Category: Entertainment

Samuel Fosso 60, a contemporary artist who photographs himself in the style of leading historical figures including Martin Luther King and Angela Davis, has won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023, the BBC has reported.

The Cameroonian-born Nigerian photographer Samuel Fosso was awarded the $37,000 prize at the Photographers’ Gallery in London.

Samuel Fossi now described as “a man of 1,000 faces”, has since 1970 specialized in self-portraiture and performative photography and his works currently appear in most renowned galleries across the world.

Speaking to the BBC after bagging the prestigious prize Samuel reacted saying;

“Winning this prestigious prize, recognized as one of the most important in the field of photography, means that my work is recognized by the artistic community.

This recognition is very important to me. I feel a lot of joy and pride.” he stated

The Director of the Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation, Anne-Marie Beckmann, said Fosso’s retrospective opened up new perspectives, allowing many more people to discover his work for the first time.

“Through the retrospective, we were able to see his work differently and gain a much deeper understanding of the relevance of his practice today,” she said.

The jury also acknowledged the work of the other shortlisted artists, Bieke Depoorter, Arthur Jafa, and Frida Orupabo, who received £5,000 each, the Guardian reported.

The exhibition showcasing all four artists is currently ongoing at the Photographers’ Gallery until June 11th, 2023.

Samuel Fosso was raised in Nigeria and later fled the Biafran war as a young boy, in 1972 and was taken in by an uncle in Bangui in the Central African Republic.

In 1975, at the age of 13, reports revealed he opened his Studio Photo Nationale to take commercial portrait photographs. He also made self-portraits to fill the unused parts of his photographic films. His work includes using self-portraits adopting a series of personas, often commenting on the history of Africa.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

The Angolan bodybuilding athlete, Mário Faria, will revalidate the title of the international tournament “Arnold Classic” in the category of Body Building Open, in the amateur branch, which starts Thursday, in South Africa.

The information was confirmed to ANGOP Tuesday in Luanda by the president of the Angolan Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (FAFITNESS), Bráulio Martins, adding that the National Team is made up of male and female athletes.

According to the official, in addition to Mário Faria (BodyBuilding), in the amateur field, eight more athletes will compete, including two women, in the Bikini Fitness Open and Wellness Fitness Open categories.

According to the source, in the professional aspect of the “Arnold Classic” tournament, Angola will be represented with three athletes, with emphasis on the vice-champion of the bodybuilding world, Aquiles Epolua, in the Bodybuilding category up to 95 kg and – Elite pro.

Bráulio Martins clarified that it would be Aquiles Epolua to defend the title, but he was prevented because he became runner-up in the world in the Bodybuilding Elite Pro category up to 95 kg, in September 2022, in Seville (Spain) and moved to the professional category.

Thus, Mário Faria, as amateur national champion, now has the mission of defending Angola’s first place, which Aquiles Epolua won in the tournament in honor of Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor and sport icon.

The president pointed out that some athletes and members of the Federation will be received the day before the departure to South Africa (Wednesday) by the Minister of Youth and Sports, Palmira Barbosa, for farewell greetings.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)

Angola’s Vice President Esperança da Costa is expected Tuesday in Mbanza Kongo, northern Zaire province, to chair the 1st Ordinary Session of the National Multi-Sector Commission for Safeguarding of the 2023-World Cultural Heritage.

According to a note released Monday by the Vice Presidency’s Press Office, the meeting will analyse the current state of the monuments and historical sites of Mbanza Kongo.

The session will also review the proposals of the International Festival of Culture programme (FESTIKONGO) and the Commission’s Action Plan for the 2023 period.

Other aspects include the implementation of UNESCO’s recommendations on the Management Plan of this World Heritage city.

The Vice-President of the Republic will also visit sites of interest to the Commission.

Updated by Presidential Dispatch 93/23, of 3 May, according to the press release, the commission aims to ensure the development of identified actions to preserve, enhance and manage the cultural heritage, in accordance with the conventions and international treaties on the matter, to which Angola is a party.

This include the Convention on World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted in 1972 at the United Nations General Conference on Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO).

Created under the Presidential Order no. 25/18, of 5 March, the National Multi-sector Commission for Safeguarding the World Cultural Heritage is responsible for promoting the implementation of conservation programmes and the participative management of the cultural heritage.

The objective is to adopt special measures to monitor the national cultural heritage of exceptional universal value.

