How to own history
Five films pointing to new directions for African cinema — by some of the most exciting young filmmakers from the continent.
10 Articles by:
Johan Palme
Johan Palme is is a freelance writer, translator, and film festival programmer working out of Stockholm, Sweden.
Somalis on Ice
“Unlikely Sports Heroes” partially serves to reinforce the image of inferiority. They never actually win anything.
Revisiting Sweden’s colonial past
The image of a benevolent, preternaturally anti-racist “good old Sweden,” spreading its perfect democracy around the world, is fiction.
Artifact Art Restitution and Western “Co-operation”
How can the Nigerian government be willing to lend treasured objects to an institution tha still keeps the shameful booty from colonialism’s crimes?
Africa is a Great Country to Photograph
An interview with Swedish photographer Jens Assur about his exhibition, “Africa is a Great Country,” about representation of Africa and visual clichés in general.
Pop Culture and Pirate Humanity
Barely any group has been as de-humanized as much in recent history as Somali pirates, treated almost like vermin to be rooted out.
Tintingate
Coming to grips with historically racist stereotypes and colonial traces in children’s literature.
Hugh Masekela’s ‘Stimela’ gets a makeover
Wynter Gordon’s remake of ‘Stimela’ suggests more challenging possibilities.
The ‘Swedish Cake’ artist explains himself
Makode Linde calls his approach Afromantics: it use the blackface to show the connection between stereotypes, part of the same system of oppression.
The Swedish Golliwog Cake
It’s a brilliant staging of structural racism and post-colonial existence by the artist Makode Linde.