Hi, I'm Melissa Chemam.

I'm a journalist, working on African affairs, North & South relations, social change, activism, and a feature writer on art, music, films, culture in general.
As a reporter, audio producer, broadcaster, podcaster, and researcher, I've been working for the BBC World Service, CBC, DW... 
I've been writing for The Independent, Al Jazeera's website, Byline Times, Art UK, the New Arab, Reader's Digest, BBC Culture, UP Mag, iNews...
  Currently with RFI English.

For almost two decades, I have been working as a reporter from Europe, the Americas and Africa, mainly from Prague, Paris, Miami , London, then Nairobi, Kenya, East and Central Africa. Africa, where I was a freelance correspondent and reporter for the likes of the BBC World Service, DW, CBC, France24, AFP, Reuters... between 2010 and 2014.

For diverse magazines, websites, radios, podcasts and television projects.

I have also been reporting in the rest of the EU, the Middle East and North Africa, other parts of Africa, on politics, human rights issues, also writing about music, contemporary art and cultural policies, in English and French. 

Also working with filmmakers, I was the main researcher for the film 'The Young Karl Marx' (2017) and the TV series 'Exterminate All the Brutes' (2021), directed by Raoul Peck, as well as a member of the team conceiving and promoting 'I Am Not Your Negro' (2016).

Cultural journalist too, in 2015, I started writing my first published book, Out of the Comfort Zone,  centred on British music, art and activism, including a comprehensive history of Bristol’s music, street art and protest culture . I mostly thought of it as a history of British counterculture. I interviewed over 30 musicians and artists, members of the music scene and historians, over three years. The book was selected by Rough Trade as one of the 20 ‘Best Music Books’ of the year in 2019 (see here: https://blog.roughtrade.com/uk-books-of-the-year-2019/). 

Since its release, I've also written a chapter about Bristol's reggae for another book published by Palgrave (released in Dec. 2020), one in the Vanguard book on Bristol's street art scene (published in July 2021), and an e-book about the African & Caribbean artists invited to exhibit at the Arnolfini gallery, as their writer in residence, interviewing a dozen of Black artists ('Here, There and Evenwhere', Oct. 2021: https://arnolfini.org.uk/here-there-evenwhere/). 

Between October 2019 and June 2022, I worked part-time as a Lecturer in Cultural Journalism at BIMM Bristol, and in Journalism / Media Production at UWE Bristol. 

I'm also a public speaker, podcaster and researcher, and I write poetry and fiction. I was invited in England and France to give masterclasses and lectures on history of cinema, the state of the media, of the EU and the UK after Brexit, etc. I worked with the Royal Academy, the Goodman Gallery, Arnolfini, Watershed cinema in Bristol and many festivals.

As for my education background, I hold a degree in European Literature (BA from La Sorbonne) and a masters in Political Sciences & Journalism from Sciences Po Paris - bilingual degree. I also studied modern history, philosophy and art history in Paris. 

In 2003, I was a visiting student at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, and in 2012 I attended a Summer School at the Centre for Media Studies, European University Institute, in Fiesole, Tuscany, Italy.

For years, I worked freelance for many media, websites and cultural organisations, including the BBC (world service and radio 4), Deutsche Welle, Channel Africa, Vox Africa, Al Qarra TV, RFI / RFI English, Art UK, the Independent, Skin Deep, BBC Culture, the New Arab, the Reader's Digest, the Markaz Review, UP Mag, iNews, Channel 4 News, etc.

These days, I mostly work and reflect on African affairs, on multiculturalism, on the links between art, activism and social change; as well as on some social political dynamics especially around migrations and relations between the Global South and the West. 

Selected work: On social, cultural, political, international issues

Covering African & International news for RFI English 

Focusing on politics, social change and culture.
Especially in West and East and North Africa. And migration, diaspora in the West.

Most of my work for RFI here:   https://www.rfi.fr/en/author/melissa-chemam-with-rfi/ 

Podcast - Spotlight on Africa - RFI English (Ep. 1 - March 2024)

 SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA

The long path to Senegal's troubled presidential elections

This is a big election year for Africa, with 16 countries heading to the polls. Close attention is being paid to the delayed presidential vote in Senegal – a West African beacon of democracy that is facing increasing instability. RFI spoke to author and economist Ndongo Samba Sylla in the capital Dakar. Listen here: https://www.rfi.fr/en/podcasts/spotlight-on-africa/20240322-the-long-path-to-senegal-s-troubled-presidential-elections 

2024 elections have Africa poised for political shake-up

A third of Africa will head to the polls in 2024, with at major issues on the line in at least 18 countries gearing up for an election year. 

