Africa Is a Country

'Developing the First World'

'Developing the First World'

By
Sean Jacobs

You couldn’t miss this trailer in front of The New School’s West 12th Street building in the West Village last week:

The Ghana ThinkTank Mobile Unit is a custom-built teardrop trailer designed to journey into the so-called “First World,” where it collects issues of concern from various local communities. The collected problems get sent to think tanks in Ghana, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Serbia, Iran, Afghanistan and/or other countries, where strategies are developed. The trailer then rolls back into the previously visited communities, this time as a workstation, cooperating with community members to apply the strategies received from this global network of think tanks—whether they seem impractical or brilliant—for effected communities. Ghana ThinkTank thus reverses the customary flow of knowhow from “developed” to “developing” countries in playful and provocative ways.

Photo Credit: Amanda Ghanooni

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.