Month: September 2018

Paul McCartney has written a children’s book called Hey Grandude!, a name the 76-year-old former member of The Beatles says came from one of his grandchildren.

“I’ve got eight grandchildren and they’re all beautiful and one day one of them said to me ‘Hey Grandude!’ I said ‘What?’ and I thought, I kind of like that,” McCartney said in a video he posted Thursday on Twitter.

“From then on, I was kind of known as Grandude.”

The picture book tells the story of a grandfather with four grandchildren and is illustrated by Toronto-based artist Kathryn Durst.

“He calls them ‘Chillers.’ They love him and they go on adventures with him and he’s kind of magical,” McCartney said.

McCartney is currently on his “Freshen Up” world tour featuring songs from his latest album, “Egypt Station.”

The book will be published by Penguin Random House UK and is available for pre-order before it goes on sale in Sept. 2019.
…

When Barbra Streisand started writing lyrics for her new political song, “Don’t Lie to Me,” she initially aimed for “very subtle” references to President Donald Trump. But she couldn’t help herself.

“I just went ballistic,” she said.

“Don’t Lie to Me,” released Thursday, finds a passionate Streisand questioning the nation’s leader and pleading for change. Lyrics include, “How do you sleep when the world keeps turning?/All that we built has come undone/How do you sleep when the world is burning?/Everyone answers to someone.”

“I just can’t stand what’s going on,” the Oscar, Grammy and Emmy winner said in a phone interview Wednesday night with The Associated Press. “His assault on our democracy, our institutions, our founders — I think we’re in a fight. … We’re in a war for the soul of America.”

“Don’t Lie to Me” appears on her new album, “Walls,” her first project of mainly original tracks since 2005. It will be released Nov. 2.

Streisand, a proud and outspoken Democrat who has campaigned for politicians over the years, said she felt moved to write original music because of what’s happening in the world. Of “The Rain Will Fall” — another new song she co-wrote — she says, “You can spell rain several ways.”

“But it’s my prophecy,” she said, laughing. “I hope it comes true.”

“Don’t Lie to Me” came to life during a road trip. Streisand said listening to the news in the car “was making me sick, listening to lies, listening to things that are such craziness.” So she turned on music and felt motivated to write a new song.

“I wanted to talk about the things that were making me feel so sad, heartbroken,” she said. “I’m a kind of fierce American. I don’t know who we are anymore as a country. Are we embracing people who flee oppression? Or are we separating children from parents, putting them in cages? I don’t know if people care about the planet, the survival of the planet. Do they care about clean air? Clean water? Clean food? If they do, how could they vote for somebody like Trump, who believes it’s a hoax?”

Streisand adds, “I’m frightened for this country. And yet, I have hope.”

On her 11-track “Walls” album, she also reworked classics like “Imagine,” “What a Wonderful World” and “What the World Needs Now.”

Streisand, 76, said she “kind of dedicates this album to the young people who are speaking out.”

“It’s important that people vote. It’s important that people believe in the power of their own voice and how much that changes things. It’s like the kids speaking out, the Parkland kids,” she said.

“It’s easy to feel powerless now but we’re not if each of us speak up and get out and vote,” she added.
…

Fashion designer Ellen London uses textiles from all over the world in her designs, sometimes mixing them — combining a Thai fabric, for example — with one from the U.S. Appalachian region.

“I believe that textiles and fashion have an idea to teach people about understanding and connection of different cultures through fabric,” London told VOA during a recent showing at (Washington) DC Fashion Week.

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, London discovered what she calls her “gypsy” spirit. It has taken her all over the world in search of native textiles that she converts into “wearable” art with the help of her Thai design partner and a group of female tailors.

According to her website, her collection includes “East and West African wax and printed fabrics, washed silks and cotton wovens from Thailand, and designer-created Japanese Shibori and Nigerian Adire batik techniques on some of our new designs. Indigo and batik have found their place on virtually every continent.”

Color and texture aside, London said her work is about “respect and including people, rather than excluding them.”

London is a natural for DC Fashion Week because she fits the vision of event founder Ean Williams, who sees Washington, D.C., “as the center of international fashion.”

DC? Fashion?

Ride the subway in Washington, and it will quickly become apparent that the nation’s capital is not a couture town. Residents dress conservatively, if not in clothes that are often stodgy.

To Williams, this is a waste of considerable opportunity.

“D.C., of course, is known for politics,” he mused. “But there are so many things to do in Washington, from opera to museums to concerts to theater to great poolside parties to mainstream society events to after-parties. There are so many great opportunities for people to dress to impress.”

Williams combines politics with Hollywood glamour to label his vision of Washington “Pollywood.”

For the past 14 years, he has staged fashion week twice a year. DC Fashion Week started with local designers showcasing their collections and has evolved into an international event, attracting designers from all over the world.

