Chief Boima’s new album is right up my alley — after years in Africa, and now finding myself bouncing back and forth and spending more and more time in New York, the strong urban beats remixed with traditional African tunes sounds wonderfully funky and familiar, yet new and engaging. Give a listen! And check out his show at the Zebulon in Williamsburg on January 31. 

Chief Boima f. Sorie Kondi, “Without Money, No Family” by The FADER

Glenna Gordon (the photographer) context in this article is so bias and subjective. Of course, as a non Liberian, you would expect a more objective view, but as a Liberian, we can clearly see who she sides with and with whom she hangs out… We, Liberians need to tell it in our own voices, our way, or else this is all one outsider’s opinion after another.

Of course he’s right. But the point he misses is that I’ve never claimed objectivity. Oppositely — I think of my work as deeply personal and very influenced by my own thoughts, experiences, and relationships in Liberia. While many forms of journalism and story telling are personal, I’m more and more conscious of the role this plays in my own work. The photos I take are the photos I choose to take, and two photographers in the same situation will come back with two very different sets of images for that very reason.

A few weeks ago I had a half-formed idea that I tumblr’ed (since what is Tumblr for if not half formed thoughts?):

I’ve spent the better part of the past three years working as a photographer in Liberia. Writing this with my laptop perched on my knees as the C train rattles along from Brooklyn to Manhattan, I’m sad to be missing the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the beginning of the next chapter for Liberia. But I couldn’t be more thrilled to have my work up on Time’s photoblog LightBox. Please stop by and take a look, and see more images from Liberia on my website, and, below, some thoughts on my work and time in Liberia.

“Steal from steal, make God laf.”

A thief who steals from another thief makes God laugh.

Liberia’s civil war ended nearly a decade ago and the country is, at least nominally, peaceful. Some things are getting better for some people.

But after so many years of conflict, no one makes plans for the future.

I first visited Liberia in January 2009, and since then, signs of progress assure donors and investors that their money is well spent. A couple of times a year, the government and businesses put a fresh coat of paint over all the buildings along the main roads. They paint over the mold and the wet, but in the soupy tropical air, the quick coating won’t keep the walls clean.

Freed American slaves came to Liberia in the 1820s. They called themselves the Americos. They wore top hats and hoop skirts despite the hot West African sun. They brought antebellum inequality with them, but this time, they were in charge. The indigenous people of Liberia became second-class citizens in their own country. More than a hundred years of grievances led to a coup and political unrest in the 1980s, followed by a civil war that lasted fourteen years, displaced a third of the country and left 200,000 dead. In a country of just three million people, no one was untouched.

The past will always out; fixing the surface doesn’t fix the problem. In my work, I seek traces of war wounds – psychological and physical – and examine the devices improvised to hide the hurt and embrace the present. I seek out signs of a time before the conflict, where a romanticized past is still visible. I try to understand what it means to live today without thoughts of tomorrow.

From the LagosPhoto blog:

Noor Photographer Stanley Greene will honour us at African Artists’ Foundation with a visit THIS January! 

He will offer a 3-day workshop FREE to serious minded photographers interested in photo-documentary.  Tentative dates for the workshops are:  7th /8th January and  the lecture on the evening of the 9th Q/A.  

Take advantage of this unimaginably rare and unique opportunity.

Email: contact@africanartists.org  if you are interested in participating in this workshop.

To preview his work:   http://www.noorimages.com/newsblog/singleview/article/black-passport/

(c) Stanley Greene

Liberia-Ivory Coast border at Buutuo. February 2011. 

I’m starting the new year by looking at old work. The images that catch my eye are different now than they were before. This, I suppose, is photographic growth. Sometimes I wonder what the other side will look like.

HT to Bombastic Element.

Also, I’m tumblring these days. See it here. 

And a new year filled with growth and light.

This Nando’s advert, which is no longer being broadcast, has already been done the rounds on the internetz but I couldn’t resist reposting it here. My favorite part is Mugabe and Idi Amin doing the Titanic move on a tank. Which scene is your favorite?? Does anyone find this offensive? Or is it just funny?

See this photo and others in the Foreign Policy photo compilation Once Upon a Time in Mogadishu.