Honey in the coffee

I would like to present here two TEDx talks by two of the women I most deeply admire and respect these days: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zena el Khalil. Chimamanda is a story teller from Nigeria. Her latest novel, Americanah, was in one of the lists I sometimes fill in to remind myself 'things to do', or in this case, 'books to read'. The title stayed abandoned in my list for some months, until no long ago, a friend sent me the link to Chimamanda's talk on TED, " The danger of a single story ". I literally stayed attached to my laptop' screen until the very last sentence. She enchanted me! The next day I ordered the book in the original language (even though it has been translated in Italian too).  Only few weeks ago, a good friend of mine from New York (another amazing woman) posted Chimamanda's recent talk on TED, "We should all be feminists". Once again I stayed attached to the laptop's screen. Once again, enchanted! ...

  New entry amongst the national pavilions at the coming Venice Biennale is the Pavilion of the Republic of Angola. Luanda, Encyclopedic City presents works of young artist Edson Chagas . Curated by  Paula Nascimento and Stefano Rabolli Pansera (Beyond Entropy Ltd) As the press release states: The Encyclopedic Palace has been given an impossible task: no building can contain a universal multiplicity of spaces, possibilities, and objects. When a building tends towards the encyclopedic, it becomes a city. The city includes multiple conditions in the coherence of form— even though this is an urban, conflict-ridden form. Edson Chagas focuses on the complexity of Angola’s capital, Luanda, which derives from the presence of unpredictable spaces and the coexistence of irreconcilable programs: city and country, infrastructure and habitations, garbage tips and public spaces. Luanda is an encyclopedic city. How can the knowledge of a city be organized through the taxon...

Add caption Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, "Lumumba," 2010. Aluminium print, 125x80cm. Courtesy the artist. United States of Africa an exhibition by artist Mansour Ciss Kanakassy @   Raw Material Company , center for art, knowledge and society (Dakar, Senegal). September 21 – December 31, 2011