#6dfh

Date: 7th August, 2016.

I was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and lived there until the age of 4. My father was promoted and had to move to Durban, South Africa so my mom and I followed. It was tough back then because it was fresh out of apartheid and school life was really racially polarised. Coming from Ethiopia, which does not have a colonial history, I had to learn that I was "black". This would have been okay, had it not been that I was not the right kind of black to be accepted here. Eventually I learned that I didn't have to try so hard to fit in, but it took me a good 15 years. Eventually, I took pride in being able to read and write in the Ethiopian alphabet and still being able to speak the language. I would have to say that it was in university that I truly felt at peace with who I was. It was there that I found others like me to which ethnicity or background was of little significance except for it being a library of knowledge that we could all learn from. I then stopped straightening my hair and trying to stay out of the sun to "keep my complexion". I am now totally fine with not quite feeling like I'm from anywhere in particular. Every time I go back to Ethiopia, I feel out of place and well, South Africa isn't really 'home' either. No matter, even though I don't 'belong' anywhere, I finally belong to myself and so I carry my home with me wherever I go. I currently live in Paris, doing my masters in engineering. As to whether I'll ever go back to Ethiopia, I'm torn between wanting to 'help out' and my own personal comfort and sanity. Only time will tell.

I'm Jessica and I also go as Kalemela, an avid lover of daydreaming born and  proudly bread in Nairobi, Kenya. I'm an undergraduate student at Univeristy of Cape Town, in my third year studying a business science degree where I am majoring in marketing and minoring in indecisiveness. Basically I'm Sway and life is my Kanye, always reminding my anxious and control driven conscience that I don’t have the answers, and rightfully so because if I did where would be the fun in that. It is for that reason, coupled with my obsession with daydreaming (admittedly disguising the self-doubt that plagues my youth) that I see it fit to define my self as aspiring to be an aspiring artist both musically and visually. For me artistic expression is where I feel safest being vulnerable because art is accepting, honest and sacred to all. That being said embracing myself as an East African woman is more than just the aesthetic or style, it's an identity. To me being an African Woman is embracing an armour of self acceptance and most importantly an evolution into oneself, and being an East African Woman is an identity so inherently internal it can't nor need it be defined by words because the East African spirit and warmth speaks for itself.

This has developed into a form of unique expression of every experience I encounter. Photography as an art has allowed me to document the richness of my hometown Kampala and share the light I see in what makes The Pearl shine so bright. My images are a form of celebration of the people we are as Ugandans, and as Africans. I believe in the power of the arts to refine a community so I am looking forward to what my camera has in store for me in Grahamstown and South Africa at large throughout the next few years.  

I am swept in a constant wave of change. My Name is Ilyana Bell, and I am a 21 year old Philosophy student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. I was born in London to a Scottish father and a Kenyan mother, two sisters from my mother, and a brother and sister from my father. We eventually moved back to East Africa, where Kenya is now my home. I remember growing up, surrounded by giants, the youngest of my siblings being 8 years older than me, and the oldest 20. Slowly they flew the nest as I waved goodbye from behind my mother's skirt, occasionally they returned with news of their growth, and me the unhatched, overprotected egg, wondered if I even had wings. Finally, no longer a spring chick, weathered by loving guidance, I jumped into the world knowing the comfort of the nest was a call away. I thank my sisters for every night they sat and oiled, combed and braided my hair for me, preparing me for indecisive weather. I thank my mother for the Kangas she chose and cut and hemmed for me to take away, protecting my laundry, hair and modesty. I thank my father for all the wise words and silent hugs he gave me, being the shoulder I needed away from home. As I am now faced with the turbulence of change, like blue sky after a storm, an Island of love rests in wait for me somewhere in a leafy Nairobi suburb.