This year the World Wide Video Festival (WWVF), the annual international Media Art Festival in Amsterdam, focused particular attention on media art from Africa and the Arab world. After China in 2000, it was now the turn of this part of the world to enjoy a special place in the nineteenth edition of the festival, from 10-10-01 until 11-11-01. Work from more than 100 artists from 26 countries could be seen, including that of well-established artists such as William Kentridge and Jane Alexander from South Africa. The Angolan artist Antonio Olé was also to be seen in the Netherlands for the first time with a solo presentation.

The festival's opening took place in the desolate surroundings of the top floor of Europarking, a car park on the Marnixstraat in Amsterdam, with video art from South-Africa: RETREKS unSUNg CITY. This exhibition, which was put together by Rodney Place, was inspired by the migration to the suburbs as a reaction to the growing violence in Johannesburg, and had been presented previously in an equally desolate car park in the city itself.

RETREKS includes work from among others, William Kentridge and Jane Alexander. In his detailed drawings and films - such as 'Felix in Exile' and 'Mine' - Kentridge (1955), comments on daily life in South Africa; although politics is not the key focus of his work, it is however presented as being inextricably linked to daily reality. At the WWVF the public were given the opportunity of making acquaintance with Kentridge's curious universe, populated by a procession of indefinable shadows who file past us like some sort of medieval pageant. The images created by Alexander are generally human-like animals, or animal-like humans, with alienation playing a key role. In the Europarking, passers-by in a projected street scene took on the form of Alexander's autonomous images. During the opening the public reacted to the figures in Alexander's work by means of a shadow play - however even with this interaction the work did not surrender any of its obstinacy.

Antonio Olé (1951, Luanda/Angola) had his first solo presentation in the Netherlands during this edition of the World Wide Video Festival, with the installation 'Hidden Pages, Stolen Bodies' (2001-mixed media), that was presented in De Veemvloer. Olé already has a quite considerable record of service. His work could previously be seen at various exhibitions including 'Die anderen Modernen' in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin 1997) and at the Biennales of Havana (1997, 1988, 1986), Sao Paulo (1987) and Johannesburg (1997). Olé was present at the WWVF; he appeared during the 'Meet the Artist' section of the programme where he also presented an old film: 'Ngola Ritmos'.

Ngola Ritmos, which was made in 1975 (a few years after independence), is a very enthusiastic film about the popular Angolan music group of the same name, whose origins were a working class neighbourhood in Luanda. This lively dance music was considered a threat by the Portuguese during the struggle for independence because of its subversive texts in the 'local' language. The group was extremely popular throughout the country and during their tours they also acted as couriers for the independence movement. Deportation to the Cape Verde Islands was the price some musicians had to pay. The film is suffused with hope, solidarity and pleasure and it personalises both the struggle for independence and the ensuing euphoria.

Olé stresses that the struggle was carried by artists, workers and intellectuals. Ngola Ritmos was also a mixed bunch and as such a reflection of the times. The fact that Angola's first president, Amilcar Cabral, was a gifted poet and writer is not a coincidence. The circumstances surrounding his death are illustrative of the sequence of history. Regrettably the distribution of the film 'Ngola Ritmos' also shows that the euphoria of independence was quickly replaced by a new political reality: as a result of a conflict between the leader of the music group and the MPLA (political party) it took eleven years before the Angolan government gave Antonia OléÝpermission to show the film in public.

Olé began his career as a painter. His paintings were influenced by Picasso, Paul Klee, traditional African art and his daily surroundings. After independence, he focussed his attention on film: he wished to reach a larger public. ìIt is not my intention to make films about the independence of Angola, but I want to make my country's history visible," he says. When he returned to Angola in 1985 after a four-year study at the Center of Advanced Film Studies of the University of California, there was virtually nothing left of the country's fledgling film industry. He was more or less forced to focus his attention on the visual arts; making films is after all an expensive affair. It is a great tragedy that because of the lack of financial means, African filmmakers do not have the opportunity of telling their story before a large public.

He also makes the history of Angola visible in 'Hidden Pages, Stolen Bodies' (2001-mixed media). A representation of historic, political and personal conflict, the installation uses materials from the municipal archives of Benguela, the former centre of the slave trade in Angola. A picture of history is created by the slave lists, maps, postcards of slave families and utensils. The connection between tradition and modernity is made visible through the assemblages, masks and implements that also form part of the installation. According to Olé, the tragedy of present-day Angola is the fact that the rural population is fleeing to the cities because of the violence of war, and this is weakening traditional structures and dissipating social cohesion. History repeating itself?

The dynamic centre of the installation is formed by the video projections of the Angolan coast, the starting point from which slaves were transported to the 'new world'. An apparently idyllic landscape showing a fisherman repairing his net. Through repetition, it is not clear whether or not he manages to mend the gaps. The installation's location, De Veemvloer, a former warehouse for trade to and from 'the West' completes the circle. As a viewer, you are confronted by your own place within history. Antonia Olé's work is however not a tract. When I ask him if the fisherman succeeds in mending his net, he just laughs, leaving me to come up with the answer on my own.

The 'African branch' of the WWVF 2001 was very fascinating indeed - and here we have only touched on the work of Kentridge, Alexander and Olé. All three provide commentary on the situation in their own country, each in their own way. It would be very interesting to continue to follow the development of video art on the African continent, and in this respect, it is to be hoped that the African programme becomes a fixed component of the festival.



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