Utopia is here
Africa Utopia returns - talks, workshops, music, performances, fashion and food.
from Southbank Centre on Jul 10, 2017.
The crazy bravery of the Syrian phone fighters
'City of Ghosts' is an immensely powerful and disturbing documentary about the Syrian citizen journalists who came together in the group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently.
from Daniel Nelson on Jul 15, 2017.
From the editor
* Shubbak is London's largest biennial festival of conbtemporry Arab culture, "bringing new and unexpected voices alongside established artists", until 16 July. Check out the programme.
* Playwrights from Argentina, Chile and Syria are among those featured in a forthcoming season of new work at the Royal Court in Sloane Square. They include Lola Arias' extraordinary Minefield, in which six Falklands/Malvinas war veterans who once faced each other across a battlefield face each other across a stage, sharing memories, films, songs and photos as they recall their collective war and embody the political figures that led them into it.
Syrian playwright and documentary filmmaker Llwaa Yazji's Goats is set In a small Syrian town where soldiers are celebrated as heroes and grieving families are nourished on propaganda. As the coffins pile up, the local party leader decides on a radical compensation scheme: a goat for each son martyred. The New Yorker magazine described Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón’ as "an authentic genius of the theatre", and his play, B, is part of the season: "Alejandra and Marcela are planting bombs in the middle of the night.They don’t want violence. They just want to be heard. Prison’s not much of a threat when most of your friends are inside. But José Miguel is from another generation, and he’s committed to change by any means possible."
* A political thriller about the peace negotiations that led to the 1993 agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel is coming to the National Theatre in September, followed by a run at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Oslo has been a hit on Broadway, and focuses on the roles of a Norwegian diplomat, who is now the ambassador to the UK, and her husband.
* The BBC’s first period drama with an entirely non-white cast will begin filming later this year. Vikram Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy, set in post-partition India, will be adapted into an eight-part series by screenwriter Andrew Davies. Davies has previously penned several major literary adaptations for the BBC, including Bleak House in 2005 and 2016’s War and Peace. Full story in The Stage.
* An "adventurous programme of exhibitions, events and education workshops telling stories of movement to and from Britain" is promised by the Migration Museum, in a space just off Albert Embankment. It has started with three exhibitions: Call Me by My Name: Stories from Calais and Beyond, 100 Images of Migration and Keepsakes, a display of personal items that keep memories of migration and identity alive.
Photo, below right: In her first solo exhibition at Autograph ABP, Rivngton Place, EC2, South African visual activist Zanele Muholi presents her ongoing self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness. The exhibition features a new artist commission that highlights the contribution of South African women in the Apartheid struggle for freedom and equality.
Daniel Nelson
Editor
Tw: @EventsNelson
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TALKS AND MEETINGS
Sunday 16 July
* Africa Utopia, talks, workshops, music, performances, fashion, food, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1. Programme includes: African Futures: Saturday - What Next?, Marchu Girma, Ade Daramy, Bibi Bakare-Yusu, Ayan Mahamoud, 11:30am; Disrupting Expectations, Amma Asante, telling Black stories on film, 1pm; Rebooting Africa, Tom Illube, 2.30 pm; Africa: Feminism and the Future, 4pm. Info: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/festivals-series/africa-utopia
* Shubbak Festival, British Library, Euston Road, NW1. Info: 0330 333 1144/ [email protected]/ http://www.bl.uk/events/shubbak Programme includes 16 July The Waking Nightmare: Post-revolutionary Egyptian Dystopias, Basma Abdel Aziz, Ganzeer, Mohammad Rabie, 1.30pm, £8/£6; * Under the Radar: Women writing from outside the Arab literary mainstream, 3.15pm; * Susan Abulhawa in conversation with Gillian Slovo, 5.30pm, £8/£6
Sunday 16 July
* Susan Abulhawa, talks about her debut novel 'Mornings in Jenin', a multigenerational family epic spanning five countries that looks at the Palestinian question, 5:30-7pm, £6/£8, British Library, Euston Road, NW1.
Monday 17 July
* The Al jazeera Case, Wadah Khanfar, Giles Trendle, David Hearst explore how the media outlet is being used as a bargaining chip in an ongoing geopolitical struggle, and the controversies surrounding the Arabic network: is this a trend that is repeating itself across the world?, 7pm, £12.50/£10, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, W2. Info: 7479 8940
Tuesday 18 July
* Aperture Live: Platform Africa, Malala Andrialavidrazana, Zineb Sedira and Zoe Whitley in discussion with Aperture’s managing editor Brendan Wattenberg, 7pm, £3, Autograph ABP, Rivington Place, EC2
* Smart changes for big impacts: reducing climate change through energy efficiency, Toby Park, Saskia Restorick, David Weatherall, Claire Maugham, 1-3pm, Portcullis House, Westminster. Info: www.smartenergygb.org
* Medical Justice AGM, 6.30pm, Garden Court Chambers, 57-60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2. Info: [email protected]/ http://www.medicaljustice.org.uk/
Wednesday 19 July
* Migrants at the Centre: Looking beyond Marginalisation and Exclusion, Sara de Jong, Umut Erel, Almas Farsi, 6–8pm, free, Migration Museum at the Workshop, 26 Lambeth High Street, SE1. Info: http://www.migrationmuseum.org
Thursday 20 July
* The Emigrants, James Evanson on why the English emigrated to Canada in such vast numbers, 7.15pm, £8/£5, British Library, Euston Road, NW1. Info: Info: 0330 333 1144/ [email protected]
* Big Ideas For Africa, presentations, table working groups and participant-led workshops, 155 Bishopsgate, EC2. Info: http://ow.ly/yG2630anhva / Conference
Thursday 20-Friday 21 July
* Imagining Africa’s Future: Language, Culture, Governance, Development, Muhammad Sanusi II, Nanjala Nyabola, Jean Bryce, Jan Goossens, Amidu Sunni, Onyekachi Wambu, £25/£5/£!0, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, WC1. Programme includes 21 July, Alternative forms of Protest in Africa, James Wan, Nanjala Nyabola, Stephen Chan, 12.30-1.30pm. Info: [email protected]/ http://bit.ly/SOASAfricaTickets
Saturday 22-Sunday 23 July
* Freedom of conscience and expression in the 21st century, weekend of discussions and debates on freedom of conscience and expression in the 21st century, from £65. Info: www.secularconference.com/ https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/05/international-conference-freedom-conscience-expression-21st-century/ Index conference
+ 24 July, an activist strategy meeting followed by body-painting in support of ex-Muslims, open to the public.
