Donna Pido
Donna Pido is an American anthropologist with 5 decades of professional experience in jewelry and product design. She holds a PhD in applied Anthropology from Columbia University in New York. She has assembled and deposited several collections of Kenyan material culture in American and European museums and has written extensively on Maasai art among other topics related to esthetic production in Kenya. She has been teaching design at TUK since 2012 and is also the former chair of the College of Arms in the Office of the Attorney General. Prof. Pido is an active member of the Kenya Quilt Guild and the Kenya Embroiderers Guild.
African Art in Movies
African Art in Movies
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lx&list=h-afrarts&user=&pw=&month=0603
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Donna Pido" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
This is a bit off the subject of African art in Man Ray's photos, but
I always take note of African art objects that appear in the
background in Hollywood films.
My collection covers the 30s to the 80s. If anybody is interested I
can put a list together.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
I've also found myself taking note of the placement of African art in certain Hollywood films, and I'd be very interested in any list that you could put together. Thank you for offering to do so. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
I would also be interested in a list of films incorporating African art, especially those from the 1920s and '30s. Issues raised by these films are very much related to my project on Man Ray, since its main concern is with representation. I'm also looking for related European films from this period. It would be interesting to compare them with the Hollywood films. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Robin Poynor" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
I have noted since the 70s and maybe even the 60s african objects in
TV shows: Checkmate (1960s), for example, had an Ndengese king figure
in the hallway of the detective agency, if I remember correctly. Of
course, Third Rock from the Sun had an awful akuaba on the Mary's
(Jane Curtin) shelf. Will on Will and Grace has a pretty bad one as
well. And who could not notice the atrocities spelling out "pedantry"
in the living room of Frazier?
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
I would like that! I remember very clearly a scene from 'Pillow talk', seen years ago. Doris Day, playing an interior decorator, tries to create an interior that is as ugly and repulsive as possible for her opponent (Gary Grant?). As a crowning achievement she places, with a mischievous smile, an African statue (Baule?) in the centre. Quite interesting that in this time frame (fifties) in popular American culture, African art is seen as the absolute opposite of taste and beauty. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
"Bell, Book and Candle" was, of course "set" in the gallery of Julius
Carlebach.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
about search site map editors donate contact help
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
A Spike Lee film around 1990 had a poster from the African Reflections exhibition (American Museum of Natural History) on the wall in someone's office. I don't remember the name of the film. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Well, of course in "Bell, Book, and Candle," Kim Novak (a witch) runs a gallery specializing in African art. At the end, after she gives up her powers for the love of Jimmy Stewart, the African art is gone and her gallery has been transformed into a shop selling floral arrangements made of sea-shells. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Christopher B. Steiner" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
The only one I know from that time period is the large Ekoi head in the
Wizard of Oz (1939). But I'd love to se a fuller list...
