What's behind the West's fascination with "saving" Africa? FRAMED investigates the images and myths that cast a continent as a victim.
What attracts Western activists to “save” Africa when we have our own crises at home? In American media and pop culture, Africans remain objects of our pity or moral outrage or fascination. The images are deeply disturbing, even enthralling, but they aren’t really about Africans; they’re about us. FRAMED takes a provocative look at image making and activism, following Boniface Mwangi, an inspiring young Kenyan photojournalist turned activist who shatters the stereotype of the passive aid recipient. As he challenges American students to focus their efforts close to home, FRAMED turns a lens on popular representations of Africa and Africans, as seen through the eyes of Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina and South African born educator Zine Magubane, who ask a chorus of questions about the selling of suffering.