The Burden of Silence: Why African Men Struggle to Talk About Mental Health
Femi*, a tech analyst based in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, says he grew up being bullied in his boarding school due to his size, which forced him into depression from an early age and interfered with his grades. It got worse until he asked his parents to help him see a therapist. “One day, after […]
Francis Kéré Builds the Goethe-Institut Dakar from the Ground Up
In Dakar, a new cultural landmark is rising from the soil. Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, the new Goethe-Institut Senegal turns earth, memory, and craftsmanship toward a new era of African architectural possibility. In Dakar’s Fann neighbourhood, a baobab tree stands at the centre of a building that appears to have grown […]
Kente and the Politics of Being Read
On June 8, 2020, a group of Democratic lawmakers knelt on the floor of the United States Capitol for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, the duration then believed to mark how long a Minneapolis officer had knelt on George Floyd’s neck, later revised at trial to nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. Several of them wore […]
The Woman History Could Not Contain
More than a decade in the making, conceived by Ivor Ichikowitz and directed by the late Mandy Jacobson, a Netflix docuseries produced by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s granddaughters, Princess Swati Mandela-Dlamini and Princess Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway, returns her story to the family that knew her first.
The Scaling Gap, in Beauty
In Accra, Victorine Sarr is managing customer orders while navigating shipping delays, rising supplier costs, and limited local manufacturing capacity. In London, Mimi Koné is building her beauty brand with closer proximity to retailers, investors, and international distribution networks. Both founders operate within the same global beauty industry, but not within the same systems of […]
Novo Atlantico
Tansi Makele is a Franco-Congolese filmmaker who grew up in the Paris suburbs and started making short documentaries at 19. His early work was mostly about dance and movement. Since then he has worked across fashion films, fiction, and experimental video. He cites Khalil Joseph, Terrence Malick, and Spike Lee as reference points, along with […]
Understanding Bògòlanfini: The Malian Textile Written in Mud and Cotton
Bògòlanfini, the mud cloth of Mali, is one of Africa’s oldest living textile traditions. Ugonna-Ora Owoh traces its science, symbolism, and migration — from Bamana villages and the Mali Empire to Chris Seydou’s Paris ateliers and Awa Meïté’s contemporary Bamako-based practice.
The Lusaka Youth Are Building Their Own Scene
The third spaces, pop-ups, and pricing decisions behind a generation’s bid for cultural infrastructure.
Woven Stories: 9 African Artists Shaping Contemporary Narratives Through Textiles
Textiles are more than material. They hold stories, histories and languages shaped through time. I think of them
Karibu Nairobi: Stamped and Approved
Sinatra Chumo on reclaiming the postage stamp as a site of cultural critique