategy. The result is a series of staged depictions of the tensions and issues affecting daily life for young people living in the suburbs of France.



View more images here.

La République Démocratique du Congo vue par ses photographes

ONGO EZA, photographes de RDC

jeudi 21 février 2008, par Baptiste et Jeanne Afrique in visu
Deuxième ouvrage d’une nouvelle collection de livres de photographies initiée par Africalia, dédiée aux photographes africains.
Congo Eza réunit en un album 190 prises de vues, réalisées depuis une dizaine d’années par plus de vingt photographes congolais. Une première pour la photographie de reportage au Congo.
Cette sélection, représentative de la vision que ces photographes se font de leur pays, a été effectuée à partir de centaines de clichés pris, en majeure partie, dans le cadre d’ateliers de photo-reportage thématiques organisés à Kinshasa.
Huit textes littéraires, écrits par quatre écrivains congolais, ponctuent les différentes sections de l’ouvrage, afin de contextualiser et de commenter les thèmes qui ont inspiré ces artistes. Des commentaires sont fournis au lecteur, en marge et de manière plus discrète, lorsque le contexte de la prise de vue doit être précisé.

25 PHOTOGRAPHES

A not white family in bed on a Sunday morning..., 1978 (David Goldblatt)