Central African Republic: forgotten crisis

The UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency has posted this video about the Central African Republic - known as 'Centrafrique'. I spent 3 months there in 2014 and worked a lot about the country in 2013/15. 

But very little has changed. 

For me, it triggered a lot of decisions and changes. Firstly, to detach from news. Secondly, the focus on art and music. Thirdly to focus on writing. 

Let's not forget they need our help... 

La République centrafricaine est l'une des crises humanitaires les plus oubliées au monde.

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I'll share a few stories about the people of this country on my Facebook page, and here in a few weeks.

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Links to my communication work for the World Food Programme in C.A.R. in 2014:

Displaced Muslims Struggle To Keep Going In Northern Town

https://reliefweb.int/report/central-african-republic/displaced-muslims-struggle-keep-going-northern-town

In pictures: http://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.com/2014/03/bossangoa-muslim-community-only-1000.html

Children Hit Hardest By Hunger Crisis In C.A.R.

https://reliefweb.int/report/central-african-republic/children-hit-hardest-hunger-crisis-car

Insight into Boda

http://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.com/2014/05/central-african-republic-insight-into.html

Boda La Belle

http://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.com/2014/05/boda-la-belle.html

Massive Attack partner with University of Manchester to find how to reduce the climate impact of the music industry

28 November 2019

Massive Attack partner with University of Manchester to explore music industry climate impact

Bristol-based band Massive Attack are partnering with climate scientists at The University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre to jointly examine the key impact areas of the music industry on the environment.

Massive Attack released a collective statement which said: “For some time, despite taking consistent steps to reduce the environmental impact associated with an internationally touring music group, we’ve been concerned and preoccupied with the carbon footprint of our schedules and the wider impact of our sector overall. This concern has deepened with each new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the universal acceptance of the climate & biodiversity emergency."

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Read the whole statement on The Guardian: 

'We’ve toured the world for years. To help save the planet we’ll have to change'

Massive Attack

Photograph: Babycakes Romero

The music industry has had a big carbon impact. As a band working with climate experts, we’re going to try to minimise ours

• This article was written by musician Robert Del Naja on behalf of Massive Attack

The imprinting of climate emergency into the public consciousness, achieved by the school strikes and mass activist arrests, seems to have generated more introspection than positive action. The debate around personal sacrifice, hypocrisy and lifestyle change is playing at high volume and, as recently highlighted by the climate expert Michael Mann, this presents a danger that popular demand for catastrophe-avoiding systemic change could get lost in the mix.

This debate is just as alive (and equally confused) within the music industry. Headline emphasis is often placed on issues such as single-use plastics or band travel by air. Important as those things are, evidence shows that factors such as audience transportation and venue power account for as much as 93% of all the CO₂ emissions generated by major music events.

As a band that has toured globally for several years, we’ve had cause to reflect on this. Concerns over our own carbon impact and those of our wider industry aren’t new to us, but the urgency is.

Last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” and said carbon emissions were harmful, regardless of the fun had in their generation. In other words, what goes on tour doesn’t stay on tour.

We’ve taken unilateral steps for nearly two decades – like many bands, we’ve paid to have trees planted, prohibited the use of single-use plastics and travelled by train wherever feasible. We have explored advanced carbon offset models, but in researching these programmes serious issues arose.

First, the concept of offsetting creates an illusion that high-carbon activities enjoyed by wealthier individuals can continue, by transferring the burden of action and sacrifice to others – generally those in the poorer nations in the southern hemisphere. Evidence suggests that offset programmes can wreak serious havoc for the often voiceless indigenous and rural communities who have done the least to create the problem.

Ultimately, carbon offsetting transfers emissions from one place to another rather than reducing them. The European commission has warned that 85% of projects were unlikely to deliver “real” or “measurable” reductions, while the UN environment programme recently stated that offsetting cannot be used by polluters “as a free pass for inaction”. 

We’ve also discussed ending touring altogether – an important option that deserves consideration. In reality, however, an entire international roster of acts would need to stop touring to achieve the required impact. In a major employment industry with hundreds of acts, this isn’t about to happen. Any unilateral actions we take now would prove futile unless our industry moves together, and to create systemic change there is no real alternative to collective action.

So today we’re announcing the commissioning of the renowned Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to map the full carbon footprint of typical tour cycles, and to look specifically at the three key areas where CO₂ emissions in our sector are generated: band travel and production, audience transport and venue. The resulting roadmap to decarbonisation will be shared with other touring acts, promoters and festival/venue owners to assist swift and significant emissions reductions.

