AFRO-PORTRAITISM: EXHIBITION

Art by Nxsh (Instagram: @nxsh), Afro-portraitism April, 2017

Hey Guys, Steph here again. A couple weeks ago I went for this exhibition at the Republic Gallery in East London and it was a one of kind exhibition. Artist, Designer and Curator, Hamed Maiye ( Instagram: @mai_ye) coined the term, "Afro-portraitism" for an art movement that captures black people in their various identities. It's a movement for black people by black people *cues F.U.B.U.* Maiye also happened to curate this exhibition which he also his work in and as you can imagine it was called "Afro-portraitism". It was an incredibly inspiring show with amazing energy in the gallery space and the works on display felt very introspective and self-reflective.

MENTAL HEALTH IN FILM.

Kirtsen Dunst, Melancholia 2011, Lars Von Trier

Hey guys, Steph here. So in light of being in a very rocky place with my mental health, I've decided to look a little into the representation of mental health in films. I'm trying to break this into two extremes but I don't think my examples are extreme enough. But personally speaking, up until about 2015 films and media in general shaped my ideas of what being mentally ill meant so my ideas of mentally ill people were either people who were criminally insane or people who were suicidal, which while yes both are true it's not all that's there. I'll be giving examples of films that shaped the aforementioned mindset and ones along with a lot of memes that reshaped my thinking. Oh and happy Mental Health Awareness month, isn't May awesome? (p.s. my birthday is on Wednesday so send gifts :*).

BROODING BOYZ

Hi all, Steph here. So a while ago I promised (debatable) y'all a review of one of my fav films Moonlight (dir. by Barry Jenkins) buttttttt, uni has got your girl down so I don't have time to do a detailed and proper review. If you didn't know already, a lot of the themes present in Moonlight revolve around black male intimacy, masculinity and sexuality. So while you wait I'd like to share a couple other artists in the mix that recapture the image of black men in contrast to the stereotypical representation we usually get.



1) IGGYLDN "BLACK BOYS DONT CRY":
IGGYLDN is a spoken word artist who came together with a creative collective to create visuals to his piece titled, "Black Boys Don't Cry", which as you can imagine from the title addresses the masculinity ideals attached to being a black man. watch below.

GTK (LONG DISTANCE): TOBELLIOT

Hey, guys! Steph here. Eme and I are excited to introduce a new sub-section to our interview category "Get To Know". This new sub is called "Long Distance", here we will interview some of our fav artists that we are not able to contact in person, via facetime or skype so that we can still delve into their minds! I mean it's the 21st century so why the blip not.

Our first interviewee is the illustrator, Tobelliot who currently lives in Massachusetts, USA. I sat down with him we had a lovely virtual conversation about his art, movies, life and sushi I hope you enjoy this. Disclaimer: Strong language is used *a lot*.