Yasser Booley, Cape Town
In the last few weeks, the genocide in Gaza has been framed as a problem of starvation. From global leaders to social media influencers to celebrities, everyone seems to have woken up to ‘what is happening in Gaza.’ And for some reason the word ‘starvation’ seems easier to say than genocide. Though the Israeli government continues to deny Western media access to Gaza, in the last few weeks mainstream publications that have worked painstakingly hard to ignore the genocide and to parrot Israeli...
In the last few weeks, the genocide in Gaza has been framed as a problem of starvation. From global leaders to social media influencers to celebrities, everyone seems to have woken up to ‘what is happening in Gaza.’ And for some reason the word ‘starvation’ seems easier to say than...
‘Legacy’ is the theme of this year’s Afrovibes Festival in the Netherlands. In an era marked by war, famine, forced displacement, and climate change, what can still anchor our faith, stability, and trust? Have we truly learned from the turbulences of the past, and what legacy are we leaving for the generations to come? At the upcoming 232nd edition of the annual Afrovibes Festival, performances capture the intensity of the current zeitgeist as experienced from Africa. Once again, the festival...
‘Legacy’ is the theme of this year’s Afrovibes Festival in the Netherlands. In an era marked by war, famine, forced displacement, and climate change, what can still anchor our faith, stability, and trust? Have we truly learned from the turbulences of the past, and what legacy are we...
The Glitching the Future Digital Toolkit is a practical guide for decolonising technology and exploring future-building practices. Inspired by The Artist’s Way , it offers daily and weekly rituals that combine Afrofeminist imagination, and spiritual code, helping users engage with tech intentionally, creatively, and critically. This toolkit is designed to be accessible to anyone — all that’s needed is curiosity, a notebook, and a willingness to glitch. Consider it a living resource for...
The Glitching the Future Digital Toolkit is a practical guide for decolonising technology and exploring future-building practices. Inspired by The Artist’s Way , it offers daily and weekly rituals that combine Afrofeminist imagination, and spiritual code, helping users engage with...
Just days after being named the 2025 FNB Art Prize winner, Thato Toeba was already back in Amsterdam, where they are currently based, while I am based in Johannesburg, making our conversation a warm and playful call across continents. Born in 1990 in Maseru, Lesotho, Toeba is an artist, researcher, and lawyer whose work spans collage, photomontage, and mixed-media assemblage. Even online, Toeba’s humour and generosity shone through. when reflecting on the quiet evolution of their visual language,...
Just days after being named the 2025 FNB Art Prize winner, Thato Toeba was already back in Amsterdam, where they are currently based, while I am based in Johannesburg, making our conversation a warm and playful call across continents. Born in 1990 in Maseru, Lesotho, Toeba is an...
Manono’s lithium millionaires While numerous reports expose how multinationals have acquired natural resources cheaply, polluted communities, and exploited workers, the role of influential African political elites in facilitating these practices has received far less scrutiny. The DRC chapter of ZAM’s new transnational investigation into Africa’s Sell-Outs documents a partnership between politically connected Congolese actors and a group of foreign businessmen, to the detriment of a mining...
Manono’s lithium millionaires While numerous reports expose how multinationals have acquired natural resources cheaply, polluted communities, and exploited workers, the role of influential African political elites in facilitating these practices has received far less scrutiny. The...
On 18 July, (coincidentally the birthday of Nelson Mandela), a landmark case was filed before the East African Court of Justice by Ugandan Agather Atuhaire, -a member of ZAM’s partner Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors (NAIRE)- and Kenyan human rights defender Boniface Mwangi, together with seven regional and international civil society and legal bar organisations. Their targets are the Tanzanian authorities who oversaw Atuhaire’s and Mwangi’s kidnapping and torture lasting four...
On 18 July, (coincidentally the birthday of Nelson Mandela), a landmark case was filed before the East African Court of Justice by Ugandan Agather Atuhaire, -a member of ZAM’s partner Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors (NAIRE)- and Kenyan human rights defender...
Camissa Create, a performance art company specialising in heritage and historical narratives, will present the story of South Africa’s First Peoples during Heritage Weekend at Artscape in Cape Town. The Camissa Heritage Tour retraces South Africa’s colonial history and its enduring ties with the Netherlands. It tells the story of the country’s First Peoples—the Indigenous San and Khoi communities—who lived on this land for millennia. These communities resisted the settlers’ incursions and refused...
Camissa Create, a performance art company specialising in heritage and historical narratives, will present the story of South Africa’s First Peoples during Heritage Weekend at Artscape in Cape Town. The Camissa Heritage Tour retraces South Africa’s colonial history and its enduring...