(Behind the Professor (Wizard), inside his wagon, where he is
pretending to tell Dorothy's fortune-before a tornado whisks her away
to Oz - MWC, Editor)
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Jan Jordaan" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
Art for Humanity
SA Human Rights Day 21/03/06
In this issue: please click on the links;
News:
http://www.afh.org.za/Newsmar06.php
Arts, Culture & Human Rights in Limpopo
AFH - Art as Social Development
'Women for Children' Project:
http://www.afh.org.za/NewsChildrensRightsmar06.php
National Lottery supports 'Women for Children'
Public Response to Airport billboard
Kara Walker billboard update
'Women for Children' Poetry Translations
Archbishop speaks out on child abuse in South Africa
'Break the Silence' Project:
http://www.afh.org.za/NewsBreakSilencemar06.php
'Break the Silence' artist mourned
Online research links for 'Break the Silence'
'Images of Human Rights' Project:
http://www.afh.org.za/NewsImagesHumanRightsmar06.php
AFH Endorsers Rule the World
Support Human Rights in South Africa
Art for Humanity
(formerly Artists for Human Rights)
c/o Fine Art
Durban Institute of Technology
City Campus
Box 953
Durban 4000
South Africa
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: Dan Mato <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
It would also be an interesting thing to know where the various
'African Art props' came from. Did local dealers supply them or were
they part of the 'props department' that various studios had. As
many films were made before the developed interest in African Art per
se or the advent of the runner trade were these authentic objects or
simply Hollywood views of what an African sculpture would look like.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Thanks for the interest. Apparently HAVING the list and FINDING it are two different things. It isn't a very long list and is drawn only from my small collection of movies (approximately 1200 titles). The following is off the top of my head and I promise to search for the list and the rest. Lassie Come Home - Cross River head mask, Ibibio? Pillow Talk - Ivorian figure (which others have also noted) Rear Window - Kikuyu Dancing Shield Lust in the Dust - Tharaka arm band passing as native American A forties black and white detective flick in an office behind a night club (title to be recalled) small dark figurines on the side board, possibly 40's Kamba tourist pieces Annie Hall - the ciondo that launched that basket form into American culture. There are only four or five others that I know of with African objects unconnected to the story (but can't recall at the moment). Some others in which the objects have a connection to the story are: The Quest for Fire - Samburu milk pot and Gogo circumcision mask Trader Horn - fabulous footage of Kikuyu, Luo and Kamba dancers Stanley and Livingstone - background people in traditional dress but also California folk in fake costumes King Solomon's Mines - (Deborah Kerr) real Maasai and Tutsi people Sheena - (gag) assorted real ornaments and artifacts jumbled up The Air Up there - also real people and a Cameo appearance by Kirati Lenaronkoito! Out of Africa - beaded ornaments copied from old pictures and museum collections by Donna Pido, some of which also appear in The Color Purple. Some of these props were diverted from the properties storage and sold to tourists as old stuff during and after the shooting of The Color Purple. There's more, so hold on but don't hold your breath. I don't recall seeing a Chiwara anywhere but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Maybe others can add to this list. It seems we've already started a list for TV which is good. And, by the way, we also see The Young and the Restless, The Bold and The Beautiful and The Days of Our Lives here in Kenya so we do know what the evil Stefano is up to (but it won't get us into Harvard) and how Nicholas and Sharon's marriage is going - at all times. Best regards and apologies to all. Donna |
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Donna Pido" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
And for the record -
The footage of Turkana people in The Constant Gardener confuses
Lokichogio, on the western side of the Lake in North Turkana with
Loiengalani on the eastern side so that it looks like North Turkana
people dress like the heavily Samburu-influenced Turkanas and Elmolo
of the Eastern side. A picky detail perhaps but there is so much
visual confusion everywhere, especially between Maasai and Samburu,
that maybe it's best to be on record about it now rather than leave a
mess for future scholars.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Rosalind I. J. Hackett" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
These are two very negative examples of indirect and direct
connections of African art to movies:
1) Tears of the Sun
In perhaps the most horrendous scene in this most condemnable movie, where
women are being raped and having their breasts cut off by the (Muslim?)
rebels, there is a fleeting, but intentional in my opinion, shot of a
tallish (generic?/Igbo Ikenga-like?/Central African?) sculpture in the
corner of the dark hut.
2) Many years ago I accidentally found myself watching a mini-horror movie
of a woman who was getting ready to go out on a date and the small
nkisi-like figure (read 'voodoo') that someone had given her as a gift,
gradually becomes 'animated.' It starts moving around her apartment and
confusing her, and the movie ends with the figure eventually attacking her
by the throat and killing her.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Suzanne Gott" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..com>';document.getElementById('cloak643a447a173997ff1e80277ed3c34e9b').innerHTML += ''+addy_text643a447a173997ff1e80277ed3c34e9b+'<\/a>';
; |
A Luba Buli-style figure has prominent placement in the company president's
office in "Desk Set," with Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy.
************
From: Soppelsa, Robert T
1: I tried for years to find something even remotely "real" in
Frasier Crane's African art...no luck.
