Africa
  
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6 programs
Tassili N'Ajjer
The Shape of Darkness, Part One
The Shape of Darkness, Part Two
The Colonial Encounter - N/A
Rousseau in Africa: Democracy in the Making - N/A
Of Leaves and of Earth
This section of programs can be purchased on VHS
Television rights and prices on request
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Prehistoric to the present
For a long time a common error among western commentators was to classify the peoples and traditional arts of Africa, along with those of prehistory, as `primitive.' In fact, of course, the native cultures of Africa are sophisticated and subtle.
In Africa for longer than in Europe arts continued to exist in a social and religious context, as a function of a rich spiritual life and in reverent, mythopaeic relation to their environment. Such attitudes are lost to a post-Industrial Revolution world, which views artists, artworks, and indeed the spiritual, with scepticism, or at least sets them apart from functional life in the `real world.'
Ceremonial spoon with female ancestor figure
From the programs 'The Shape of Darkness'