African textiles carry a huge signifying power and are routinely used to express statements about the self. In my posts about the West African ankara/wax and Kenyan kanga textiles I argue that design amplifies their currency within and beyond Africa. The semantic potential of their abstract or partially-abstract patterns make the textiles a versatile channel of cultural translation. The textiles are also worn to express political …

Last May, Florence hosted the annual edition of Black Portraitures, a convention that has already brought together some of the most eminent scholars of Africana and black visual studies in the world in five previous occasions. This year, the event focused on:  “exploring the impulses, ideas, and techniques undergirding the production of self-representation and desire, and the exchange of the gaze from the …

On March 6th, 2015 Tumblr and other social media hosted the first BlackOutDay to counter the notion that beauty is a whites-only affair. According to a statement published in the official page of the movement, on BlackOutDay black users “like and reblog selfies of each other and fill our dashboards with encouragement”. Since then, the day has been made seasonal, with the second event taking …

Here is an interview with Farai Simoyi, the Zimbabwean fashion designer who gained fame after working with Beyoncé.

Recently Africans have taken to Twitter to spread a narrative of the continent that is all about self-empowerment and pan-African accomplishments using the hashtag #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou. Given the nature of the platform, the message is conveyed most powerfully via images. Beauty, and more generally aesthetic, plays a big part in this reconfiguration of the global imaginary, as shown in the report posted in the Guardian. …