2: On an early episode of "The Jeffersons," the couple who live
upstairs from them present them with a housewarming gift: an
"authentic Baule (pronounced ba-ool) ancestor figure." I can't
remember what it looked like, beyond being fairly small and
apparently wooden.
************
From: Kathleen Bickford Berzock <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
I believe Rosalind Hackett is referring to "The Intruder" (2000) with
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Nastassja Kinski.
************
From: "Karen Milbourne" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
My favorite unlikely placement is the Buli Master bowl figure in
"Desk Set" with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. It has no
connection to the plot, Tracy goes up to the company director's
office to discuss his new super computer and there she is...
************
From: Steven Nelson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
There are also those films with African architecture in them. For example,
the 1941 film "Road to Zanzibar" has a "Mousgoum village" which was the site
of a cannibal raid.
************
From: "Leslie Jones, African Arts" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mrs. Summers is a dealer in "tribal" art, both
African and pre-Columbian, which occasionally turns up in the background or
incidentally in the plots. In one episode at the beginning of Season 3,
"Dead Man's Party," she brings home an African mask of some sort that
possesses people and turns them into zombies.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
The Momella Giraffe Preserve (also called Momella Lodge), was the site for Hatari, a John Wayne movie filmed in 1960 just north of Arusha at the foot of Mount Meru. When I stayed there in 1991 to conduct a training program on HIV/AIDS with educators and health workers, the main building was at the end of a long unpaved road off the main highway. At the time, very simple, small free-standing cottages (bedroom and bathroom) were available for guests a little distance from the main building. Today, as I look at the website, this appears to be called Hatari Lodge, and billed as a "luxury bush hotel." The main building is featured in the movie, along with its long bar. Hatari the movie was run frequently on videotape at the request of guests. ************ From: "Danielle M. Snoddy" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; On the current TV show "Las Vegas" I believe there is a Benin style ivory tusk behind the desk of Ed Deline, the casino's director. Re: the Buffy episode... I just saw that one again the other day. The mask that causes all the trouble is a Nigerian mask (no cultural group or context-- it looks non-specific and generic). Buffy's mom hangs it on her bedroom wall. Whenever its eyes glow red, it raises the dead, animal and human, and attracts them all to the Sommer's house so that a zombie will put the mask on. Once a zombie puts the mask, it becomes an embodied demon. Which, of course, wants to kill everyone and tries to do so until beheaded by Buffy (no other way to remove the mask). ************ From: Jean Borgatti, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Since some recent films have been noted - I'd like to add Spike Lee's Bamboozled for both African sculpture (in the office of the white TV executive) and, of course, for African American 'memorabilia'. An even newer film Duma features a curing ritual with a mask-like mud poultice (although it's not clear where this takes place except that its close to the Okavango River, so presumably Botswana). Maybe we can get another discussion going on Art Historians writing novels set in Africa -John Canaday, former art critic for the NY Times, wrote in the 1940s and 1950s, under the pen name Matthew Head, seven crime novels, three set in Africa, and based in part on his experience in the Congo. Two titles are indicative - The Cabinda Affair and The Congo Venus. And, of course, there is Robert Brain's Kolonial Agent. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Hello. Very interesting discussion. No one has mentioned the terrible 2005 movie Sahara. It was playing on Air France when I was on my way to Mali but even so, I couldn't get all the way through it. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Hello. Very interesting discussion. No one has mentioned the terrible 2005 movie Sahara. It was playing on Air France when I was on my way to Mali but even so, I couldn't get all the way through it. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Here is one more upsetting example: Last Thursday's forensic psychology thriller (tv drama) on BBC America "Sea of Souls" featured a gory Shango cult in the UK that cut strategic body parts out of unfortunate live victims for healing purposes. Needless to say there were Shango images on walls etc in their ritual locations. While the victims were black the perpetrators were white. There was even reference to the ritual murder of the Nigerian boy who was found limbless and headless in the Thames some years back. To my friends who have expressed concern about my viewing practices, this was all in the line of duty. Someone's got to do it (ie track and contest the negative representations of Africa available to the viewing public). Perhaps I have a penchant for this... but other than that I 'm fine, thank you! ****************** From: "Donna