Before Arthur Ashe Was a Stadium, He Was a Problem for Apartheid
Every late August in New York, Arthur Ashe becomes a place. More than 23,000 people fill the stadium carrying his name. Players walk through its tunnels, and commentators use the name as geography: Night session at Ashe. Meet me outside Ashe. Fifty-three years ago, another country was trying to keep Arthur Ashe out. South Africa […]
Subterranea
For Subterranea, Ayabukwa Magocoba went underground. The project, which she conceived, directed, styled and modelled, was shot in the limestone chambers of the Sterkfontein Caves outside Johannesburg, the UNESCO-listed site where the human record is held as both archive and origin. It is fitting ground. Magocoba is less interested in placing a body in a […]
The Index Is the Institution
Ask a machine where to find African design and it will answer without hesitation. It returns names, a few studios, an archive or two, a marketplace. The answer arrives as though it were a window onto everything that exists. It is closer to a door that someone else hung, opening onto the rooms they chose […]
Who Trains the Machines That See Africa?
The Sovereign Stack
As AI becomes the infrastructure beneath culture, African creators can no longer
The Art of Being Seen: Fashion as Resistance Across Four African Subcultures
Some of the most compelling expressions of identity are found in the subcultures that transform everyday
Nthabiseng Kekana’s Sankofa: How a Sangoma’s Practice Shapes Contemporary African Art
Nthabiseng Kekana’s Sankofa: How a Sangoma’s Practice Shapes Contemporary African Art Nthabisneg Kekana At 26, Nthabiseng Kekana is building a practice that refuses the boundaries between art and spiritual work, between contemporary expression and ancestral knowledge. Fresh from her debut solo show Sankofa: A Call to Remembrance at FNB Art Joburg this September—where Lagos-based Wunika […]
Inside the Rise of Africa’s Skateboarding Culture
In Kampala, in a neighborhood called Kitintale, a half-pipe rises from the red earth. It is not polished concrete poured by a city planner or a glossy installation by a global sports brand. It is a handmade monument, built nearly twenty years ago by Jackson Mubiru, who believed Uganda’s children needed a place to […]
Legacy African Fashion Houses That Defined the Continent’s Style Future
Fashion across the continent has always been rooted in craftsmanship, talent, and boundless creativity—and nowhere is that more evident than in the pioneering legacy houses that rose to prominence from the 1980s onward. These houses wove an African narrative that resisted reductive stereotypes and demanded global recognition for its innovation and cultural depth. Their ateliers […]