Taking the attendees out of the earth, Nirma Madhoo’s 444.2XR celebrates the constellations of dispersed diasporic African identities. ![]() The short tragicomedy film was humorous in its depiction of the life of many boda boda riders in Kenya. Michelle Angawa’s ‘Thao: 1000 Shillings in Nairobi,’ took me through the day of a boda boda rider’s life as he wades through a series of absurd encounters in an attempt to pay a motorbike loan of KSH 1000 ($10). South African Xabiso Vili’s speculative fiction ‘Black Boi meets Boogeyman’ was impressive in that it offered multiple endings. Over the course of the next 2 hours at the event, alongside many other guests, I visited the stands of the 5 other finalists. Extended Reality is the umbrella term for immersive technologies-virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality-that blur the line between physical reality and digital fantasy. I’d been to Kano while at the Extended Reality (XR) Exhibition event in Lagos where Meta unveiled the six finalists from the ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds’ programme. When it was over I took down my Meta Quest 2 headset, to find Malik Afegbua, the director of the 360° documentary I had just watched, standing beside me. The narrator in the background said that the fabrics from Kofar Mata Dye pits face competition from imported fabrics which are cheaper and often of lower quality. ![]() Even with the advent of the modern pressing iron, these men still stuck to their ancient processes. I later moved to a different section of the compound where people used wooden mallets to repeatedly hit the clothes until all the wrinkles were gone. Afterwards, beautiful native attires were made out of fabrics. I watched as the dyers pounded the fabrics in the pits to make sure they were immersed in the dye. Some of the pits were filled with indigo dye made from locally sourced ingredients. On October 6, I visited the Kofar Mata Dye pits located in Kano, Nigeria-the oldest and last of its kind in Africa.
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