The stark reality is that failure to do so could mean matters are taken out of our hands. In recent months, (thanks in no small part to those strikes and those arrests) 245 local authorities across the UK have declared a climate emergency, with 149 setting targets of zero emissions by 2030 or earlier. In the festival sector alone, this number includes the licensing authorities for each of the five best-attended UK outdoor events: Glastonbury, Download, Reading/Leeds, V Festivals and Creamfields. Their event plans will now inevitably include mandatory rules on carbon emissions, and so the likelihood of licences being granted without emissions being dramatically and continually reduced is slim.

Given the current polarised social atmosphere, uplifting and unifying cultural events are arguably more important now than ever, and no one would want to see them postponed or even cancelled. The challenge therefore is to avoid more pledges, promises and greenwashing headlines and instead embrace seismic change.

The report produced by the Tyndall Centre will not provide a panacea, and we know implementation of its findings will require significant change for us and our colleagues across the industry who are as keen as we are to create change. But in an emergency context, business as usual – regardless of its nature, high profile or popularity – is unacceptable.

Link to the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/28/tour-world-massive-attack-band-climate

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Collaboration on research

The scientists and band will collaborate on a new project to obtain and analyse data from the Massive Attack touring schedule with an aim to providing information and guidance to the wider music industry to reduce negative environmental impact in the midst of the increasing climate emergency.

Dr Chris Jones, Research Fellow at Tyndall Manchester, said: “We will be working with Massive Attack to look at sources of carbon emissions from a band’s touring schedule. Every industry has varying degrees of carbon impact to address and we need partnerships like this one to look at reducing carbon emissions across the board. It's more effective to have a sustained process of emissions reductions across the sector than for individual artists quit live performances. It will likely mean a major shift in how things are done now, involving not just the band but the rest of the business and the audience.”

The band added: “Any unilateral statement or protest we make alone as one band will not make a meaningful difference. In pursuing systemic change, there is no substitute for collective action. In contribution to this action, we’re announcing the commission of the renowned Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at The University of Manchester – a body that brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists to research options to mitigate Global Warming – to map thoroughly the carbon footprint of band tour cycles, and to present options that can be implemented quickly to begin a meaningful reduction of impact.”

The collaboration will produce a framework based on gathered data over Massive Attack’s forthcoming tour based on; band travel and production, audience transportation and venue impact. Following Glastonbury Festival’s commitment to going single use plastic free in 2019 a wider conversation is growing within the industry. It is hoped this academic-led cohesive approach will yield further step change in addressing the current climate and biodiversity crisis.

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Source: the university's website: https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/massive-attack-partner-with-university-of-manchester-to-explore-music-industry-climate-impact/ 

Women's resistance: a playlist

For 'Still I Rise', on top of my writing, I'd like to create a subjective list of incredible female voices that made my struggles less lonely and my life more beautiful.

With immense gratitude.

Aretha Franklin - '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman' [1967]

Billie Holiday - "Strange Fruit" Live 1959

Nina Simone - 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood'

Patti Smith and Joan Baez - 'People Have The Power' 

Miriam Makeba - 'A Luta Continue' (In concert 1980)

Goran Bregović - 'Ederlezi' (Time of the Gypsies, Emir Kusturica)

Lauryn Hill - 'LoseYourself' 

Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry - '7 Seconds'

Fiona Apple - 'Fast As You Can'

Everything but the Girl - Missing (Todd Terry Club Mix Version)

Lhasa - 'Cara a la pared' - Bouffes du Nord, live in Paris

Tori Amos - 'Jackie's Strength' (Live at Letterman, 1998)

PJ Harvey - 'Good Fortune'

Souad Massi - 'Khalouni' 

Orange Blossom - 'Habibi'

Hindi Zahra - Imik Si Mik

E M E L - 'Naci en Palestina'

Sampa The Great - 'Final Form'

'Makes Me Wonder'

New video shared by Tricky: 

'Makes Me Wonder' 

feat. Marta

'Makes Me Wonder'' feat. Marta taken from the 'Test of Time' compilation out now on False Idols.

Order here: https://FalseIdols.lnk.to/TestofTime Dir / Dop / Edit: Mateusz Miszczyński & Jakub Stoszek Steadicam: Krystian Dąbek, Tomek Dobski Make-up: Kamila Dobska Best boy: Mateusz Niedośpiał Colorist: Mateusz Miszczyński

Saturday 30/11, at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol

Dear readers,

I've now been in Bristol for two months, and I can only say the city is a gift that keeps on giving...

I'm also in the middle of my writing residency at the Arnolfini gallery, and this will come first in the form of a tour of the exhibition 'Still I Rise' organised on Saturday 30 November, from 4 to 6pm.

Before my tour, join me to see this film:
SCREENING | EXCORIATE – SOPHIE HOYLE - Arnolfini Sat. 30/11, from 11am @arnolfiniarts

SCREENING | EXCORIATE – SOPHIE HOYLE

Saturday, 30th November 2019, 11:00 to 18:00
Free

Excoriate (2019), explores embodied experiences of chronic illness and attempts to reclaim bodily autonomy from biomedical institutions, while considering different processes of healing. Each Saturday, the Still I Rise screening programme shares a work of video art or film that profiles themes of feminisms, gender, and resistance through the moving image.

