Ana Luisa Gonzalez

She Said: Women’s lives, women’s voices You’ve heard it before. Women and girls pay a heavy price during humanitarian crises. She Said is an ongoing collection of reporting in which women offer glimpses of their lives, speaking with TNH from COVID-19 lockdowns, situations of conflict and displacement, and other global emergencies.
In November, Juana del Carmen Martínez, an Afro-Colombian midwife self-taught in traditional medicine, waited outside the door of a zinc-roofed shack on the outskir...

There are bands that open up a spiritual world through their music. ÌFÉ is one example. An electro-futurist band that fuses Afro-Cuban rhythms and Jamaican dancehall with Yoruba mystical voices. With the success of their 2017 debut album "IIII+IIII" (pronounced Eji-Ogbe), ÌFÉ has reached an audience that is looking for Caribbean and contemporary sounds.
The Puerto Rican-based band just released a new EP, The Living Dead- Ashé Bogbo Egun, that aims to heal and honor those who have died during ...

We speak to OKAN, an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz ensemble based in Canada, about their latest record Espiral.
OKAN's new album, Espiral, opens with a Yoruba language chant that invites us to dance and experience a spiritual journey of faith and musical virtuosity. The album boasts 9 tracks that fuse Antillean rhythms, flamenco, bolero, salsa, African roots, and Latin jazz. Their compositions embody instrumental solo improvisations, lyrics, and chants full of color and social commitment using double...

Eliana Muchachasoy es una artista de la comunidad Camëntŝa del Valle del Sibundoy, en el departamento del Putumayo en la Amazonía colombiana. Desde allí, la artista reflexiona a través de la pintura y la fotografía sobre las luchas por el territorio y la reivindicación de los pueblos indígenas. En 2018 participó en una residencia artística en Australia y ha expuesto su obra en Colombia, México, Ecuador y Estados Unidos.
C&AL: ¿Qué la llevó a ser artista y cómo ha influido este territorio en s...

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — “Please stop, officer. I beg you!” said Javier Ordóñez, as he was pinned down by two police officers in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, this week. Ordóñez later died in a hospital from injuries he sustained when he was in police custody.
Protests erupted across multiple cities following the death of Ordóñez on September 9, which has provoked a national reckoning over the use of force by Colombia’s security forces. State violence is rife in Colombia, and often goes unpunish...

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — “Please stop, officer. I beg you!” said Javier Ordóñez, as he was pinned down by two police officers in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, this week. Ordóñez later died in a hospital from injuries he sustained when he was in police custody.

Protests erupted across multiple cities following the death of Ordóñez on September 9, which has provoked a national reckoning over the use of force by Colombia’s security forces. State violence is rife in Colombia, and often goes unpunish...

“Who killed him? It was the police! Who killed him? It was the police, it was the police,” a crowd of hundreds of protesters chanted on June 15 in downtown Bogotá, Colombia. They were accompanied by drums, guitars and palo seco (a percussion instrument made of wood and filled with seeds). This blunt arenga (a protest chant) was just one of the many songs protesters used to express outrage against racism and systemic murders of black men and women in the country.
The protests also took the str...

Photographer Jeison Riascos is capturing not just dramatic stories from the pandemic but also the solidarity shown by residents of his hometown, Quibdó.
A woman sits in front of her kiosk piled high with fresh fish in a market along the Atrato River. Even in a mask, her face reveals her despair and expectation—common feelings right now for those battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Quibdó, the capital of Chocó, a region home to many of Colombia's Black and indigenous people.

It was the end of 2019 when various Black organizations protested in front of the census bureau—The National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (DANE)—in Bogotá, Colombia to show their dissatisfaction about what they called a "statistical genocide" of the black population. The census data, published that year, showed 2.9 million people, only 6 percent of the total population of the country, was counted as "Afro-Colombian," "Raizal," and "Palenquero"—the various terms identifying black Co...

Colombian journalist Juan Carlos Rincón’s video column “La Pulla” is a big hit. He doesn’t see himself as an activist, but as a champion of digital literacy.

Inundated with requests from journalists and students – and fans! –, Juan Carlos Rincón decided to delete his WhatsApp account. "Of ten people who write to him, eleven want to talk to him," explains his assistant. For four years now, Rincón has been the editor of the opinion section of Colombia's oldest newspaper, E...

Palenque de San Basilio is considered the first free African slave town in the Americas. We compile a list of seven iconic and new Afro-Colombian bands from Palenque that shouldn't fly under your radar.

The "first Afro-Colombian film production company," is teaching filmmaking in Colombia's black communities in order to combat the lack of representation.
When filmmaker, activist, and cultural agent Heny Cuesta first started her career in Colombia, she noticed a severe lack of black creators in the industry. Cuesta, an Afro-Colombian originally from Cali, was the only Black woman in a room full of mestizo directors at a panel discussion at the International Film Festival in Cartagena de India...

La exposición Manglaria: raíces y sujeciones desea abrir un diálogo entre 25 artistas, entre ellos un colectivo, con el fin de explorar los vínculos con lo sagrado y lo ritual, el archivo, la memoria, la identidad, la representación afro, indígena y mestiza en Colombia. Desde la fotografía, la videoinstalación, la escultura, el arte figurativo, sonoro y el perfomance se entrecruzan propuestas que cuestionan los estereotipos, los vacíos y las contradicciones en la base de las narrativas de un ...

The urgency surrounding the future of journalism has sparked many debates over the past year. While some digital media outlets have survived the worst of the issues facing news media today, others have responded to the financial crunch with massive layoffs.
At a time when journalism is experiencing a diverse array of threats, independent media requires not only more funding, but also encouragement and guidance from other media organizations that have implemented successful strategies to survi...

La 3a Muestra de Cine Itinerante Africano (MUICA) revela cómo el continente africano es narrado a través del cine y otras expresiones artísticas. Hablamos con Salym Fayad, cofundador de esta muestra que busca conectar y difundir las creaciones del otro sur en Colombia. | De nuestra alianza con 'Contemporary And (C&).