These include coup-hit Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso – if the junta leaders in those countries stay true to their word. 

From Algeria to South Africa, RFI looks at the main polls to watch:  https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20240103-year-of-elections-has-africa-poised-for-political-shake-up-in-2024 

Migrations

 Rescuers search Channel for missing migrant after six die in boat tragedy - read here:  https://www.rfi.fr/en/europe/20230815-rescuers-search-channel-for-missing-migrant-after-six-die-in-boat-tragedy 

Following Senegal's presidential campaign (2023-2024)

 Read from here - on RFI English's website: 

Senegal's economy 'in hands of women', says female presidential hopeful https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20240322-senegal-s-only-woman-candidate-on-women-in-politics-in-africa-anta-babacar-ngom 

Senegal's opposition hopes promise of new national currency will win votes https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20240316-senegal-opposition-hopes-promise-of-new-national-currency-will-win-votes 

Senegal opposition demands election to pick new president by April (Mar 2024) https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20240301-senegal-opposition-demands-election-to-pick-new-president-by-april 

Human Rights Watch warns of Senegal repression ahead of elections (Jan. 2024) https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20240123-human-rights-watch-warns-of-senegal-repression-ahead-of-elections 

All here: https://www.rfi.fr/en/tag/senegal/ 

A year after the ceasefire in Tigray, Ethiopia is little closer to peace (Nov. 2023)

 Ongoing atrocities cast a shadow on the first anniversary of the ceasefire that officially ended hostilities in Ethiopia's Tigray region, according to Human Rights Watch.

 RFI English - here:  https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20231102-a-year-after-the-ceasefire-in-tigray-ethiopia-is-little-closer-to-peace  

 Kenyans demand reparations from Britain ahead of King Charles's visit (Oct. 2023) 

As King Charles III begins a state visit to Kenya on Tuesday, offering promises of a better partnership and acknowledgement of Britain's colonial past, demands for compensation have been mounting.  

Read from here - on RFI English's website:  https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20231031-kenyans-demand-reparations-from-britain-ahead-of-king-charles-s-visit 

Can Kenya help solve Haiti's deep insecurity crisis? (Sept. 2023)

 Kenya is preparing to lead an international police force to combat gang violence in Haiti – an historic first for the East African nation. Experts help me find out more.

Read from here - on RFI English's website: https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20231001-can-kenya-help-solve-haiti-s-deep-insecurity-crisis 

Following the coup in Niger (July-Dec. 2023)

 Read from here - on RFI English's website: 

Niger suspends cooperation with international Francophone body https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20231226-niger-suspends-cooperation-with-international-francophone-body 

French envoy still in Niger despite ultimatum, protests https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20230828-french-envoy-still-in-niger-despite-ultimatum-protests-macron-bazoum 

Niger no closer to restoring order as Ecowas deadline looms https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20230804-niger-no-closer-to-restoring-order-as-ecowas-deadline-looms 

West African bloc Ecowas says military intervention in Niger is 'last resort' https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20230803-west-africa-s-regional-bloc-ecowas-says-military-intervention-in-niger-is-last-resort

Debating inequality in France / Europe - on TRT World (July 2023)

 On 27 June, a 17-year-old French boy of Algerian descent was killed by police in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Protests erupted, escalating. The scale of the violence has been blamed on fundamental inequalities across French society. But, is inequality really worse in France than elsewhere? 

Guests: Lester Holloway, Editor of the The Voice; Melissa Chemam, French Journalist; Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Lancaster University

See here: https://www.trtworld.com/video/tv-shows/why-is-inequality-in-france-the-worst-in-the-west-14173877 

And here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCXVKZy0llQ 

Commenting on the state of the police in France on Channel 4 News (July 2023)

‘People feel like the police are constantly attacking them’, says French-Algerian journalist Melissa Chemam - after the killing of 17-year-old Nahel
- With Jackie Long, Social Affairs Editor and Presenter: 

https://www.channel4.com/news/people-feel-like-the-police-are-constantly-attacking-them-says-french-algerian-journalist-melissa-cheman 

Conversation with Hew Locke at The Royal Academy, London

Guyanese British artist Hew Locke - in Conversation with art writer Melissa Chemam

Wed, 5 July 2023 18:00 - 18:30 BST
Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD, UK 

