Air Afrique, a Black-owned, Paris-based collective based by means of creatives Lamine Diaoune, Djiby Kebe and Jeremy Konko, will release a brand new print mag right through Paris Model Week on June 23.
The collective and its soon-to-launch namesake mag take their identify from a now-defunct West African airline, which operated from 1964 to 2002. The Air Afrique group has obtained the rights to the archive of the airline’s former in-flight newsletter, Balafon, from which it plans to incorporate pictures within the relaunched name.
The mag is relaunching with fortify from Bottega Veneta as luxurious manufacturers ramp up their cultural partnerships. The logo additionally subsidized the relaunch of iconic queer mag BUTT in February 2021. Bottega Veneta would be the sole advertiser for the inaugural factor in addition to investment a release birthday party June 23 at Paris’ Centre Pompidou artwork museum.
The logo has additionally collaborated with Air Afrique on a number of restricted version blankets designed by means of French-Sudanese dressmaker Abdel El Tayeb.
Air Afrique used to be thought to be an emblem of West African post-colonial independence and Pan-Africanism earlier than shutting down in 2000. The relaunched name will likely be revealed in English and French, and come with interviews with West African cultural leaders, essays on historic topics on the subject of the area, archival pictures, and editorial shoots.
“Air Afrique used to be greater than an airline, it used to be a cultural platform,” stated inventive director Kebe. “We need to percentage the Air Afrique archive and create our personal archive — to seize this second of exchange in Black consciousness and expression.”
“We need to revive the African transcendence that Air Afrique represented,” stated Diaoune. “Our venture is to keep this heritage, to position Air Afrique again within the cultural dialog, and to construct on their instance of cultural engagement.”
At the side of co-founders and inventive administrators Diaoune and Kebe and Jeremy Konko as picture editor, Air Afrique has tapped Zhedy Nuentsa and Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam because the newsletter’s editors. Amandine Nana would be the mag’s first editor-in-chief.
