"Mom had this incredible energy. You know science says 'energy cannot be created not destroyed'. The fact that her body has left us doesn't mean she isn't with us. She is everywhere. That's why I got this tattoo: It says 'Death cannot kill'. Though she has left this place, she still continues to teach me a lot". 
'Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional'' says Steffen, walking slowly in the forest of Fisterra, in Galicia, Spain.
A peace activist who once served in the military at Operation Desert Storm, in 1990, he advocates for the human right to water and sanitation for everyone. 
A bridge in Paris... Some dance on it, some watch them, smiling. Some are recording it on their phones, some timidly step forward and leave a little change on the guitar case. Wallace and Youmi continue singing their songs in the best office in the world... 
"This isn't the type of thing you want to talk about" she starts, not really interested in sharing the details, but everyone would point to her door whenever a traveler or a stranger showed up in town.
"I'd take them in and feed them. Prepare their beds and listen to their sufferings. Then they would leave" says Grandma Cane. 
I have met Antonio in the town I was staying at while walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. We were the only two staying in town that night since it is rare to walk the route during that time of the year. He invited me over for the dinner he prepared for himself. When I asked what I drink should bring for dinner he said "I will drink water, you can bring whatever you like for yourself". 
I believe the society is not yet ready for some things. For example when people come close to caress him, the look of love on their faces changes to pitiness. The fact that one is disabled does not mean they cannot understand what's going on around them. I don't blame people for this matter though they need to realize pitying doesn't help at all.'' 
'Life's too short to invent problems... It is quite likely that not everything will be the way we want. Everything that happens to us is actually beautiful. All of it! Sadness. sickness, even losing a loved one is beautiful! Cause we learn from these experiences. 
"It had its difficulties of course. There weren't many toy makers in Portugal around that time to start with. Nor were toys of any importance. Just a toy... Which is not the case for me. They all have names, stories. Now I do the job I love every day. I am happy because I do the thing, I love every day. No pressure, no orders and I see happy faces every day. The people that walk in through these doors are special. Cause they know toys are more than just plastic. 
My grandmother's name was Hayriye. It means 'to be full of goodness, kindness’. People live by their name. Grandma truly did. Maybe she wasn't able to shine in on her own life, but she became the flicker that ignited the candle which became the light for different people. 
I decided to take photos when I understood that the opinions of my family made no sense anymore. But my mum wouldn't allow me, telling me "girls don't take photos". So I did it unbeknownst to her anyway. I had found a spare camera and I used to leave it at home so that my mum would think I left my camera home... 
Paulina Chiziane (Majacaze, 1955) is surely one of the most prominent figures of current Mozambican literature, and not just that. She is an essential reference for the country’s feminist movements, a woman who confronted particularly conflictual aspects of African cultures in her literary works with startling intensity, developing themes that no one else wants to hear or discuss, not in the private sphere, much less in the public or political spheres. These are silenced themes, taboos, especially painful, pending and unresolved subjects, such as the Mozambican civil war, women’s rights in polygamy and black magic. 
Movement is at the core of life, not necessarily space. If it is translated into space, this is done by means of space being perceived as movement. Therefore, we are facing two completely opposing philosophies. From this point of view, the African movement philosophy, the pre-colonial one, is similar to a rationale specific to the digital world, according to which, fundamentally, one seeks to create connectivity, using networks, instead of tracing categories, classifying, establishing hierarchies and limiting movement. 
In Europe and the United States, there is also the specific return to colonial form and nostalgia. In Portugal, I’ve been struck by the visible presence of what are still referred to as the “explorers” or the “discoveries,” rather than “colonizers” and “encounter.” The depiction of African bodies in official art and monuments is often stereotyped, almost degrading. I don’t see this, unfortunately, as an exception but as an example of the new divisions. Universities set a poor example here, with minorities and people of color being systematically underrepresented on both sides of the Atlantic. 
Our duty, as creative people, to paraphrase the late Nina Simone, should always be to reflect the times we live in. We do this also by challenging constructions of history that have and continue to favour the powerful as we fight for the future we want to see and experience in the world, beyond our own physical existences. 
Art’s potential is something that can’t be measured, what the encounter with an artwork can do to a subject, how the freedom trapped in a sculpture, a painting, a statement can influence a singularity and masses cannot be said. That also explains our position: we don’t have any superstitious belief in the immediate political efficacy of our work, this is somehow not our main worry, artworks hopefully survive artists and the time for our work to truly touch people might not even have come yet. Like any artist we work because we need to, it’s our way to stay alive. 
We want a black dyke for president.
We want a person with AIDS for president and we want a trans person for vice president and we want someone with no health insurance and we want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that didn’t have a choice about getting leukemia. We want a latino faggot for president who saw their best friends die in a mass shooting. We want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and we want a candidate who is a part-time hooker. We want a differently abled refugee for president. We want a president with no airconditioning, who has stood in line at the clinic, who stole their last meal and has been unemployed and was sexually harassed and gaybashed and deported. 
It comes to the present time and looks at African struggle fighters – the construction of the sole hero- and the possibilities that the archive should include other partners by featuring their spouses names in the conversation, however, open to other additions and manners in which to author our histories. 
Our original strategy was always to bring African artists to the international stage, which I think is what is missing, and maybe one day we would be very happy to go but I think there are many other places where we can go, which we are trying to do already, for example, workshops for galleries, for artists. I think there’s much more on the educational side of things that we can bring with our knowledge to the continent than having a commercial initiative about sales. 
That same evening, Pedro Coquenão, aka Batida, had a Skype meeting planned with one of the activists to talk about “family stuff.” It obviously didn’t go through– his friend had been arrested. The 40 year-old Angolan-born, Lisboa-raised-and-based musician and creative is also an active voice and mind for an evolved and more equal Angolan society– a facet revealed by Coquenão throughout the years as a radio host in Portugal and a DIY documentary director and a musician, first as DJ Mpula and now as Batida. 
Revolutionary female figures, such as Josina Machel, for example, are represented as saints, without bodily form. For me, Yvone Kane should in a way, be represented like Josina Machel. There is a very chaste side to revolutionaries, as if the women were perfect. Not even in the history books do we find out who they really were.
Face to face
Authors, artwork and happenings under observation
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Authors, artwork and happenings under observation
