Annansi Chronicles

Birth and boom of a new African design industry

A recent article in African Business magazine looks at the recent boom of modern African designers on the continent and internationally. From February’s ThisDay Arise Magazine African fashion event at NY Fashion Week to architect David Adjaye being appointed to design the new African-American National Museum in Washindton DC, the influence of modern African design in global culture continues to solidify. But while there are more and more role models for budding African designers, there’s still a long way to go before Africa itself recognizes and taps into it’s strong creative capital.

To become truly competitive though, the continent must do things in
its own way, with its own brand of excellence and innovation. Africans
can grasp the best of design worldwide, as well as the best the
continent has to offer and transform it into something new, compelling,
beautiful and sustainable. Small pockets of success show that African
design development has reached the point at which it can play a very
real role in addressing poverty and unemployment throughout the
continent. From craft initiatives in rural villages to
multi-disciplinary industrial projects that boast global collaboration,
design can boost a nation’s GDP. (more)

CNN also reports on a new contemporary African design aesthetic in the video below shot at the 2009 Design Indaba in S. Africa.

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L’Oreal sets sights on African women

There’s no shortage of criticism of the fashion and beauty industry for not recognizing the diversity of what is considered beautiful. Cosmetics giants in particular have had it hard, trying to accommodate skin tones. In their effort to generate more revenue and gain market share globally, L’Oreal has announced plans to expand their product line and – most notably – make an effort to cater to African women’s beauty needs. Not being a cosmetics industry veteran myself it’s hard to tell if L’Oreal is trully addressing some of the issues it’s diversity critics have.

..the company, which has 26 international cosmetics brands and a presence in more than 130 countries, already has a presence on the continent upon which it aims to build. A key market is the African woman, and L’Oréal is seeking growth and expansion into this market, that will require balancing technological innovation with the need for prudent spending. – L’Oréal South Africa MD Philippe Raffray, more

What do you think?

photo by epicharmus

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Prada space captures rural Congo experience

Influx Insights points us to an interesting marriage of Congolese and Western culture in the form of an art and entertainment experience space. The Double Club, a 6 month project collaboration between Fondazione Prada (Prada’s art foundation), and German artist Carsten Höller opened in London. The space, which is literally spit in two – is a “bar, restaurant and dance club where the Congo meets the west; A bar,
restaurant and dance club where the west meets the Congo.” The project is meant to spark dialogue between Congolese and Western contemporary culture and will feature. All profits are slated to go to The City of Joy charity, which provides
shelter and services to women who have been targets of violence during
Congo’s long running civil warIf you’re in London before May 2009, check out this culture mashup.

• Video tour/interview
• Location/times

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Painter Kehinde Wiley’s World Stage: Africa

EXHIBIT
Kehinde Wiley, The World Stage: Africa Lagos~Dakar
July 17—October 26, 2008
PLACE
The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street
New York, New York 10027
tel 212.864.4500

The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar is Kehinde Wiley’s first solo exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem and features ten new paintings from his multinational “The World Stage” series. Wiley is known for his stylized paintings of young, urban African-American men in poses borrowed from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European figurative paintings, a practice he started in the early 2000s while an artist in residence at the Studio Museum. Over the last two years, Wiley has expanded his project by living and working abroad; he temporarily relocates to different countries and opens satellite studios to become familiar with local culture, history and art. His “The World Stage” series is the result of these travels.

pictures from the exhibit opening

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Video: Fela! A New Musical (off Broadway)

Tony Award winning director Bill T. Jones directs and choreographs this new musical about the life of African Pop Icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Play runs August 5 Through September 21 only at the 37 ARTS located at 450 W. 37th Street between 9th and 10 avenues, NY, NY. Visit the website and get tickets.
More clips

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Video: Digging in African crates for music

Trailer for upcoming film on a German Dj’s quest to find rare records in West Africa. Shows how African music can be truly timeless. The sounds make me miss Jump N Funk.

via Africanhiphop.com

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Focus Features launches Africa filmmaking program

California-based Focus Features, a division of NBC Universal, announced that it is launching an African film making program. The Africa First Program, spearheaded by producer Kisha Imani Cameron, will award 5 African filmmakers $10,000 in financing for post or production work on a narrative short that makes use of local African film industry resources. Filmmakers selected for the grants will retain the copyrights to their projects as well as artistic, budgetary and editorial control with support from a team at Focus. The winning filmmakers will retain global distribution rights to their shorts, excluding North America, which Focus will retain. Focus also holds the right of first negotiation to any productions derived from the shorts. Focus Features has produced and distributed award-winning films including Traffic, Gosford Park, The Pianist, Lost in Translation, The Constant Gardener, Brokeback Mountain, and Atonement. The company also produced the 2006 film Catch a Fire which was set if Apartheid-era South Africa.
via Variety

