This evening of documentaries and discussion is presented in partnership with MoCADA, the Museum for Contemporary African Diaspora Art as part of their series NEWSFEED: Anonymity and Social Media in African Revolutions and Beyond.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012 from 7 pm – 9.30 pm
Segal Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center. Free and open to the public.
Be it in New York, Paris or Bamako, the world is experiencing a paradigm shift that began in Africa. Sparked by the 2011 toppling of Egypt’s thirty-year dictator, calls for revolution echo through mass media and populate social networking newsfeeds. MoCADA’s Curatorial Series, NEWSFEED: Anonymity & Social Media in African Revolutions and Beyond, features a compilation of new media art, contemporary works and digital installations that investigate global interconnectivity and how anonymous parties define, construct, and support uprisings in Africa via social media. As text, images and videos are tagged, re-tweeted, and shared virally, are these so-called “revolutions” reflecting real world events or merely constructing an online reality? How does this digital dialogue influence global society’s relationship with Africa?
Stocktown: South Africa is a twenty minute episode directed by Teddy Goitom, which documents the current political issues in South Africa.
Yoole: The Sacrifice, directed by Moussa Sene Absa, recounts the story of eleven Senegalese immigrants who arrived on the shores of Barbados four months after leaving Europe in a raft. In April 2006, a small boat was found drifting aimlessly along the eastern coast of Barbados. Local fishermen left the boat alone for many weeks, assuming it had something to do with drug smuggling. It later emerged that the boat contained the bodies of 11 Senegalese people who had set out to Europe four months earlier. In Senegal, it is not unusual for young people to embark in a rickety vessel in search of money and happiness in Europe or North America. Director Moussa Sene Absa is himself Senegalese, and was in Barbados when the boat was discovered. He returns to his homeland to explore the stories of the young men who risk the voyage. Surrounded by the slum dwellings and other dilapidated buildings in the ghetto, the young adults talk about poverty, hunger, politics and corruption, Western Union, and Western paradise. Archive footage of a party conference with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who represents the political elite, is interspersed with scenes featuring local songs, rap and poetry. Using a variety of rhythms and styles, Absa applies his own narrative method and succeeds in connecting individual stories to the sociopolitical situation. This yields a portrait of Senegalese youth and an impression of the consequences of the distance between themselves and the political elite.
