This social experiment aims to create greater awareness about our culture of consumerism in this capitalistic world that is built on inequalities and exploitation. Sometimes we forget, or take things for granted – where the goods that we demand and buy come from, who worked on it, and how the working conditions and environment are in other parts of the (unfortunate third) world. Corporate companies possess the power and resources to deny and mask their involvement in labour exploitation thus leading many consumers to blindly (or naively) engage in this unfair economic and political system that benefits the wealthy and the elite. Some ignorant or heartless souls would argue that it is their right to benefit from the bargain or that the poor are to blamed for not educating themselves so as to assume a better position in the workforce. Such responses are alarming and disappointing. How could we progress towards the betterment of all when we are trapped in the system that exists due to power, privilege, greed, and violence? The experiment is not about boycotting brands or companies. Instead, it seeks to send a message about awareness and hope that combined support and voice from the people would push companies to ensure a safe environment and fair wages for the abused and exploited.
Allan Sekula mainly employs the medium photography, infusing it into exhibition, film, and books. He claims that the sea is the “forgotten space – out of sight, out of mind”.
Allan Sekula, “Fish Story”.
People living in cities are too busy occupied with routines and focused on their daily attempts to climb higher the social ladder. Some may take it for granted that products and materials we have today actually travel far and wide by sea from different ports all around the world. The raw resources experienced being cut, hit, heated, sewed, molded, assembled by various skilled laborers all around the world. They are exported, imported, re-exported, and so on. The exchange of goods and services (Oh, the exploitation of cheap labor and neo-colonialism). The economy – capitalist economy, to be precise.
Sekula argues that international trade, globalization, and everything else that contributes to capitalism throw the world out of balance. In the pursuit of striving greater efficiency and economy success to support our culture of materialism and consumerism, we are usually blinded by the exploitation and increasing inequality between the different worlds in our social reality. Are we forever trapped and enslaved by a system we’ve constructed and followed after all these years? Can we ever escape? Can we create or adopt an alternative that is entirely free of corruption and exploitation? Will the system, or life in general, be completely balanced and just to all? Or are we all slaves, serving both the bigger powers and our own self-interests?
The 16th century – the Age of Discovery… for the Europeans. They traveled in search for new trading routes to the East Indies so as to provide for the growing capitalism in Europe. They wanted to gain wealth by possessing gold, silver, salt, and spices (Oh! and slaves). From the 8th to the 15th century, the Republic of Venice monopolized the spice trade between Europe and the Middle-east. The spices were imported from Africa and Asia.
The Portuguese challenged and dominated Venice by exploring Africa and Asia by sea. Henry the Navigator commissioned sailors to search the path to the Indian Ocean to gain control over spice trade and also to find Prestor John, a legendary king and patriarch that rules over a “Nestorian” (Church of the East), so that he would attain help in the Crusade. The mission was both gold and God (Christianity). Vasco da Gama made it around Africa and across the Indian Ocean to Calicut, on the Malabar Coast. The wealth of the Indies was opened for Europeans to explore and exploit – thus allowing the growth of Portugal’s economy. However, there was tension between the Arab merchants and Portuguese traders in Calicut. The latter were later expelled after the Calicut Massacre. They sought refuge in Cochin. This led to the war between Calicut and Cochin, war between Calicut and the Portuguese, and later alliance between the two against Kunjali Marakkar who defied the Zamorin. In the pursuit of wealth and power, many lives were lost. That seems to be fundamental throughout all these years.
A steel engraving from the 1850s, with modern hand coloring – It shows meeting between Vasco da Gama and Zamorin of Calicut.
Spanish and Dutch merchants and missionaries began to enter the picture as Portuguese’s power dwindles during 16th century trade by sea routes. Furthermore, Christopher Columbus was ordered to compete with Portugal for the spice trade with Asia. He accidentally landed in the Americas instead of East Indies. That, on the other hand, begins another narrative on the New World in which the evangelical effort went hand-in-hand with colonial conquests.
Some may regard Gertrude Stein as the mother and muse of Modernism. She is best known for collecting and developing modernism in both Art and Literature. As an American author and poet, on the other hand, she does not receive recognition and popularity compared to her male counterparts during the era. She was born in America to upper-class Jewish immigrants and later moved to London then Paris with her (art collector, critic, and painter) brother Leo in 1902 and 1903 respectively.
Together they became avant-garde art collectors, investing and buying Gauguins, Cezannes, and Renoirs at Vollard’s Gallery. They opened up their living quarters at 27 rue de Fleurus to hold Saturday evening salons. That was where many minds of Modernism came together to interact and exchange their intellectual and creative ideas. That was where artists and authors such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson frequented. That was also where Stein recounted a story and said to Hemingway: “That is what you are. That’s what you all are … all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.” Writers that usually come to mind when we think of the Lost Generation are Hemingway, Fitzgerald and T.S. Eliot. Stein was particularly close to Picasso (and Hemingway). She sat for a portrait by Picasso whom had never had anyone pose for him since he was 16. He was then 24 and Stein had never thought of having her portrait painted. When someone commented that Stein didn’t look like her portrait, Picasso replied, “She will”.
Gertrude Stein sitting on a sofa in her Paris studio, with a portrait of her by Pablo Picasso, and other modern art paintings hanging on the wall behind her. May 1930.