Skin syndicates harm rural families and pay politicians — but good civil servants are fighting back Rural families in northeastern Ghana and parts of the Sahel have been losing vital farm donkeys—essential for ploughing and transporting crops—to a syndicate that kills the animals for their skins. The primary victims are peasants, often single women and widows, who manage small farms to support their families. Together with civil society organisations, committed state officials have made progress in...
Skin syndicates harm rural families and pay politicians — but good civil servants are fighting back Rural families in northeastern Ghana and parts of the Sahel have been losing vital farm donkeys—essential for ploughing and transporting crops—to a syndicate that kills the animals...
Much has been written about the recent, scandalous reception of four West African leaders by Donald Trump. Telling the Liberian President, as Trump did, that his “English is beautiful” was deeply embarrassing—but not only for Trump. That Trump seemed unaware of Liberia’s existence, let alone that English is the mother tongue in this nation founded by freed slaves, is hardly surprising. What is shocking, however, is that Liberia’s President, Joseph Nyuma Boakai, silently endured the humiliation...
Much has been written about the recent, scandalous reception of four West African leaders by Donald Trump. Telling the Liberian President, as Trump did, that his “English is beautiful” was deeply embarrassing—but not only for Trump. That Trump seemed unaware of Liberia’s existence,...
Nigerians suffer as military expenditure rises Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten per cent of total expenditure. By contrast, health receives slightly less than five per cent, while the social investment budget, at under one per cent, lags even further behind. Yet despite more than a decade of steadily increasing security spending, the country’s persistent threats from terrorism, banditry, and other forms of criminality show...
Nigerians suffer as military expenditure rises Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten per cent of total expenditure. By contrast, health receives slightly less than five per cent, while the social investment budget,...
The New York mayoral candidate was once a singer in a Ugandan band. Imagine this: A Muslim. Thirty-three years old. Born in Uganda, raised in South Africa and the United States. The son of a renowned scientist and an Oscar-winning mother. A graduate in African Studies. An advocate for social justice. An ally of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. A supporter of equal rights for LGBTIQ+ communities. A champion of solidarity with migrants. His name: Zohran Kwame Mamdani. And he stands a...
The New York mayoral candidate was once a singer in a Ugandan band. Imagine this: A Muslim. Thirty-three years old. Born in Uganda, raised in South Africa and the United States. The son of a renowned scientist and an Oscar-winning mother. A graduate in African Studies. An advocate...
The sonic migration moves of Mo Laudi Between the African continent and Europe stretches more than distance—there’s a charged field of echoes, migrations, and imagination. Globalisto: A Philosophy in Flux – Acts of an Imbizo was a landmark exhibition curated by Mo Laudi (Ntshepe Tsekere Bopape), held from 25 June to 16 October 2022 at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole (MAMC+), France. It convened 17 artists from Africa and its diaspora, alongside researchers and...
The sonic migration moves of Mo Laudi Between the African continent and Europe stretches more than distance—there’s a charged field of echoes, migrations, and imagination. Globalisto: A Philosophy in Flux – Acts of an Imbizo was a landmark exhibition curated by Mo Laudi (Ntshepe...
In a world where algorithms track our every move and digital platforms define what is seen and valued, it’s easy to feel like the future is already decided. But Glitching the Future reminds us that the code isn’t closed and the future isn’t fixed. A bold collaboration between ZAM Magazine (Netherlands) and Bubblegum Club (South Africa), Glitching the Future is a creative movement that challenges the dominance of Big Tech through art, design, research, and cultural production. It doesn’t try to...
In a world where algorithms track our every move and digital platforms define what is seen and valued, it’s easy to feel like the future is already decided. But Glitching the Future reminds us that the code isn’t closed and the future isn’t fixed. A bold collaboration between ZAM...
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Glitching the Future microsite: a digital home for the movement that’s reimagining Big Tech through art, design, research, and resistance. This site is more than just a showcase. It’s a toolkit for disruption . Inside, you’ll find a growing collection of creative contributions, from dance pieces and essays to makeup tutorials and sound works, each offering a different way of resisting systems of exclusion, control, and erasure. Built to be open,...
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Glitching the Future microsite: a digital home for the movement that’s reimagining Big Tech through art, design, research, and resistance. This site is more than just a showcase. It’s a toolkit for disruption . Inside, you’ll find a...
