Eight episodes exploring African experiences of unprecedented environmental and social change
What is the Anthropocene?
An Introduction (17 minutes)
What is the Anthropocene?
An Introduction (18 minutes)
Across the continent, Africans are caught in the many crossfires of the current moment; the outcomes of planetary forces that render immeasurable devastation on ecological, economic, social and political fronts. Yet, against these planetary forces and attendant narratives that offer frames primarily of our subjection, Africans remain and respond as planetary actors.
From our own soils, in this series explainer we ask: ‘What is the Anthropocene?’ In the vast majority of global debates about this term, our continent is often offstaged, with no substantive reflection on, riffing off Kathryn Yusoff, the “geology [African] bodies live."
The voices offered in this episode offer many important and overlapping reflections on this ‘geology.’ For some, the Anthropocene signals how the “white western world” is finally catching up with what has long been said by indigenous peoples. For others, the extinctions of the Anthropocene are already manifest through poverty, pollution, hunger, transphobia, state-sanctioned evictions, colonialism, and the long histories and wakes of enslavement.
Despite this ongoing harm, what threads these reflections together, in this episode and in the series broadly, is a determination to survive.
Without a doubt, while navigating the trenchant violences of the local and global forces that scaffold this age, Africans are holding fast while offering challenges to this, the age of the Anthropocene.
Executive Producer Wangui Kimari Creative Director Jim Chuchu Producer Njeri Gitungo Research Lead Brock Hicks Project Communications Cynthia Kemunto Edit, Scoring and Finish Jim Chuchu
Material and Memory
African Artists in the Anthropocene (25 minutes)
Material and Memory
African Artists in the Anthropocene (25 minutes)
The artists featured in this episode describe art as a critical medium to grapple with, witness and archive the present and imagined futures. Hustling to make ends meet and under pressure to commercialise their art, they explore complex and changing identities, make trouble, heal wounds and chronicle the everyday lives of Africans across the continent.
Contending with both traditions under attack and inevitable change, they remind us that without art, our stories, histories, and ways of life may be erased.
And, in a message to future generations, they testify that we were more than war and destruction, that we found and made beauty too.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Featuring Abdinasir Abdikadir "4C"Mohamed (Somalia) / Dean Hutton (South Africa) / Imed "Apollon" Bekkair (Algeria) / Imiangaly Randrianomanana (Madagascar) / Paul Bert "Rossy" Rahasimanana (Madagascar) / Roselyn Dzanja (Malawi) / Sharmila Elias (Malawi)
Executive Producer Wangui Kimari Creative Director Jim Chuchu Producer Njeri Gitungo Research Lead Brock Hicks Project Communications Cynthia Kemunto Post Production Africa Post Office (APO) Post Production Supervisor Carole Kinyua Editor Winnie Ndirangu
On the Margins
Disability and Climate Change in Kenya (17 minutes)
On the Margins
Disability and Climate Change in Kenya (17 minutes)
Due to physical limitations, communication barriers, and vulnerable support systems, Africans with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by the Anthropocene’s devastations. Stemming from far-ranging environmental, political and social upheavals, these impacts show up in acute and intimate ways in disabled people’s lives, often intersecting with multiple other vulnerabilities.
From the struggle to get to work or school, to social stigmas exacerbated by environmental crises, the Anthropocene presents unique and compounding challenges for differently-abled people.
Speaking from rural villages and booming cities, our protagonists in this episode describe how different disabilities present unique needs while revealing broader systemic issues that affect everyone.
They also tell us that disability is not a defect. Instead, they insist that to adapt to the Anthropocene requires intentional inclusion and the merging of all talents.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Featuring Monica Waithera Njau / Peter Muraya / Dr. Alice Gathoni / Phylis Muthoni
Executive Producer Wangui Kimari Creative Director Jim Chuchu Producer Njeri Gitungo Research Lead Brock Hicks Project Communications Cynthia Kemunto Post Production Africa Post Office (APO) Post Production Supervisor Carole Kinyua Editor Gloria Ndiritu