Details and booking: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/hew-locke-in-conversation
As part of the Summer Exhibition - Exhibition details: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/summer-exhibition-2023
Read my interview with the artists from 2022, for Art UK here:  https://artuk.org/discover/stories/hew-lockes-the-procession-transforming-darkness-into-joy 

Alfredo Jaar at The Goodman Gallery London

Exhibition Preview: Alfredo Jaar In Conversation with Melissa Chemam

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 18:00 - 18:30 BST

Goodman Gallery: 26 Cork Street, London W1S 3ND, UK

"IF IT CONCERNS US, IT CONCERNS YOU is a potent survey of works by Alfredo Jaar which chronicles the artist’s forty-year critique of the Western media. The exhibition features important works which span the artist’s career, from the early 1980s through to new works created in 2022, which have not been exhibited before. It is the largest presentation of Jaar’s Press Works series to date."

Details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/exhibition-preview-alfredo-jaar-in-conversation-with-melissa-chemam-tickets-590002201467

My piece with the Chilean artist on his interventions, the media & the Global South - for Art UK (2023). Read here: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/alfredo-jaar-poetic-visual-interventions

Read my interview with the artists (from 2019), for WhyNow:  https://whynow.co.uk/read/25-years-later-alfredo-jaar-at-goodman-gallery-london/ 

Iraq series - 20 years after the start of the war (March 2023)

Iraqi & British creatives reflect on two decades after the US-invasion...

Read my piece for the New Arab here:  https://www.newarab.com/features/uk-based-artists-memorialising-iraqi-national-sacrifice 

Iraq series - 20 years after the start of the war (Feb. 2023)

Melissa Chemam profiles Iraqi Kurdish musician-composer Hardi Kurda and his projects Space 21 and Archive Khanah: Sounds from Iraq. Read here: https://themarkaz.org/hardi-kurda-archiving-the-sounds-of-northern-iraq/   

 Dor Guez frames intimate portrait of Palestinian pluralities (Feb. 2023)

Dor Guez seeks to challenge our perception of his homeland. Over the course of 50 solo exhibitions worldwide, Dor's personal gaze into Palestinian culture, history, and geography through photography, film and archive has been received with acclaim.

Read more here:  https://www.newarab.com/features/dor-guez-frames-intimate-portrait-palestinian-pluralities 

Music from the SWANA region: Rasha Naha, from her native Haifa to adopted Berlin (Jan. 2023) 

Rasha Nahas has rocked the English-speaking world with a successful first EP and a first LP.  She’s back with an album of songs written in her native Arabic. Read from The Markaz Review:   https://themarkaz.org/berlin-based-palestinian-returns-to-arabic-in-new-amrat-album/ 

Ahead of COP15 on biodiversity - Montréal (Dec. 2022)

Interview with Zitouni Ould-Dada, FAO.  

On DW :  https://www.dw.com/fr/cop15-interview-fao-attentes/av-64011141 

Music in North Africa / SWA: Gultrah Sound System, Tunisia’s Sound of Freedom (Dec. 2022) 

 From our new Freedom issue. Read from The Markaz Review:  https://themarkaz.org/gultrah-sound-system-tunisias-sound-of-freedom/ 

Palestine Film Festivals in the UK screen solidarity and celebrate rising talent (Dec. 2022)

From London to Bristol via Leeds, Palestinian cinema is celebrated across the UK in the months of November and December. After three difficult years for film festivals and the Palestinian cinematic industry, directors have renewed hope of exposure.

Read from The New Arab: https://www.newarab.com/features/palestinian-film-festivals-across-uk-celebrate-rising-talent 

 On arts and colonial history: 'The slave ship in a London courtyard' - for BBC Culture (Oct. 2022)

My feature with artists Grada Kilomba, Nu Barreto & art director Touria el Glaoui, as the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair opens at Somerset House during Frieze Art Fair:  https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221012-the-slave-ship-in-a-london-courtyard 

Speaker, giving lectures and hosting events on world cinema 

At different film festivals. In Paris, Bristol, London, Greece, etc. 

 Examples: 

 -at the Bristol Palestine Festival 2022, with Ken Loach https://bristolpff.org.uk/2022/11/05/boycott/ 

 -at Afrika Eye 2022 https://www.afrikaeye.org.uk/art-and-activism 

 -Beyond Borders, 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZC7gacfCAM 

 -Karl Marx screenings at the British Library, 2018 https://www.bl.uk/events/karl-marx-imagined-and-the-young-karl-marx-screening 

In conversation with decolonial artist Kader Attia (TMR, 2022)

The prolific French-Algerian multimedia artist Kader Attia, whose work focuses on colonial and post-colonial history, trauma, and the spaces of repair, had his biggest event in Berlin with the Berlin Biennale.