Pido" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Going back to the posting about how African art objects get into movies the Baule (?) piece in Pillow talk and the Kikuyu shield in Rear Window look far too good for any serious collector to have lent for a movie production. The Shield, in particular, is just décor in James Stewart's apartment. It is never referred to in any way in the story yet it's right there in you face. I have tried contacting various studios via the Internet from here but either the sites don't have a facility for making contact, or they don't respond. It would be interesting to follow up from a more strategic location than Nairobi. ******************* From: "Anitra Nettleton" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; There was a wonderful French language movie whose English title was "Black and White in Colour", on the art movie circuit, I think in the 1970s. In it a pair of French Catholic missionaries engage in an exchange of artefacts with the "natives", of plaster Madonnas for wooden "idols". One of the missionaries surreptitiously weeds out the better works while ostentatiously throwing the 'rubbish" on a bonfire. Looks like it was set in Cote d'Ivoire, and was heavily satirical. ******************* From: Leigh Collier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; I know it's a recent one but I noticed some large Zulu baskets in the movie 'Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events' The three children go and stay with their Uncle - played by Billy Connelly - in the large living room area there are what looks like two large Zulu baskets with diamond patterns on them, as far as I know, the type traditionally used in wedding transactions. Interesting topic! -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Have enjoyed reading what my colleagues REALLY do in their spare time and surprised that I can actually offer another title: "Sanders of the River" which stars Paul Robeson in a role he wished he'd never taken. As it sort-of deals with the Niger River, Martha Anderson & I tried to figure out a way we could include it in the Ways of the Rivers exhibition. Anyway, it's true classic, and, of yes, there is "African art" in it. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
There's always the north Africa - sci-fi connection to be made. I'm not thinking of particular examples other than the famous Matmata bar-room scene in Starwars, along with the Tunisia city name of Tataouine. And then there's the debate over Ethiopia's Gondar cum Tolkien's Gondor. I'm not remembering what they did architecturally with that in the films. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Around 1993, McDonalds did a commercial with African art that "danced" when people weren't watching. A Namshi figure was featured. Star Trek occasionally included African art. I remember in Deep Space Nine, the character played by Avery Brooks, Benjamin Cisko, wore a long vest made of Kuba raffia pile cloth. It was his leisure wear when building a solar sail boat with his son. ***************** From: susan vogel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; The current issue of African Arts includes a piece by me illustrated with a still showing Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart surrounded by "Primitive" art in Bell Book and Candle. I talk about the popular view of African art in the 50s and 60s as, sexy, cool and mysteriously exotic -- in a word, exciting. I argue that that African sculpture now is generally viewed as praiseworthy, old, valuable, respectable museum art -- and, like classical antiquities, slightly boring. Sadly, Susan Vogel -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
This is slightly off the subject, but the film "The Ghost and the Darkness" called for 50 Maasai warriors. In fact, 30 Samburu moran were flown to South Africa from northern Kenya to act in the film; lions were imported from France, Canada and the US; and acres of savanna grass were hand-planted. For an inside view of making this film see Kelly Askew "Striking Samburu and a Mad Cow: adventures in Anthropollywood" in Off Stage/On Display, Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture, (ed) Andrew Shryock 2004 -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
This is slightly off the subject, but the film "The Ghost and the Darkness" called for 50 Maasai warriors. In fact, 30 Samburu moran were flown to South Africa from northern Kenya to act in the film; lions were imported from France, Canada and the US; and acres of savanna grass were hand-planted. For an inside view of making this film see Kelly Askew "Striking Samburu and a Mad Cow: adventures in Anthropollywood" in Off Stage/On Display, Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture, (ed) Andrew Shryock 2004 -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
"La Notte" (1961) by Michelangelo Antonioni comes to mind, where Valentina (Monica Vitti) performs an "exotic" dance surrounded by African artifacts. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: "Jerry Jacob" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
One more addition to the list is the 1992 film "Deep Cover" Victoria
Dillard launders drug money through her Ethnic Art Gallery. Prominent
in the film is the Gallery's mostly African stock with a few Asia
Pacific pieces thrown in. The film is currently in rotation on HBO.
