Ousmane Sembène

Rockcastle loves Africa, even lived for a period of time in Dakar, renting her own apartment and volunteering for several NGO’s. She started working for the Talibé (street children) and later assisted a few other projects with her linguistic skills. She is knowledgeable about non-fiction concerning the Dark Continent and reads its literature. She introduced me when I was to go to Nigeria to Ebony, a book by the incredible Polish journalist Ryzard Kapucinsky. Ebony influenced my way of looking and understanding Africa. Great Writing. In the literature department my favorites would be Towards the decolonization of African Literature. African novels: Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe and the painfully beautiful book The famished road by Ben Okri.
One day she took me to a film by Senegalese movie maker Ousmane Sembène, the pioneer of African cinema. He directed about ten movies, the first one in 1966. Twice he received an award at the Venice film festival. Unforgettable is his movie Moolade, a deeply moving story about female circumcision. He is progressive, so he advocates the eradication of this custom that is nowhere in the scriptures. What I liked was the incredible change in attitude in the characters when they were speaking in public, with a shift in tone and voice and attitude. When they were among themselves at home, they spoke with a natural voice and rhythm. It made me understand the importance of form and symbolism in cultures based on oral traditions. The landscape in this movie too became sign and symbol, fascinating that was. Last Saturday, at the age of 84, he passed away in Dakar. He did what he wanted to do and according to Dr Scarpone that brings happiness...

Election day

Before me a gray haired man in a black pair of jeans and a good pair of cowboy boots, his daughter, with uncovered hair, and wife with scarf and traditional dress try to catch up with him. Good quality boots is a rarity here in this country especially if it is combined with a nice waistcoat and being worn by a North African man. I smiled, since seeing this made my day. The daughter catching my smile proudly said ‘We are going to vote’. They hadn’t received the convocation, so they had gone to the town hall on Friday and got things in order. Not voting in Belgium is fined heavily. It reminded me somewhat of the scores of registered black urban voters in certain states of the US who had disappeared from the voting registers. To my comment on her father’s footwear, she replied laughing:’ He is crazy about all things American. He has at least twenty pair of boots and even the fringed jackets.’
The girl will vote green, out of concern with climate change and also because of their anti-racist stance. I applauded her and we walked together. She is now studying to be a caregiver for the elderly but wants to train to be a nurse and add interpreting for the hearing impaired. Hopefully the thimble of encouragement I gave this young woman will help her in days she meets with intolerance.
May tolerance prevail today: remember all wo/men all are born equal and have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…

Art = transformation = energy

In the years we still organized the Artists Nights, no audience but only artists came to talk about paint and turpentine, about how to read a text, reading texts and musicians trying out something new in their repertoire, etc… A young poet showed up one day late and a dollar short. Literally. He read to me in the kitchen while I made a ham and cheese sandwich platter and I was impressed by his search, his seriousness and his abundance. At the next occasion he read for the whole group very complicated (good) poems. My friend Rockcastle was present at that occasion and asked him to read in a different way until she understood the text. Undaunted he complied with her request and I must say that I learned from the hilarious experiment. So with joy in my heart I received an invitation to ‘Transform-Duality’ an exhibition/overview of his visual art of the last 10 years. He paints and does installations and transforms readymades into a new concept. Some of the conceptual objects are in aluminum in which he carves the words that make you think, sometimes a pencil drawing is added. Sometimes in the hanging of the separate elements you realize the message could be different. This way the linearity of language is questioned by the use of space and material. It is all about duality, present and future, war and peace, new and recycled. His oils on canvas seem to me to stay on the surface, even in the paintings with a lot of perspective, maybe referring to the superficiality of these times while examining our contemporary society with a critical mindset. Most human figures are painted in the nude, an iconic reference to old Greek art work. To me the humans seem distorted, while a Doctor admired their anatomical precision. So what do I know. His work is clean without being sleek or slick being too honest in his search for that. Art = transformation = energy. A suivre…

The Neva

Cities with water provide space and seem to instigate the building of grand projects. Even in an historic city as St Petersburg, there was industrial activity along the banks of the Neva and also communist housing blocks in a now prime location. Eventually the sun did set, yet night never quite descended over the city. The Neva is wide and imperial.

The canals exude a cozy grandeur, maybe thanks to the magnificent pastel painted palaces and the large variety of bridges. The top one was build by the same company that build the Eifel Tower and so cities become truly cosmopolitan, an expression of European history and civilization, a living reminder of what was. And thus we have to think of a disirable common future.

The Hermitage

The Hermitage is closed on Mondays , like most museums in the world. But then there is the group admiring the Dutch Masters. Look how the shiny silk is handled on the reclining lady in the red coat with ermine. The Baroque staircase is a goldleafed splendor doubled in the mirrors and rather overwhelming. The 15 century majolica figure is pensive, pondering how the compulsive collecting of Peter the Great, makes it possible for us to admire all this. There are plenty of other museums, with tools, curios. Being two meter and three centimeter tall he surrounded himself with short people. The hermitage is sooo big that we didn't get to see the Gold of the Scythes, the modern paintings nor the real Fabergé eggs...

White Nights in St Petersburg

See the long shadows the bench draws on the path... The low setting sun past midnight creates a strangely diffuse light, a challenge for an unexperienced photographer like me. It took this city about ten minutes to steal my heart. Many of the old buildings from the time of Peter the Great are now under the protection of Unesco and restaured with their funds. The white nights make one restless because life goes on, even when it is past bedtime on a workday. The abundant light also brings lightheartedness and easy joy because all the surrounding beauty is there to be seen and felt and heard in the music of buskers...

Skateboarders

My friendly vet used to tango. He knew the moves, had the passion, even the sparkle that made women want to dance with him. His moves had however no elegance, heavy as they were from the Flemish clay that made my tango dancing friend look as if on clogs. I had to think of him while watching a mixed bunch of young skateboarders going through their moves in a local ‘One Love’ skateboarding competition. They knew their jumps, but most had no style, or ease, of course with a few exceptions. Some had a chip on their shoulder and attitude, one or two were cool. The kids swore in English since that is classier than the local language. I could see them practice all the little things like stepping on the edge of the board so that it flies to one's hand… that is when I noticed that some skaters had put graffiti on the bottom of their board. I saw them swerve, kick up the board, jump, fall and start over, zigzagging and after a jump trying to keep their balance. Seems to me like a great preparation for life’s troubled road.