The DC Fashion Week organization is a nonprofit, so most of the costs are donated by vendors and sponsors. As a result, designers can show their collections at minimal cost, making the event affordable to young designers and international ones.

“Trying to participate in other shows can become very expensive for a designer. So, participating in DC is just a great opportunity,” said swimsuit designer Camile Case, who is from Jamaica.

As always, the 29th fashion week took place in a variety of venues — this fall at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum and the French embassy. Each sold-out event featured a different category of designer, including emerging talent and international couturiers.

“The hope and goal of fashion week … is that every country send their best designer and talent to showcase, like the Olympics,” said Williams, who is a self-taught designer himself. “We want to show what the fashion community of the world has to offer to the consumer.”

Models & guests

DC Fashion Week, unlike fashion weeks in other cities, provides an opportunity for models with many backgrounds and different shapes.

From Nigeria, Bukola Aeosun was participating in her second fashion week. “I like the diversity in races and colors and textures and sizes. I think that is very empowering and it’s exciting.”

“Fashion is for everyone,” Williams said. “We started with inclusivity. We started with having diverse models, models of different sizes, models of different ages.”

The audience is diverse, too. From Pakistan, Maliha Cheema attended fashion week for the first time.

“I really enjoyed the show,” she said. “I love how inclusive it was. There are models of every size, and there is a hijabi and everything.”
…

Washington, D.C., is not a fashion town. Residents are known for dressing conservatively, if not for wearing clothes that are downright stodgy. But a computer engineer-turned fashion designer believes the nation’s capital is one of the best locations for fashion. VOA’s June Soh met DC Fashion Week founder Ean Williams to learn what the event is all about. Her report is narrated by Faith Lapidus.
…

An Bui and his siblings emigrated to the United States from Vietnam in the late 1980s. Several years later, his parents followed them to Richmond, Virginia. VOA’s Hung Lai visited the family’s restaurant, which helped make their adopted city one of the nation’s ultimate destinations for beer lovers.
…

The city of New Orleans has unveiled a smartphone app tour of sites involved in the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries, including the pre-Civil War years during which the city was the nation’s largest slave market. 

The project, officially launched on Thursday, is affiliated with New Orleans’ tricentennial celebrations. It comes as cities around the country are shining an unblinking light on slavery and racial violence through such projects as a slavery museum outside New Orleans, an Alabama memorial to victims of lynchings, and the preservation of slave cemeteries. 

In announcing the app at a news conference, African-American Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the New Orleans Slave Trade Marker and App Project “will let us honor the lives and dignity of those ancestors who were undoubtedly bought and sold here.” 

The city’s Tricentennial Commission reached out to Erin Greenwald, then curator at the Historic New Orleans Commission, and historian Joshua Rothman of the University of Alabama, after they wrote an opinion piece in 2016 “calling out New Orleans for being behind other southern cities” in recognizing “difficult history,” Greenwald said.

The piece noted that Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Memphis, Tennessee, all had historical markers noting slavery, Reconstruction or Civil Rights troubles, but New Orleans had nothing to indicate that 135,000 people of color had been sold there as slaves. 

The app has been available for about two months. It includes more than two hours of recorded segments including historical descriptions and readings from interviews with and writings by former slaves.

It opens by naming 11 children — Bill, Isaac, John, Monroe, Lewis, Washington, Robert, Phyllis, Elizabeth, Mary and Lovie — sent from Norfolk, Virginia, to the New Orleans slave market on the ship Ajax in September 1835.

“Ripped from their families, their communities and their homes, they were among more than 1 million enslaved people forcibly relocated” from Maryland, Virginia, Washington and North Carolina to lower Southern states between 1808, when the United States banned the international slave trade, and the end of the Civil War, a narrator states.

In a later segment, an actor reads from a Federal Writers Project interview in 1937 with Virginia Bell, who was born enslaved near Opelousas.

“My mother’s name was Della. That was all, just Della,” she begins. She tells about her father, “sold away” from a wife and five children in Virginia. “I don’t know what became of his family back in Virginia, because when we was freed, he stayed with us,” she said.

The stops include five with markers created for this project — a sixth is underway — and two with markers created by another group. Unlike state historic markers, those made for the project are mounted directly on buildings and topped with the project’s logo: a black man, woman and child around an auction block behind which a white man has raised a gavel. 

If all the stops are taken in their listed order, the tour covers nearly 4 miles (6.4 kilometers), including more than a mile of backtracking. A map navigation button can be used to find nearby sites, with pop-up boxes to show each site’s name. That in turn will show an image, a list of audio tracks for the site, and directions to the next. 
…

Earlier this year, two artists in Leesburg, Virginia, founded an art space where they could work and teach other art lovers as well. Part retail business, part studio, Clay and Metal Loft helps aspiring local artists gain the skills and confidence needed to start their own business. But, as Faiza Elmasry tells us, the founders have a bigger dream, they want their space to energize the community. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…

The National Gallery of Indonesia is usually associated with such artists as Raden Saleh, Affandi and other icons of the nation’s artistic history. This month it plays host to the works of asylum seekers and refugees in an exhibition entitled Berdiam/Bertandang, which means Stay/Visit.

