Danish video artist Jeannette Ehlers explores the Danish atlantic slave trade

@Jeannette Ehlers: Photo of Fort Frederick on St. Croix

Danish and Copenhagen based video artist Jeannette Ehlers explores a poorly illuminated and rarely visited topic in her country’s history, the Danish transatlantic slave trade.

Sweden: “Play” — a film that upends racist clichés

Is this a racist movie? Ruben Östlund’s latest film (2011) — a story of poor black and middle class white children which deliberate plays on the audience’s prejudices — has sparked controversy in Sweden.

Video: Madrid's Neo Soul band Cosmosoul album release party + MJ tribute

A compilation of Cosmosoul's release party of their debut album Sunrise in 2011.

Walters Art Museum Exhibition Reveals the African Presence in Renaissance Europe

Via The Brothers' Network Newsletter
The exhibition "Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe" will be held at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (USA), October 14, 2012–January 21, 2013

Video: Chimamanda Adichie: The stories that Europe tells itself about its colonial history

Via T.O.A-A.G.I.L.- The Only.African American Guy In London
It is not that Europe has denied its colonial history. Instead, Europe has developed a way of telling the story of its colonial history that ultimately seeks to erase that history”

Protest from Sweden: "You do not have the universal right to represent me"

The Afro-Swedes are tired of the racist depiction of blackness in the Swedish children's film Little Pink and the Motley Crew. So Oivvio Polite (photo above) and Staffan Carlsson launched a website to protest against these representations.

Paris hosted its first-ever Black Fashion Week

Paris hosted its first-ever Black Fashion Week this weekend (5-7 October). Organisers and featured designers say they are fighting to make a place for themselves in a rigid industry.

African-American blogger Shantology on race and racism in the Netherlands

“You don’t have to drink coffee because you are already Black enough,” said a Dutch maintenance man to visiting black New Orleans native Shantology.  And if that wasn't enough she also sat trough the press screening of the film "Alleen maar nette mensen". After the screening she wrote on Facebook: "I have NEVER, EVER, IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, sat through such a racially charged, full frontal visual assault against Black women."

Film: "A Bend in the River" - A London story of Migration, Multiculturalism and the River Thames

British writer Caryl Phillips invited photographer Johny Pitts to create the film/geographical slideshow "A Bend in the River". It eventually concluded in Tilbury, the Thames dockside some 30 miles away, where, between 1948 and 1962, ships arrived carrying immigrants from Britain’s former colonial territories, hastening the country’s transformation into a multi-cultural, multi-racial society.

Watch the film at The Space .  And check out more or the project at A Bend in the River.

What is the Black German Experience? - Review of the Black German convention in New York

Photo: Authors Olumide Popoola and Philipp Kabo Köpsell

The question “What Is the Black German Experience?” was the theme of second annual convention of the Black German Cultural Society of New Jersey this year. The convention was held in New York City on August 10-11 2012. 

MAGAZINE: Transition 109 - Persona (Forthcoming, October 2012)

Many of the artists featured in Transition109 make their livings making themselves up—Renée Stout buying new potions for her “shop” as the root worker Madam Ching, or Rashaad Newsome drawing on “the equalizing force of sampling” to create his own language and title in the heraldic tradition.

But even for these performance artists, persona shades into personality, and their theatrics don’t seem so different from the daily wardrobe decisions of metalheads in Botswana, or, at the other end of the spectrum, the highly tuned persona, personality, and apotheosis of personhood that is Oprah herself. As Ms. Winfrey might say, you are your hardest role yet. The craft of the self is unmasked in this issue, revealing the sleight of hand at play in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s famous words: “We wear the mask.” There’s a special ring to it in the African diaspora.

Exhibition: "The history of Afro-Caribbeans in France" in Paris

The exhibition "L'histoire des Afro-Antillais en France" ("The history of Afro-Caribbeans in France") is an exhibition on 15 panels outside the gates of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th arrondissement, a district of Caribbean Paris. The exposition is based on the book, documentary and exposition la France Noire. The Exhibition in Paris will last until 11 November 2012.

Book: Colour Me English by Caryl Phillips - Race, identity and Englishness

What do we mean by ‘English’? How does that image square with reality? How does our island look from abroad, and what aspects of our experience do we share with, for example, America – a nation built by outsiders and the huddled masses?  In his book Colour Me English British playwright and author Caryl Phillips reflects on these issues.