African too, is the art scattered around undercover cop/drug
dealer, Laurence Fishburne's swanky condo. One lovemaking scene is
filtered through the horns of an Antelope on a Chi Wara.
***************
From: "Sidney Kasfir" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
Re Michelle's citation of Kelly Askew's article on making "The Ghost
and the Darkness" in 1995-96 with 30 Samburu moran.
One of those Samburu was (is) my husband. I too have published an
article about it, as well as their earlier participation in the 1993
Kevin Bacon basketball movie, "The Air Up There:"
"Slam-dunking and the Last Noble Savage", Visual Anthropology
(special issue on images of pastoralists)15 (3), 2002: 369-386.
In fact there was a much more extravagant Hollywood film," Mogambo,"
in 1953, with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly, filmed at
Archer's Post in Samburu District (then part of the Northern Frontier
District) with 1,000 Samburu warriors as extras. They were paid in
red silk cloth, spears, and a stupendous daily meat ration, all
organized by the legendary District Commissioner Terence Gavaghan.
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
View the Next Message in h-afrarts's March 2006 logs by: [date] [author] [thread]
Visit the h-afrarts home page.
|
From: Kate Wininger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; |
In La Promesse the woman from Burkino Faso has a
a wooden sculpture that is broken in the course
of the story. I wasn't able to identify it.
*******
LA PROMESSE D: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; with
Jérémie Renier, Olivier Gourmet, Assita
Ouedraogo, Rasmané Ouedraogo. (R, 97 min.)
Which of our traits are socially ingrained and
which are genetically imbued? And what about
morality, that most personal of all
characteristics? How is it acquired, adapted,
shed, and reconfigured?
The Belgian film La Promesse, by the brothers
Dardenne, presents an opportunity to observe
these issues up-close while presenting the story
of 15-year-old Igor (Renier), a boy facing an
unexpected moral quandary. He's caught between
obedience to his single-parent father Roger
(Gourmet) and a nagging inkling that what his
father is asking him to do is morally suspect.
His father's law is the only rule he knows, yet
an unforeseeable accident sets in motion a whole
series of events that causes Igor to question his
father's absolute authority.
Roger's livelihood comes from trafficking in
illegal aliens, whom he provides with doctored
papers, subsistence shelter, and off-the-books
employment in exchange for hefty cash fees and
other forms of human barter. Roger is training
Igor to follow in his footsteps, an
apprenticeship that involves forgery, deception,
and petty thievery, and is predicated on the
exploitation of foreigners and other strangers.
At 15, Igor is stumbling through the vague
twilight years between childhood and adulthood.
He works daily for his father instead of
attending school, but most of all wishes to spend
time working on his go-kart and playing with
other boys his age. And although Roger's tyranny
of the boy borders on the abusive, it is also
clear that feels sympathy and tenderness for his
son. Then one day during a police raid, one of
the illegal workers falls to his death and Igor
finds himself torn between his instinct to report
the accident to the police and his father's
insistence on hiding the evidence.
The dilemma is complicated by the growing
compassion Igor discovers for the worker's wife
Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and her young baby.
Assita is a self-assured immigrant from Burkina
Faso, someone whose otherness is starkly apparent
to Igor. But as he comes to witness the emotional
brutality of the situation in which she finds
herself, Igor comes to realize that father may
not always know best. The film's staging of the
final father-son confrontation puts a
successfully memorable spin on an age-old
dramatic conflict. The film's tightly framed and
often hand-held camerawork keeps the story's
focus on Igor's point of view.