Thursday 27 July
* Naguib Mahfouz: Between Fiction and History, Samia Mehrez, launch of Essays of the Sadat Era: 1976-81, 6:30pm, free, School of oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, WC1. Info: Naguib Mahfouz: Between Fiction and History
EXHIBITIONS
* Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness, South African visual activist photographer Zanele Muholi presents her self-portrait series of more than 60 photographs in which she uses her body as a canvas to confront the politics of race and representation in the visual archive, Autograph ABP, Rivington Place, EC2, until 28 October.
* Sergey Ponomarev: A Lens on Syria, more than 60 photographs on life in Government-controlled areas in 2013-2014. and on the plight of people seeking refuge in Europe in 2015-2016, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1, until 3 September. Info: 7416 5000.
+ Museum takes on Syria and the war sparked by graffiti
* Syria: Story of a Conflict, intimate display exploring the origins, escalations and impact of the Syria conflict through objects and video, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1, until 3 September. Info: 7416 5000
* Call Me by My Name: Stories from Calais and Beyond, multimedia exhibition + Images of Migration,+ Keepsakes (all until 20 August), Migration Museum at the Workshop, 26 Lambeth High Street, SE1. Info: http://www.migrationmuseum.org
+ 19 July, Migrants at the centre, looking beyond marginalisation and exclusion, Sara de Jong, Umut Erel, Almas Farsi, 6-8pm
+ Mud on our feet: exhibitions fit for a migrant nation
* Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the best of 50,00 entries from 95 countries, Natural History Museum, South Kensington, until 10 September. Info: 7942 5000/ nhm.ac.uk/wpy
+ Wildlife photography judges bark up the right tree
* Sephardi Voices: Jews from North Africa, the Middle East and Iran, exhibition that looks at their lives in Britain, Jewish Museum, Raymond Burton House, 129-131 Albert Street, NW, until 7 September. Info: 7284 7384
* Afghanistan: Reflections on Helmand, examines the British arrival in 2006 and the decisions that shaped the way the conflict escalated, exploring the impact on those who were there and the lessons learned, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1, until 26 November. Info: 7416 5000
* Edmund Clark: War of Terror, the artist-photographer's work on hidden aspects of state control during the "Global War on Terror", free, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1, until 28 August. Info: 7416 5000
* Comics and Cartoon Art From the Arab World, free, British Library, Euston Road, NW1, until 29 October. Info: 0843 208 1144
* The Place Is Here, race, gender and sexual politics in the 1980s by 25 Black artists and collectives, South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, SE5, until 10 September. Info: 7703 6120
* Double Take, Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari presents portraits from the studio of Hashem el Madani in which two people of the same sex kiss or embrace, exploring their specific cultural and political histories, free, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, WC2, until 3 September. Info: 7306 0055
* Rapid Response Collecting, tiny but fascinating exhbit of new acquisitions that ranges from a Ghanaian "power bank phone" to shoes that show Western designers' belated realisation that the pink colour 'nude' did not apply to all the world's population, free, Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road
+ Burkinis and bullets at the V&A
* London, Sugar & Slavery , permanent gallery at the Museum of Docklands, No 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, E14. Info: [email protected]
* atmosphere: exploring climate science, free, Science Museum, South Kensington. Info: Museum
* Atlantic Worlds, transatlantic slave trade gallery, National Maritime Museum, Park Row, SE1. Info: 8858 4422/ 8312 656
* People Power: Fighting for Peace, exploration of how peace movements have influenced perceptions of war and conflict from the First World War to the present day, £10/£5/£7, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1, until 28 August. Info: 7416 5000/ http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london
+ Britons and the fight for peace
* I Am, peacebuilding exhibition promoting the work of 31 contemporary women artists from the Middle East, free, St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Aquare, until 30 August. Info: http://www.oncaravan.org/i-am-exhibition
* The City Is Ours, global challenges, local innovations, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2, until 2 January. Info: Exhibition
from Wednesday 19 July
* The Lost Men of Syria, photos by Edward Jonkler, free, Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, SW3, until 9 August. Info: 7811 3070
Photo: A group of young women from the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, meet at the feminist education centre to study to become car mechanics. Ouaga Girls is a poetic coming-of-age story of sisterhood, life choices, and the strife of finding your own path, and it closres the forthcoming London Feminist Film Festival.
