Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Chimurenga Library

This page presents a summary of the collaboration between Wikimedia and Chimurenga. Chimurenga contributes to the project WikiAfrica and it's a GLAM. Chimurenga Library is a project promoted by the South African Chimurenga magazine and supported by Fondation lettera27 Onlus inside the widest programme of WikiAfrica initiatives (October 2007-December 2008).

The institution
Chimurenga Library is a magazine founded by Ntone Edjabe in 2002 and based in Cape Town, South Africa. Chimurenga is a Shona language word that loosely translates as "liberation struggle". Chimurenga is also into publications, a web radio, projects and events.

Chimurenga's goal is an archive project, which will be presented in a specially designed Wiki-type website and in which everybody is welcome to participate and to contribuite to create contents and enrich articles in every language and to spread the initiative, especially those who are connected in these subjects like researchers, writers, philosophers, artists professors and students. Each publication will be described through essential biography and meta-works –texts, essays and video – produced by artists and writers who may have contributed to these publications or might have been influenced by them. Chimurenga Library gathers a selection of historical and contemporary panafrican magazines, studies and gives value to cultural and political panafrican revues.

the project concerns: 
 * a research about cultural and countercultural and political panafrican magazines.
 * creation of video selfportraits about selected reviews.
 * unseen documentation filing gathered on Chimurenga Library web site.
 * contents and arguments of Chimurenga Library is featured at the Cape Town book fair, June 14-17, 2008 (stand F11), WikiAfrica presentation and the number 14 of Chimurenga magazine.
 * Workshops in collaboration with Chimurenga magazine at the Six District Central Library in Cape Town and participation at the second edition of CAPE Not Another Biennale, June 2009.

Content analysis
Chimurenga contributes to WikiAfrica by creating or improving articles about international magazines on en.wiki. The entries on individual journals were published on the English Wikipedia especially by en:User:Jones Argus and en:User:Un8chimu between 2008 and 2009. Although many of these pages were proposed for deletion (mainly because the content was already available under free licenses, but this aspect did not seem properly reported when transferred to the encyclopedia), in July 2012 almost all of them are available. In a few cases the lack of notability was not proved. Minor problems persist also after the intervention of the community; i.e. some articles are orphaned, they lack proper references, or the neutral point of view is not fully met, but others are of a decent size, they do not contain any warnings about the need for improvements, they include relevant bibliography and, in some cases, even a cover image. Revue Noire, Savacou, Staffrider, Third Text, Civil Lines, Wietie are particularly noteworthy. And someone does find this material interesting, because the articles, in the first five months of 2012 alone, totaled about 13,000 visits. Over time, similar articles were created on Wikipedia in other languages: Glendora in Italian, Lamalif in Arab and in Welsh, Revue Noire in French.

Articles

 * en:Category:WikiAfrica/Chimurenga, over 25 articles

Contributors to the archive project
For some of them the insertion work in Wikipedia is still in progress...take part of the progress!


 * the south African magazine Chimurenga magazine, mastermind of the Chimurenga Library project.
 * writers Ivan Vladislavic
 * Akin Adesokan
 * Sam Kahiga
 * Neville Alexander
 * critics Olu Oguibe
 * Barbara Murray
 * poets Lesego Rampolokeng
 * Patrice Nganang
 * Vivek Narayanan
 * singer-poet Anthony Joseph
 * filmmakers Dumisane Phakati
 * Judy Kibinge
 * Bakupa-Kanyinda
 * Priya Sen
 * artist Kudzanai Chiurai