La Promesse is a penetrating coming-of-age story,
one that argues that adulthood begins with the
emergence of moral convictions. (11/7/97)
--
H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
|
View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
Did any body else catch Sherlock Holmes, The Case of the Silk Stockings with Rupert Everett? Here in Chicago, it aired on Masterpiece Theatre last night. In one scene Holmes remarks on the African masks in the sitting room of Watson's American fiancee, a psychoanalyst. He identifies one as "West African" though it appeared rather generic to me. They then discuss the "sexual fetishism" manifest in the crimes Holmes is investigating. Implied is a connection between what the masks symbolize, "fetishism", and sexual deviance. Elementary, my dear Watson. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
There's a wonderful, but infrequently shown, episode of Twilight Zone about a man who after going to Zaire to appropriate African-owned land for some American construction project is plagued by a "voodoo fetish" that eventually kills him in the form of a ferocious tiger that leaps from the bedroom. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
A student just told me of a scene from Mission Impossible in which the villain's home is decorated with vigango. I have not seen the film so I do not know if that is entirely correct. -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WWW: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/ View the h-afrarts Discussion Logs by month
This is producing such great anecdotal data, I wonder if it could all be brought together into a single database...maybe a Wikipedia entry? ************************** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia: a project to produce a free content encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone, formally began on 15 January 2001 as a complement to the similar, but expert-written, Nupedia project. It has since replaced Nupedia, growing to become a large global project. As of 2006, it includes millions of articles and pages worldwide, and content from hundreds of thousands of contributors. MWC-Editor/Moderator ************************** -- H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
Categories
1. Design history - including historical material and narratives that have design significance
2. Design criticism and critique (what's the diff between criticism and critique?)
3. Design comment - should be different from critique and criticism - like factual instead of opinion?
4. Design process
5. Archaeology
6. Cinema
7. Design related series - TV or other
8. Friends Posts - pubs and comments
Stanley and Livingstone
Very important for the history of EAst African Design. Tells about Stanley pitching the story to Americans and Brits that stimulated them to donate
35 minutes in -talks of Hongo
40 minutes. Slaves marched to coast
42 early 20th Kikuyu hat ff lots of Kikuyu and Maa extras
45 min Turkana shields
55 St meets Liv in Ujijii – Onward Xtian Soldiers playing in the background. Extras are Kikuyu
57 St explains the promo to Liv
1 hr – chorus singing Onwaard Xtien solds – all Kyukes
1 hr 8 min – source of the Nile
1 hr 8 min 40 sec ‘Never heard one single syllable of kindness or hope’
1 hr 10 in Eve Kingsley’s Egret
Pido Khamala and Pido bios
Martin Khamala spent his early childhood in England. He completed primary and secondary school in Kenya and earned a degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Nairobi. He taught himself animation and opened his own company, Mank and Tank gaining success in production of animated cartoons. Since 2011 he has taught animation and interactive media design, in the Department of Design, Technical University of Kenya (TUK). Martin pioneered virtual classrooms in Kenya, developing a platform of digital multimedia content delivery. He has experimented with Virtual Reality completing his Master’s Degree at the University of Augsburg, Germany in 2017. He is enrolled in a split site PhD degree program at the University of Manchester, England and TUK and is conducting field research on classroom culture in Western Kenya.
Odoch Pido is the Eminence Grise of design education in Kenya having taught and influenced over 1000 Kenyan designers over the last 50 years. His profession work has focused on exhibition, product and graphic design. He is also a noted voice in the elucidation and analysis of East African culture. Many of his writings are critical looks at his own Acholi culture in the face of war and upheaval. Professor Odoch completed all his degrees at the University of Nairobi where he also taught until 2012. He is now the Director of the School of Creative Arts and Technologies at the Technical University of Kenya.
Donna Pido is an American anthropologist with 5 decades of professional experience in jewelry and product design. She holds a PhD in applied Anthropology from Columbia University in New York. She has assembled and deposited several collections of Kenyan material culture in American and European museums and has written extensively on Maasai art among other topics related to esthetic production in Kenya. She has been teaching design at the Technical University of Kenya since 2012 and is also the former chair of the College of Arms in the Office of the Attorney General. Dr Pido is an active member of the Kenya Quilt Guild and the Kenya Embroiderers Guild.
