Rise Africa

intellectualthings:

Black Contemporary Art

Julien Sinzogan was born in 1957 in Porto-Novo, Republic of Benin. He studied architecture in Paris at the École Spéciale des Travaux Public, and lives and works in France.

Sinzogan’s work expresses the way of life informed and inspired by the Yoruba divinatory and religious system known as Ifa. The Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin in West Africa see life as taking a cyclical trajectory through which individuals experience the tangible world (aye), depart to the spirit world (orun) and are reborn. Sinzogan’s works explore the journeys between these different but closely related worlds. The voyages between such realms lie at the heart of religious practice across much of the Atlantic world, a world forever shaped by another voyage: the middle passage of the Atlantic slave trade.

Omar Ba is a Senegalese artist who holds a degree from l’Ecole Nationale des Beaux-arts de Dakar, and has been living in Geneva, Switzerland, since 2003, where he completed an MA at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts.

He has since has participated in four separate exhibitions at the Galerie Anne De Villepoix, as well as the Guy Bartschi gallery, and in 2011 won the prestigious Swiss Art Award.

Omar Ba’s paintings present a colorful, fantastic, at times chaotic world where the order of things as we perceive them in the visible world is turned on its head. Giant plants tower over a miniature human world gripped by globalization; huge mother and father figures become hybrid godlike creatures at once terrifying and seductive because of the sheer beauty of Omar Ba’s craftsmanship and decorative use of saturated color.

studioafrica:

Photographer Hélène Amouzou was born in 1969 in Togo. She began taking photos in 2004 after enrolling on a course in Brussels, where she lives and works. Her images - in which bodies are ghostly or overlaid with wallpaper or sandwiched in suitcases - suggest transience: places which the human body can only inhabit temporarily, and humans who are constantly on the move.  

Her work is weighted by the depth of her questions about place, being and the baggage that accrues to the black female body, and perhaps allude to the (political and social) invisibility of the migrant body - both to those at home and those in the new host country. Further, Amouzou’s images question certainties of nation, identity and belonging, suggesting in-between spaces and un-belonging as the contemporary reality. in her own words: ““I always have the impression of traveling. I am not Togolese, nor Belgian” 

nubiaat:

Old Cataract hotel - Aswan

فندق كتاركت القديم - أسوان

diasporicroots:

The Durbar festivals

The Durbars are centuries old festival is an annual festival celebrated in several cities of Nigeria. It is celebrated at the culmination of Muslim festivals Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. It begins with prayers, followed by a parade of the Emir and his entourage on horses, accompanied by music players, and ending at the Emir’s palace.  

Durbar festivals are organised in cities such as Kano, Katsina and Bida, and are considered tourist attractions.

The Kano Durbar is a fantastic festival and procession held regularly in Kano. Featured in the processions are thousands of horsemen in antique ceremonial gear - the horses wearing ornate bridles and saddles; the men in billowing colorful robes and turbans. The durbars are held on major Muslim holidays, but also staged for special occasions, such as visits by important dignitaries. The northern part of Nigeria, where Kano is located, is a Muslim area, and the horse culture reflects a mix northern African and indigenous Hausa styles (Islam spread into Nigeria from its origins in Arabia via the Saharan trade routes). 

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(via jadoreafrikque)

nubiaat:

The Temple of Kalabsha 

The Temple of Kalabsha (also Temple of Mandulis) is an Ancient Egyptian temple that was originally located at Bab al-Kalabsha (Gate of Kalabsha) approximately 50 km south of Aswan. The temple was saved from sinking into the Nasser lake after building the High Dam of Aswan, it is situated on the west bank of the Nile River and was originally built around 30 BC during the early Roman era. While the temple was constructed in Augustus’s reign, it was never finished. The temple was a tribute to Mandulis (Merul), a Lower Nubian sun god. It was constructed over an earlier sanctuary of Amenhotep II. The temple is 76 m long and 22 m wide in dimension. While the structure dates to the Roman period, it features many fine reliefs such as “a fine carving of Horus emerging from reeds on the inner curtain wall” of the temple. From Kalabsha’s sanctuary chambers, a staircase leads up to the roof of the temple where one can see a splendid view of the temple itself and the sacred lake. Several historical records were inscribed on the temple walls of Kalabsha such as a long inscription carved by the Roman Governor Aurelius Besarion in AD 250, forbidding pigs in the temple as well as an inscription of the Nubian king Silko, carved during the 5th century and recording his victory over the Blemmyes and a picture of him dressed as a Roman soldier on horseback.

معبد كلابشة

الموقع الحالي لمعبد كلابشة على ضفاف بحيرة ناصر ليس هو الموقع الأصلى للمعبد، حيث تم نقله عام ١٩٧٠ للمكان الجديد والذي أطلق عليه (كلابشة الجديدة). تضمنت عملية النقل أيضاً بعضاً من آثار النوبة المهددة بالغرق. كُرس المعبد لعبادة الإله النوبى مندوليس إله الخصوبة والشمس عند النوبيين، وقد شرع في بناء المعبد الامبراطور الرومانى أوكتافيوس أوغسطس (30-14 قبل الميلاد). حيث أعتبر المعبد وقتها واحد من أكبر المعابد ذات الطراز المصري النوبي. ويعتبر تصميم المعبد أكثير التصميمات شيوعاً في تلك الفترة من العصر البطلمي. حيث يحتوي على صرح، فناء مفتوح، قاعة أعمدة بالإضاف إلى ثلاثة حجرات لقدس الاقداس. ويعتقد أن المعبد شيد علي مباني قديمة تعود لفترة حكم بطليموس التاسع وهو ما يتضح من المقصورة المعبد. داخل الفناء والذي اكتنف يوما ما بين جنابتها صفاً من الاعمدة علي ثلاثاً من جوانبها. ويوجد علي الجدار الذي يفصل الفناء وقاعة الاعمدة نقش ل اوريليوس بيساريون حاكم امبوس واسوان (حوالى 249 ميلادية)، معلن في النقش طرد الخنازير من البلدة وذلك لأغراض دينية. وبالجزء الخلفي من الممر توجد مناظر تصور أحد الملوك البطالمة يقدم قرابين لإيزيس ومندوليس. كما يوجد منظر للملك أمنحتب الثاني، الذي أسس المعبد الأصلي يصوره يقدم قرابين عبارة عن نبيذ إلى الإله مين ومندوليس. بعد الدهليز توجد ثلاث حجرات حيث توجد ناووس المعبد، وكذلك مناظر مختلفة تظهر الملك محاطاً بآلهة مصر العليا والسفلى، حيث يوجد آمون وبتاح ومين، كما يتلقي الملك ماء التطهير المقدس من تحوت وحورس. كما توجد مناظر أخرى تصور الملك يقوم بتقديم قرابين إلى أوزيريس وإيزيس ومندوليس.