With about 13,800 people identified as “persons of concern” by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) residing in Indonesia, the exhibit aims to raise awareness of their plight while they wait in an uncertain and increasingly prolonged “transit.”

The exhibition is partly the culmination of a program called Art for Refuge, established by 16-year-old Indonesian high school student Katrina Wardhana, to teach art to children and young people at the Jakarta-based Roshan Learning Center for refugees. 

“I felt art was like a really powerful tool where refugees in Indonesia can share their stories,” she told VOA.

Many from Afghanistan

About half of the refugees in Indonesia are from Afghanistan. Mumtaz Khan Chopan, a professional artist who arrived in Indonesia in 2013 and whose paintings were part of Berdiam/Bertandang, said being an artist in Afghanistan holds extreme risks. There are few art institutions, he said, restricting opportunities to “go and practice and talk to likeminded people, artists.” 

“Most of the people in Afghanistan believe that art is not a valuable thing,” he added. “Not only valuable, it’s not even allowed … but this does not mean that Afghanistan doesn’t have art.”

Binam, a 17-year-old from Afghanistan whose name has been changed to protect his identity, came to Indonesia three years ago as an unaccompanied minor and lives in a shelter provided by the UNHCR. He learned photography as part of Art for Refuge and his work appeared in Berdiam/Bertandang. 

“It’s my first work, exhibition and it’s a big exhibition,” he said. “I feel proud.”

​Stuck in Indonesia

Indonesia has historically been a transit country for refugees seeking asylum in third countries, particularly Australia. While Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it also does not deport asylum seekers and refugees back to potential danger. Jakarta’s historical approach to refugees has been described by anthropologist Antje Missbach as a form of “benign neglect.”

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in January 2017 signed a presidential decree that for the first time acknowledged the presence of a refugee community in Indonesia as distinct from “illegal immigrants” and gave directives to various government institutions regarding their respective responsibilities in managing humanitarian aid. They continue to be denied the right to work, however, and opportunities for formal education are limited.

Moreover, resettlement in third countries such as Australia, the United States and Canada are increasingly unavailable to refugees residing in Indonesia. As of late 2017, the UNHCR reportedly began telling the refugee community there that resettlement elsewhere was highly unlikely for at least 10 to 15 years, if ever. 

“We have to live in shelter[s] because in here we can’t work,” Binam said. “And now there is no resettlement for the refugee from other countries.”

According to UNHCR data, 269 out of almost 4,000 refugee children in Indonesia are enrolled in accredited national schools. The work of the Roshan Learning Center and other community-led education initiatives are therefore vital. Mitra Salima Suryono, a spokesperson for UNHCR Jakarta, told VOA that “by doing such activities, it’s good because it keeps their hopes alive. What’s more important is that friendship between Indonesians and the refugees are getting tighter with initiatives like this.”

Building relationships

The main goal of Art for Refuge is boosting understanding about refugees in the broader community, said Wardhana, its founder.

“Having just found out about refugees only quite recently after my involvement at Roshan, I realized how unaware and un-talked-about the issue is here in Indonesia,” she said.

Chris Bunjuman, a photographer who taught teenagers through the program, encouraged his students to attend a public festival in Jakarta and take photos of 40 people with mustaches as an assignment. 

“Most of the time they always stay in the same community … they don’t really interact with people around them because of the language barrier,” he said. “Those assignments really pushed them, with their thinking … eventually they got out of their comfort zone.”

Alia Swastika, the curator of Berdiam/Bertandang, said that “the problem in Indonesia is that when we discuss about refugees they always think, ‘Oh, we have many other different problems that need to be solved and these are more related to Indonesian people themselves.’”

“People in Indonesia they are educated, of course they are very nice, but there is one thing they don’t know much about refugee[s] … what they are doing here,” said Chopan, the Afghan artist, who says he has found empowerment through the creative scene in Indonesia. “If I introduce myself to a person that I am a refugee, I get different reaction to if I say I am an artist.”
…

After a months-long ban because of its lesbian love theme, the Kenyan film “Rafiki,” which means “friend” in Swahili, premiered for the first time in Nairobi following a Kenyan high court decision to allow the screening of the controversial film. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
…

The late reggae legend Bob Marley once sang: “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” For a young Kurdish immigrant living in San Diego, Marley’s observation rings true. Blind since birth, the young musician says music washes away his pain. VOA’s Lukman Ahmad visited the talented musician in San Diego, California, and filed this report, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
…