A Moment in Time
Thoughts from Anja & Jumbe Sebunya
As we are in the midst of elections in our adopted homeland, the one we started thinking of adopting back in 2007 largely for its aspirational values that seemed to come alive with the then presidential candidate Barack Obama, there is much to reflect on. For real, we started our journey to citizenship in the heady months after President Obama’s election in his first term in office, and well before it all started turning sour - albeit ever so subtly. The slow transformation or rather the exposure of many of the toxic faultlines in our country’s history has been hard to watch and it has meant a readjustment of how we have lived life up to this point. We have had the enormous privilege of living in so many interesting and amazing places and have made (full disclosure here) complete use of the luxury of not actually being from there (wherever ‘there’ happened to be) and therefore using a state of impermanence for peace of mind. Now we are here and to stay in Atlanta and that requires a whole different mindset. Growing aKAZI to potentially place it as a viable entity in the creative landscape of Atlanta has forced that engagement and investment big time. We are thankful for the opportunity and the partnerships and friendships - without which we might have upped and ran.
No one needs another rehash of the years since the 2016 election, but one heartening aspect is the coalescing of resistance locally, nationally, and even globally. For example, the global African Diaspora has really come together expressing its local take on social injustice and cultural hegemonies in Europe, North and South America, Asia, really everywhere. It is particularly amusing and ironic to watch European elites attempt to pityingly dismiss the possibility of racism in their cities while watching the protests unfold in cities across the United States. Black people in their cities responded loud and clear, hell no, you do NOT get to say that!
There are so many variations of black lives across the globe and while there are many common threads that unite, there are also many variations. From aKAZIATL’s perspective, what is the most exciting about these past couple of months, is the sense of curiosity and wonderment being expressed globally about black lives and not only by black people about each other but also by the white dominant culture and its gatekeepers to their shrines of excellence which were hitherto largely reserved for the output of white male creatives.
Speaking of gatekeepers, aKAZI is so thrilled about the appointment of our friend Ellen Tate Baeza as the Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art at Atlanta’s High Museum. The High Museum, under the curatorship of Carole Thompson, had already undertaken the huge step of moving the African collections from a cramped basement space, where displays were crammed and uninteresting, to the skywalk galleries where the treasures are given space to breathe and communicate across the many represented cultures. What was missing was a strong connection to the city of Atlanta and its inhabitants and that hugely significant pool of creativity. Ellen, as an Atlanta native, but one who has wandered and learned across the Diaspora will tie that knot into an explosive and dynamic partnership between the ancient, the recent, and the next, bringing to life Martin Luther King II eternal words: ‘If not us, then who? If not now, then when?’
Similar things are playing out in the realm of literature. I wish I could remember who said it, but someone said, “I absolutely cannot read another tome about watching icicles form on bare trees, feeling desolate gazes emanating from small houses and circumspect lives being lived in boring and homogenous towns across the US - for example. I am sure they said it much more eloquently, but you get the drift, enough already of all that angst about nothing, actually.
Bernadine Evaristo’s Booker prize-winning novel, Girl, Woman, Other is a case in point. Her work explodes across the page, shattering not only that monolith entitled 'black woman’ but also grammar, syntax, and presentation. Her human and typed characters defy description. They are multifaceted and each encapsulates entire universes in themselves. The thread connecting all these lives is expertly woven across times and settings and is clearly ‘Othering.’ Each of these black lives is Othered by its surroundings. This process results in tragedies, accommodations, and the inevitable compromises.
But each of these characters seems to draw from a rich deposit of what can almost be described as sediment from prior lives and ancestors. Perhaps this is what the diaspora means: it feeds from its deep and in common rooted histories, digests them in novel and often hostile settings, and then fuses something incredibly powerful and absolutely innovative from this cauldron.
The creative output which comes from the encounter of peoples across the diaspora can be seen in the recent hosting by Burna Boy of an episode on Apple Music’s EBRO Show. He entitled it Miseducation and begins the episode unpicking the theme i.e black people having been deliberately miseducated for gain by dominant cultures. He kicks off the music selection with the Africa Must Wake Up track put together by Damien and NAS on their Distant Relatives tour dating back to 2010 long before this current moment of accelerated and leveraged encounter. He speaks to US iconic artist Diddy who expresses genuine admiration, curiosity, and interest in lives on the African continent. Together they draw connections from the ‘End SARS’ protests to the BLM ones that exploded across cities in the US. They speak life into movements across continents all of which center ‘blackness.’ Also Burna uses this platform to invite Afrobeats stars that share a bright vision for the African continent.
Encountering this kind of creative output makes us think that things have shifted permanently during these last years of ongoing and grinding down crisis in so many places across the globe. At the very least there is an awakening and looking back into essential expressions of human endeavor that have worked and somehow telescope them into the future.
For that reason of looking into the past, aKAZIATL’s location smack in the middle of the historic Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta is not happenstance but was a deliberate attempt to engage in something that represented the best of the city of Atlanta. Sweet Auburn spelled promise, livelihood, and innovation - all the while scaffolding a future for peoples and communities with agency.
It will do it again and aKAZI is proud to be situated in this historic place. We look forward to contributing context and perspective to further nuanced understanding of the African continent and its diaspora right here in Sweet Auburn and beyond. We are so very grateful to the Historic District Development Corporation, its vision for Auburn Avenue, and its generosity in providing a home for aKAZIATL.
Schedule a visit or call 404-574-0120 and pop in. We would love to get to know you, share our vision, and talk about what’s what!