The Historic Centre of Mbanza kongo, capital of the former Kingdom of Kongo, joined the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list on 8 July 2017.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)

A luxury hotel, JA Enchanted Island Resort on Round Island in Seychelles, has joined the long list of tourism establishments in the country to adopt a school as part of the Lospitalite Tourism Clubs programme.

The programme launched by the tourism department in February last year in what the principal secretary in the department, Sherin Francis, said is a way for the country to adjust the national mind-set to reflect the fact that the small Island state depends on tourism.

Speaking at the launch, Francis explained “there is no better way to achieve that than through a network of tourism clubs where children from a young age are taught the appropriate values to carry us forward”.

Now with over 31 clubs established in various state and private schools, Mont Fleuri School, which is around a 10-minute boat ride to Round Island, has joined the ranks of schools with Lospitalite Tourism Clubs.

“We chose Mont Fleuri, as it is not that far from us,” said the JA Enchanted Island Resort general manager, Burak Aydin, to the press on the day the children were cleaning selected areas on the island.

“We want to instill a sense of respect in them while they are still young and help them to appreciate the value of a clean environment as well as having quiet and serene surroundings,” he added.

A total of 13 secondary students from Mont Fleuri arrived on the island on the morning of May 10, to clean litter left behind by people who hold picnics on the island.

“I joined the club as I believe tourism is really important to the country and it is important that we keep the places tourists visit clean,” said Justin Gabriel, who was part of the cleaning team for the day.

While the clean-up exercise was the first JA Enchanted held for the Mont Fleuri School club, Aydin told the press that they have plans to hold more in the future.

Meanwhile, the children were able to collect empty bottles, barbed wire fish traps and others in the litter found on the beaches and on the island itself.

“We will see what we can recycle in what was collected today, such as the tyres that we can reuse to plant in,” said Randy Camille, a JA Enchanted Island Resort employee who was leading a team of children in the clean-up exercise.

He went on to explain that “things that we are unable to recycle, we will gather and send for proper disposal”.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

Music business in Ghana continue to make steady progress, and Bismark Kwame Baah is one of the few young music entrepreneurs helping artistes benefit from their music.

He recently created the ‘Get the Artistes Platform,’ which is Ghana’s first online artiste booking platform for event organisers in the entertainment industry.

According to Kwame Baah, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Yve Digital, a music aggregation platform, his love for music started at a young age, and he gained recognition as a musician in Kumasi before making the move to Accra in 2018.

‘My dream initially was to be a musician, but as time went on, I felt I could do something else related to music. So I decided to venture into distributing and publishing music.

‘I have worked with the likes of Fameye, DBlack, Okyeame Kwame, Epixode, Amerado, Yaw TOG, Wendy Shay, Sista Afia, and many other musicians in the area of music distribution, and we have made great strides,’ he said in an interview.

Kwame Baah further revealed that the Yve Digital platform has helped many of these artistes to boost their presence on various streaming platforms, racking up impressive numbers.

He stated that Yve Digital, since its establishment, has racked up more than 300 million streams for various artistes signed onto the platforms, and he was poised to reach a billion streams in the next few years.

Kwame Baah, who is a former student of the University of Education, Winneba, previously worked with one of Ghana’s finest production houses, Farmhouse Productions.

Source: Ghana News Agency

A photographic exhibition portraying the Nakba (catastrophe) victims of 1948 will be on display on 15-17 May at the Palestinian Embassy in Luanda, Angola.

This was confirmed by the Palestinian diplomat, Jubrael Al Shomali, while speaking to Angop on May 15, the date on which the conflict between Israel and Palestine began.

Jubrael Al Shomali said that “after 75 years of uprooting, displacement and exile, the number of Palestinian refugees reached about 8 million.

“Israeli brutal actions against the Palestinian people, who even today suffer the bitterness of a conflict, have lasted for decades”, he stressed.

He said that Israel has already settled in more than 85% of the historic areas of Palestine, of approximately 27,000 square kilometers, and 531 Palestinian towns and cities are destroyed.

Data released by Human Rights Organisations and the Palestinian Prisoners Club put at about 1 million the number of people detained by the Israeli occupation forces, since 1976 until today, between men and women.

The area of dispute between the two sides is located in the Middle East, more precisely in Palestine.

The main focus is the city of Jerusalem, a point of strong religious tourist potential and which is considered a sacred place for the three monotheistic religions of the planet: Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)