Magazines
The following reviews have been selected to be part of the archive project. For most of them the research and insertion work on Wikipedia is in progress...Be part of their creation!
 * Staffrider and Y-Mag, Johannesburg, South Africa
 * Hei! Voetsek!, Cape Town, South Africa
 * Frank Talk, Durban, South Africa
 * Moto (magazine) and Tstotso, Harare, Zimbabwe
 * Glendora Review and Chief Priest Say, editorial of Fela Kuti, Lagos, Nigeria
 * Lamalif and Souffles, Rabat, Morocco
 * Okyeame, Accra, Ghana
 * Joe (magazine), Nairobi, Kenya
 * Ecrans d'Afrique, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
 * Mfumu’eto, Kinshasa, DRC
 * Hambone (magazine) California, USA
 * The Cricket- Black Music in Evolution Harlem, USA
 * Autre Afrique and Revue Noire,Paris, France
 * Third Text, London, UK
 * The uncollected writings of Greg Tate – New York, USA
 * Savacou, Kingston, Jamaica
 * Civil Lines, NewDelhi, India
 * Straight_No_Chaser_(magazine) London, UK
 * Unir Cinema: Revue du Cinema Africain, Senegal
 * Two Tone (magazine), Zimbabwe
 * The Book of Tounges (Rustum Kozain), South Africa
 * African Film (magazine), Lagos, Nigeria
 * Black Images: A Critical Quarterly of Black Arts and Culture (magazine) and Spear (magazine), Toronto, Canada
 * Wietie,Cape Town, South Africa
 * Molotov Cocktail(magazine), South Africa
 * Amkenah, Alexandria, Egypt
 * The Liberator Magazine, Minneapolis

Videos
The library gathers some videos commissioned by Chimurenga magazine and realized by artists.
 * a video response to by Khulile Nxumalo in collaboration with Tracey Rose.
 * grammaire de ma grand-mère/my grandma's grammar'', a response to Ecrans d'Afrique by Jean-Pierre Bekolo.
 * Mag'' by Aryan Kaganof
 * Barely Remembered'' a filmic response to Civil Lines by Prya Sen.

Other activities
From the library to the Biennale, new voices for Wikipedia: Chimurenga Library Workshops take place in June 2009 at the Six District central library, Drill Hall, Darling St, located in the melting pot historical neighbourhood of Cape Town, that was emptied out and burned to the ground by the apartheid regime. During the event, the library is animated by magazines, books, videos, music, audios, performances and Wikipedia, to narrate the connections and the interferences that hide between the bookshelves. The evocative title finding oneself invites people to a full immersion in the stories told by writers, readers and fans and invites them to write new ones on Wikipedia, the well known free on-line encyclopedia, passing from (non) arbitrariness of knowledge to sense of humour.

Monday, June 15. 09, Wednesday, June 17.09, Thursday, June 18.09 and Friday, June 19.09, at 12:30 pm, in collaboration with Chimurenga and the Cape Africa Platform; the aim is to focus on themes such as participatory writing and content sharing. Evening events and exhibitions are promoted in the library itself and supported by sound effects available on Chimurenga Library and on Pass-Pan African Space Station.

Chimurenga Library participates to the second edition of CAPE Not Another Biennale, presenting cultural and political magazines that influenced ideas and writing in Africa, with new inputs and entire magazines that can be downloaded directly from the website. CAPE Not Another Biennale take place in Cape Town from May 2nd until June 21st 2009. It is organized by Cape Africa Platform, as a flagship event for the city of Cape Town, a platform for art of the continent and the diaspora.

In the press

 * Dans une période où l'on dit que la critique d'art est enterrée, pointer du doigt les contenus et non pas les projets est indispensable: entretien de Marian Nur Goni avec Iolanda Pensa, citing the history of the project (Italian version)
 * Il continente nero su bianco. Chimurenga library!, Radio Alt's podcast with Iolanda Pensa from lettera27
 * Circolazione dei saperi: Wikipedia e le riviste dell'Africa
 * Wikipedia as a Space and Strategy for Negotiating Art and Cultural Knowledge in African Cities, Iolanda Pensa at the Embattled Spaces – Contested Orders conference of VAD-Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften, Germany, 2012

Version in other languages

 * fr:Projet:WikiAfrica/Chimurenga Library
 * it:Progetto:WikiAfrica/Istituzioni/Chimurenga

Related articles

 * Chimurenga
 * Ntone Edjabe

Links

 * http://www.chimurenga.co.za/
 * http://www.chimurengalibrary.co.za
 * http://www.capetownbookfair.com/
 * Chimurenga Library on Lettera27's website