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“Africa Rising” festival brings JAY-Z, Rihanna, Alek Wek to Nigeria & Washington DC

Friday was the kickoff for Nigeria-based media company THISDAY’s 3rd annual festival titled “Africa Rising”. The star-studded THISDAY Music and Fashion Festival at the THISDAY Dome in Abuja, Nigeria featured performances by Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Usher. The fashion portion of the festival featured models Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Alek Wek, Oluchi, and designers Chris Aire and Ozwald Boateng. The annual festival which is “focus on finding ’sustainable solutions’ rather than the ‘problems’ facing Africa”, will be making it’s international debut with stops in Washington DC’s Kennedy Center on August 1 with Beyoncé and Seal as headliners, and in London on October 14. THISDAY has some 700 staff members in 38 offices across Nigeria. It also maintains a bureau in Washington DC, from which it provides news on Africa to a variety of global news organisations and agencies across all platforms- from online to broadcast.

“Right now the international community seems to be dealing with the symptoms not the problems of Africa. The symptoms are poverty and disease, but the problem is lack of social and physical infrastructure. This initiative is to highlight the need to focus sustainable solutions on the problems through massive investment in infrastructure and microfinance in order to rebuild Africa from the ground up. Europe is what it is today because after World War II the ‘Marshall Plan’ took hold. It did not deal with poverty, it focused on rebuilding Europe.” – said media mogul Nduka Obaigbena, THISDAY’s Editor-in-Chief.

The “Africa Rising” event “tour” reflects a rapidly growing trend in the Africa-focused aid sector: African’s creating products with a sustainability focus targeted to both African and international consumers. I’m eager to see what the attendance numbers are for the UK and US events.

more pics

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AfriMonitor launches with ‘Exploring ChinAfrica’ trends brief

Throughout my years as an entrepreneur, I have had to conduct endless market research and have found a serious lack of information about the African market. Drawing on my experience as a marketer myself, I am developing a new website called AfriMonitor to aggregate important research and information about the growing African market. While I understand that the African market is still very young, I feel that to help it grow and to encourage more entrepreneurs to develop products to help it grow, a product like AfriMonitor is necessary. While I still write about African business and culture trends at Annans Chronicles, much of the in depth analysis of trends will be posted there on AfriMonitor. To read more about direction AfriMonitor will be developing towards in the next few months visit the About us page.

AfriMonitor.com serves as a market research portal for the Africa-focused global business audience. The website aggregates pertinent information about African business, consumers, economy, companies, and products, as well as information on African marketing and advertising trends. AfriMonitor provides an overview of African consumer and product markets so individuals, agencies, and corporations can discover new opportunities and make the right business decisions.

As part of the beta launch of AfriMonitor.com, we have put together a trend brief focusing on the growing China-Africa relationship. The brief,”Exploring ChinAfrica: Trends in China’s 21st century push into Africa” , touches on many of the key issues surrounding the topic. It is intended to serve as resource for anyone who is curious about China’s 21st century push into Africa. The brief is available as a free download and you can distribute it to whomever you feel could benefit from the information included. I’ve also put together an interactive timeline with key dates for those who want more information.

I am launching AfriMonitor as a beta for now to get some feedback and begin getting some information to those who can make use of it. We will be working hard in the next couple of months to get you much of the information which will make the site most useful, so check back often or better yet, subscribe to AfriMonitor’s rss feed or sign up for automatic email updates. For now the News tabs currently contain aggregated content from all the major news engines and is updated many times a day. The news is broken up into three categories, All News, China-Africa news, and India-Africa news.

In the next few months we’ll be adding more insights and reports from various sources including African marketing agencies and featuring interviews with newsmakers. Please let any advertisers or marketers with information about the African market know to contact me to get their reports featured on the website. While some of the reports and briefs will be free, others will be available for a fee. We’ll also be updating our Resources and Events sections soon. Please feel free to submit a resource or event for inclusion in our directory or just contact us with any comments/suggestions. AfriMonitor is a work in progress so your input is always welcome. I hope the website gets you the information you need to make the proper business decisions.

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