A Critique of Publication Viscom in Kenya
The Brain Gyre
Different circumstances have introduced us to concerns with brain drain, brain gain and brain circulation. Over ninety percent of East African secondary school teachers, from the end of the 1950s to mid 1960s, were Europeans and North Americans. The schools were cornerstones of human development in East Africa. In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Tom Mboya conceived the idea ‘American Education for African Students.’ The idea led to the first Student Airlift to the United States of America for higher education, including Barack Obama Sr., President Obama's father (JFLibrary 2024 and Google Arts & Culture 2024). Carolina said that in 1963, the Royal Society defined "brain drain" the exodus of British scientists to USA, seriously jeopardizing the British economy. The term was used much earlier than that and is still in use. Logan and other scholars say the contradiction is "reverse technological transfer" (Logan 2024) while other scholars think it is "brain mobility" since the Word economy in largely dominated the free circulation of capital, merchandise and jobs. All of these omit the simple material and professional advantages of living in a ‘developed’ country. In this paper we use ‘brain gyre’ to decribe the moblity of expertise around the world. We get to the termnology through reflection on our experiences and available literature.
PKP Website Features
This is a list of features we would like to include in our website. Please have a lok and let’s discuss.
Our Website
Free
Put our publications in pre-pub form
Other people pubs – links and/or summaries
Visitors’ comments
Put other interesting stuff- links to design related films and websites, also full docs
Monetize our site – make money by pubs and products
DESIGN SPACES
Webinars on Design – Design Discussions
Recording capability
The Website should be a platform for making our articles, drafts and publications to the public
Free of charge for us and viewers
Put our publications
Other people pubs
Visitors’ comments
Put other interesting stuff
Monetize our site – make money by pubs and products
Webinars on Design – Design Discussions Maybe
Recording capability
Culture and environments around 100 000 years ago at Klasies River
archaeology article
A B S T R A C T
In this paper the new excavations at Klasies River main site are introduced and the first results presented and
linked with previous work, establishing a baseline for future reporting. Data from the earliest phase of the SAS
member, comprising the basal SASU and SASL sub-members from caves 1 and 1A are discussed. A new U-Th date
of 126.0 ± 1.5 ka on flowstone associated with fallen tufa material within the base of the SASU sub-member
provides a maximum age for this part of the sequence. The lowermost SASU sub-member formed most likely
around 100 000 years ago during a period associated with increased precipitation whereas the age of the underlying
SASL sub-member is uncertain. The SASU sub-member contains in situ deposits that include hearths, in
contrast to the underlying SASL sub-member that was subject to post depositional disturbance. Despite the
different site formation processes the lithic industry of both sub-members is similar although quartz utilization is
somewhat more prominent in the SASL sub-member. The main reduction strategy involves a parallel unidirectional
convergent method to produce quartzite blade and point blanks with rare retouch. Relatively more
browsing fauna and riparian species, indicating more closed environments, occur in the SASU layers. The older
SASL sub-member, not previously described as an independent unit, contains relatively more grazers suggesting
drier and more open habitats. It is vital to link evidence from coastal sites such as Klasies River to data from the
interior to promote insight into modern human origins from a wider landscape perspective. The work of James
Brink, to whom this paper is dedicated, is invaluable in developing this connection.
1
Ascent of Man and Connections
Links to Tv series about design and human history
Turkana Design: A Romance with Conic Sections
Turkana Design: A Roomance with Conic Sections
The Turkana people are camelcattle and goat people living in North Westen Kanya. They are belived to be connected to the Karamojong Cluster of ethnic communities. Most of the Turkana's material culture is based on and or decorated with hyberboloiids in one and two sheets and with hyperbolic parabolioids, all in 2 or three dimensions. . Having studied this material culture for several decades, the author describes it and her efforts to find meanings and Turkana understandig of why they make everything from conic sections including non functional surface decoration. A small sample of baffled Turkanas have pointed our that they never noticed the phenomenon until it was pointed out to them. A great deal of research remains to be cone on the subject.