We’re stuck in a loop where platforms prioritize profit over people, where algorithms amplify inequality, and where digital futures are imagined only by the powerful. The Glitching the Future manifesto video is a creative rebellion. A declaration that we don’t want better representation inside broken systems; we want to build new ones . This manifesto lays down the foundation for a digital reality where care and justice replace control and profit. Where the glitch isn’t a mistake; it’s the method....
We’re stuck in a loop where platforms prioritize profit over people, where algorithms amplify inequality, and where digital futures are imagined only by the powerful. The Glitching the Future manifesto video is a creative rebellion. A declaration that we don’t want better...
To reimagine the future of tech, we need radical voices that don’t just critique systems but offer bold, creative alternatives. We’ve highlighted three of the many contributors who are doing exactly that through movement, makeup, and critical writing.These profiles show how creativity is a tool for change, and how every glitch, no matter the medium, helps rewrite what is possible. Each contribution embodies a different mode of glitching, disrupting the default, imagining new paths and helping build...
To reimagine the future of tech, we need radical voices that don’t just critique systems but offer bold, creative alternatives. We’ve highlighted three of the many contributors who are doing exactly that through movement, makeup, and critical writing.These profiles show how...
Glitching the Future is a collaborative initiative between Bubblegum Club in Johannesburg and ZAM Magazine in Amsterdam), two platforms committed to cultural production that is rooted in social justice, creative innovation, and radical imagination, particularly as it pertains to the African continent and its diaspora.. The partnership was born out of a shared recognition that digital systems—particularly those shaped by Big Tech—are not neutral. They reflect and reinforce the inequalities of the...
Glitching the Future is a collaborative initiative between Bubblegum Club in Johannesburg and ZAM Magazine in Amsterdam), two platforms committed to cultural production that is rooted in social justice, creative innovation, and radical imagination, particularly as it pertains to the...
Fighting the businessmen who erode the wetlands “This water cannot be for sale” While many reports expose how multinationals have acquired natural wealth cheaply, polluted communities, and exploited workers, the role of powerful African political elites in enabling these practices has received far less attention. The Gambia's chapter of ZAM’s new transnational investigation into Africa’s Sell-Outs documents the selling off of crucial wetlands to well-connected businessmen. The Tanbi Wetlands in...
Fighting the businessmen who erode the wetlands “This water cannot be for sale” While many reports expose how multinationals have acquired natural wealth cheaply, polluted communities, and exploited workers, the role of powerful African political elites in enabling these practices...
Meditations on death, grief and healing in Kenya and the Netherlands. I know—I belong to a generation obsessed with graves. Their permanence has become our language of love, our way of asserting legacy and resisting the ephemeral nature of life. After a long absence, the first ritual of returning home—before embracing eager relatives or sitting down to lunch—is to ask: "Where are their graves?" It is customary to stand by the graves of those whose funerals you couldn't attend, to finally offer your...
Meditations on death, grief and healing in Kenya and the Netherlands. I know—I belong to a generation obsessed with graves. Their permanence has become our language of love, our way of asserting legacy and resisting the ephemeral nature of life. After a long absence, the first...
The Amsterdam-based No Man’s Art Gallery presents the third solo exhibition of the South African artist and cultural worker. Nxedlana’s practice examines the material and symbolic embodiment of the Black figure within fashion photography. Grounded in Afrosurrealism, his imagery engages themes of race, identity, popular culture, and mass production. He has exhibited internationally across galleries, institutions, and independent spaces. Recent exhibitions include SPECTRUM (2023), his second solo...
The Amsterdam-based No Man’s Art Gallery presents the third solo exhibition of the South African artist and cultural worker. Nxedlana’s practice examines the material and symbolic embodiment of the Black figure within fashion photography. Grounded in Afrosurrealism, his imagery...
Op-Ed | On Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s Glamourised Militarism and Africa’s Elusive Quest for Liberation
Burkina Faso’s military ruler is not a radical economic liberator; his so-called “populist anti-Western nativism” is a smokescreen to conceal the suppression of activists, journalists, and queer people, argues Rosebell Kagumire. On a recent flight to Dakar, a cabin crew member from an African airline warmly greeted a Burkinabè passport holder ahead of me: “Welcome and greetings to Captain Traoré! We love him.” The passenger smiled and quietly took their seat, declining to return the fanfare. Such...
Burkina Faso’s military ruler is not a radical economic liberator; his so-called “populist anti-Western nativism” is a smokescreen to conceal the suppression of activists, journalists, and queer people, argues Rosebell Kagumire. On a recent flight to Dakar, a cabin crew member from...