The relationship between women and patronage has existed for centuries despite many silences in documents regarding women’s role in the arts. Traditional patronage conventionally belonged to the middle-upper class domains as they own wealth and resources to commission art works. Compared to traditional female patrons of art, I believe Gertrude Stein is more active in her engagement with art and artists. Besides recognizing and collecting avant-garde pieces, she attempts to build her own literary career. She experimented with language and linguistic conventions, typical of other Modernist writers. Some may regard it as incoherent and unimportant, yet she has participated and contributed her part to modernist literature. Some may also argue about her political affiliations as they regard her ability to survive the war with her possessions intact suspicious despite her being a Jewish under Nazi Germany’s occupation in France. They claimed that Stein was protected by her friend Bernard Fay who was a Vichy collaborator (a regime responsible for the deportation of Jews to concentration camps). Should we critically view an artist distinct or connected to their political affiliations? That is a debate that will go on seemingly forever.
Africa is not a country, it is a continent. There is a problem of image and perception when many people conflate Africa into a single country. There are 54 internationally recognized countries and people of diverse cultures, languages, religions, and ethnicity. The way we think, talk, teach, and report news about Africa in the media should change. Africa is immensely huge that it could fit in the USA, China, India, Europe combined! This image by German software and graphical user interface designer Kai Krause serves to change how we think – Africa is immense, much larger than what we thought.
“The True Size of Africa”. A small contribution in the fight against rampaint Immappancy, by Kai Krause
Many westerners claim that Africa had only an oral tradition and non-literate culture – that Africa had no written history, literature, and philosophy. A different truth is emerging, thus the rewriting African history – The discovery of manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali. The majority of the manuscripts were written in Arabic and the dates ranged between late 13th to early 20th centuries. From the National Geographic:
“Since the 12th century, accompanying the camel caravans rode the intrepid scholars of Islamic learning, bringing with them over time hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. These bound texts highlighted the great teachings of Islam during the Middle Ages. These sacred manuscripts covered an array of subjects: astronomy, medicine, mathematics, chemistry, judicial law, government, and Islamic conflict resolution. Islamic study during this period of human history, when the intellectual evolution had stalled in the rest of Europe, was growing, evolving, and breaking new ground in the fields of science, mathematics, astronomy, law, and philosophy within the Muslim world.”
Furthermore… “With the pressures of poverty, a series of droughts, and a tribal Tureg rebellion in Mali that lasted over ten years, the manuscripts continue to disappear into the black market, where they are illegally sold to private and university collections in Europe and the United States.” This reveals another face of neocolonialism as Western nations demand and buy these manuscripts. Perhaps their excuse will be – for the safety and security of the books against the threat at home.
Throughout history, Africa has been colonized, its resources have been plundered, many of their languages are extinct/dying out, etc. In this post, I will focus more on the trade of African ivories. The problem of ivory is not a new phenomena despite it being undeniably a global problem now. During the late 15th/early 16th century, Afro-Portuguese ivories were transported from West Coast Africa to Europe. The Portuguese wanted to gain greater wealth (gold and ivory in Africa) and also to secure a route to India for salt and spices. Portugal’s extended contact with Islam during the medieval period (al-Andalus) provided the people with math knowledge and sailing techniques. The knowledge and skills in sea navigation and maritime technology led to their success in exploring Africa.
Afro-Portuguese ivories reflect both indigenous African and Renaissance Europe aesthetic and cultural elements. The ivories were carved into salt-cellars, spoons,pyx, oliphants (side-blow horns), etc. They were intended for the patrons of Portugal’s voyages. It should be noted that the Portuguese were not the first to obtain ivory from Africa into Europe. For more information on the power of ivory throughout the ages, do take a look at “Ivory’s Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of the Elephants” by John Walker.
“Ivory’s Ghosts” by John Frederick Walker.
It should not be that much of a surprise finding Christian religious imagery of the Mary and Child on the ivories as Christianity in Africa started ages back in the middle of the 1st century. The conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate ended Catholicism for several centuries (it still persisted in several regions!). Christianity came to Sub-Saharan Africa with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century, and from then on the increase in Christian missionaries and colonialism in Africa. Other early ivories in Europe from Africa would be the Byzantine ivories. Majority were transported via Egypt from East Africa into Constantinople.
Salt-cellar with the Virgin and Child. From Benin, probably 16th century.“Icon with the Virgin and Child”. Carved mid–10th–11th century Byzantine; Probably made in Constantinople
In the 15th century, many elephants were disappearing from along the West Coast of Africa due to over-hunting and relentless demand. Similarly, African elephants could be extinct within a decade. Today, we are facing a huge problem with illegal poaching and trade of ivory around the world. One of the main roots of this problem is the relationship between ivory and ammunition. Terrorist groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony killed elephants for ivory that serves as finance for their fighting. They trade ivory for arms, sugar, salt, etc. Click here to follow the interactive map: “Tracking the Illegal Tusk Trade” by National Geographic.
Trade in ivory helps bankroll the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), infamous for killings and abductions in east and central Africa. Former LRA child conscript Michael Oryem says he poached and hide ivory: Once he escaped, he led U.S. and Ugandan forces to a cache. (National Geographic)
Ivory, or white gold, has always been associated to religious imagery. Beautiful, pure, and sacred. How can we ignore the reality of the slaughter and near extinction of wildlife animals, how can we ignore the killings and exploitation of the African victims in the hands of rebel groups surviving mainly due to their dependence on the ivory trade?
