Between a committed independent magazine – without advertising – and a bilingual French / English art book, “The Eyes” explores in its latest issue entitled “B-SIDE” what it means to be “Afropean”, both black and European.
Founded in 2013, The Eyes describes cultural and societal issues through the prism of photography. The number 12 released in November 2021 questions the possibility of “fusion“of Africa and of Europe, and more particularly of this”between two“characteristic of diasporic identities through an offbeat approach – notably inspired by the musical field.
“Invented in the early 1990s by the Zap Mama group, theafropeanity finds its roots in the musical field, and it is therefore quite naturally that we draw the inspiration for this number“, says in her introduction Taous Dahmani, historian of photography and editor in The Eyes.
Entitled B-SIDE, this issue gives carte blanche to Johny Pitts, British photographer and author who runs the online journal Afropean.com and wrote Afropean: Notes from Black Europe (Penguin Random House editions, 2020). “For me who was a dark-skinned person growing up in Europe, the Afropean neologism, which appeared in the 1990s, seemed to celebrate multiple cultural allegiances, but also suggested a way of thinking about myself and my community which was whole and without division. .“
Throughout its 240 pages, The Eyes presents a selection of founding books and pioneering journals, the texts of numerous collaborators on theafropeanity, an interview with the legendary dub producer Mad Professor who popularized B-sides in British music, playlists… and several portfolios of international artists, of which franceinfo Afrique presents ten extracts.