The film includes footage shot at the Comfrey Project in Gateshead – a community garden and centre that offers horticultural therapy for refugees and people seeking asylum, and a DIY biohacking lab with queer performance collective Quimera Rosa. Other footage includes drawings onto the artist’s skin, used medical ephemera, and methods for overcoming self-harming behaviours, including compulsive skin picking i.e. Dermatillomania or Excoriation Disorder. The soundtrack is composed of binaural beats including beta and theta waves, used to treat anxiety and trauma and sleep disorders through ‘neuroacoustics’.

Presented by Arnolfini as part of the Still I Rise expanded programme.

Sophie Hoyle is an artist and writer whose practice explores an intersectional approach to post-colonial, queer, feminist, anti-psychiatry and disability issues. Their work looks at the relation of the personal to (and as) political, individual and collective anxieties, and how alliances can be formed where different kinds of inequality and marginalisation intersect. They relate personal experiences of being queer, non-binary and part of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) diaspora to wider forms of structural violence. From lived experience of psychiatric conditions and trauma, or PTSD, they began to explore the history of biomedical technologies rooted in state and military surveillance and control.

Excoriate was originally developed as a multi-channel video installation during The Shape Arts 2019 Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary, hosted by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

Screening in Arnolfini’s Dark Studio, Level 2.

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Photographs by American artist Judy Chicago

I'm very very proud to have been chosen as the new writer-in-residence in the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, this means a lot as a writer and is the perfect outcome for a special and intense journey in the UK... 

My first blog post – that I’ll discuss on 30 November at the Arnolfini – is thought as an introduction to my writing. I'll post it here on Sunday 1st of December.

The other entries will have me discuss these three main issues:

-Feminism for people of colours and community groups who don’t feel included;

-Resistance in the context of convergence: women and men, European people and non-European people need to rethink this world in order to bring change… And art is a wonderful tool to help in achieving this goal;

-The role of fiction in representing resistance and feminist roles/figures.

I’ve discussed with people working at the Arnolfini, others met in the exhibition, people I’ve invited to join me here like Lawrence Hoo...

Resistance to intolerance and feminism are facing new challenges nowadays: counter-resistance, repetitive rise of non-progressive powers, inequalities, and a lack of discussion between the different communities in our cities and nations, in the western world and beyond. 

Having travelled most of my adult life, one thing life has taught me however is that no one has the perfect answer, and that us being forced to live together in multicultural cities like Bristol, Paris, Marseilles, London Nairobi, Miami, New York, Berlin or Lisbon, to name a few I've spent a bit of time in, might be the only way to integrate the best of each civilisation's lessons...

Anyway, as a writer, a reader, a journalist, I strongly believe in the power of stories to address the complexity of our era. And hopefully, these stories will bring some light to these issues, one woman at a time, to deal with the ever-evolving issues of gender, progress and resistance. 

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Painting by Iraqi artist Hayv Kharaman

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TOUR | WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE: MELISSA CHEMAM

Saturday, 30th November 2019, 16:00 to 18:00
Free → Book

Arnolfini Gallery's presentation:

Join our writer-in-residence for a special reading tour of Still I Rise.

We are delighted to have Melissa Chemam working with us as writer-in-residence throughout Still I Rise. On this tour, she will link pieces of writing to a selection of artworks currently exhibited in our galleries.

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Freelance journalist/reporter, radio producer and writer, Melissa Chemam has been presenting her work for print, television and radio since 2004. She has reported for the BBC World Service, Reuters, DW, France 24, and Vox Africa, among others; while her writing has been featured in The Public Art Review, Transfuge Magazine, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Skin Deep, The Bristol Cable, Bristol 24/7, CIRCA Art Magazine, Public Pressure, and The Times Literary Supplement.

Writing is her favoured means of expression, covering literature, the arts, music, but especially social change, migration issues & international politics. Passionate about travel, she has lived in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi, Bangui (in Central African Republic), Bristol, and Paris (where she was born in 1980). She has travelled to more than 14 African countries in the past 10 years, and 40 countries worldwide.

Her first book published, ‘Massive Attack – Out of the Comfort Zone’, on Bristol’s music, art and politics, was released in the UK in March 2019 by Tangent Book.

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More events on the gallery's facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/arnolfiniarts/

And my review of the exhibition here:

https://www.publicpressure.org/the-rise-and-pride-of-feminists-art/?fbclid=IwAR0--SLzNaBkG0YuQQxSJHmEdsqXrn5lxg69DnZjzRaG0Fpn1MP6gMKL7iU

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See you there...