Read here: https://themarkaz.org/kader-attia-berlin-biennales-curator/ 

 On Music & Activism

Article on musicians supporting refugees: https://classicalbumsundays.com/the-uniqueness-of-massive-attack-melissa-chemam/  

My column on music in the SWANA region: https://themarkaz.org/author/melissachemam 

Rebel Music: Music and Politics in Bristol - at Bristol Transformed 2022: https://bristoltransformed.co.uk/people/melissa-chemam 

On my Book: Bristol was part-built on the wealth generated by the slave trade, an arrival point for Caribbean immigrants, and a melting pot that shaped some of the most successful and innovative bands of the last 30 years. British Library: https://www.bl.uk/events/massive-attack-out-of-the-comfort-zone 

At The Last Frontier Festival, exploring Bristol’s art/activism, on Sat. 5 March 2022  https://www.trinitybristol.org.uk/activities/art-of-resistance/events/the-final-frontier 

On Music & the SWANA region: Imed Alibi 

 Tunisian percussionist Imed Alibi (TMR, 2022): On his new electronica album  'Frigya', co-written with Khalil Epi. Read from The Markaz Review:  https://themarkaz.org/tunisias-imed-alibi-crosses-borders-in-new-frigya-electronica-album/  

Tunisia: one of North Africa's hotspots for graffiti art and culture (2022)

My piece on young graffiti artists from Tunis and beyond, for The New Arab. 

Read  from here:  https://english.alaraby.co.uk/features/leaving-mark-tunisia-hotbed-arab-street-art 

Refugee Food Festival - Marseille (June 2022)

I AM History - Interview with Black creatives

Ex:  With Jasmine Richards author of children’s books, publisher, a screenwriter and the founder of Storymix, an inclusive fiction platform to encourage Black writers (2022).  Read on  I AM History:  https://www.iamhistory.co.uk/home/2022/5/27/interview-with-author-publisher-and-founder-of-storymix-jasmine-richards 

 Honouring Algerian Art (2022)

 On the 60th Anniversary of Algeria’s Independence, French museums celebrate its artists (2022)

Read  here:  https://themarkaz.org/algerian-art-on-60th-anniversary-of-algerias-independence/  

Discriminology Podcast (2022)

Here is the first episode I recorded with the brilliant team behind Discriminology Podcast - on the Algerian Struggle for Equality and colonialism / post-colonialism in the US vs France. 

Thanks for having me on this sensitive subject.

Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/paris-massacre-and-the-algerian-struggle-for/id1521770510?i=1000564508544 

BBC Radio 4: An Installation by Lubaina Himid - 50 years of 'Ways of Seeing' (2022)

A commission around the anniversary of the groundbreaking book on art by John Berger.  Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00132xf  

Against the  Nationality & Borders Bill (2022)

Music in the Middle East: My column for TMR

New Hew Locke's installation at Tate Britain, 'The Procession' (2022)

Feature on Salah Elmur: 'Sudan made me an artist' (Feb. 2022)

My opinion piece on the 60 years of the '17 October 1961' 

When Algerians were killed in the streets of Paris...  For Al Jazeera English: 

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/10/17/17-october-1961-60-years-on-france-must-face-its-colonial-past 

'Exterminate All The Brutes' (HBO, 2021)

I've worked as the main researcher for the award-winning Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck for years, on and off from 2006 to 2018. Our projects are about colonialism and white supremacy, centred on figures such as Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon and the books by Sven Lindqvist 'Exterminate All the Brutes' and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. The latest is this series for HBO launched in April 2021, I did most of the research for it. Details here:  https://www.hbo.com/exterminate-all-the-brutes 

5 pioneering Black British artists (2021)

 These Black Britons have produced some of the most thought-provoking and envelope pushing art for decades. Melissa Chemam shares her selection of five ground-breaking Black British artists - in Reader's Digest (Sept. 2021): https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/art-theatre/5-pioneering-black-british-artists 

Writer in Residence at Arnolfini gallery, Bristol, UK

Interview with artists and photographer Hassan Hajjaj

NHS Workers: Why They Absolutely Deserve a Pay Rise

Reporting on the demands of NHS Workers - Here in West England Bylines:   https://westenglandbylines.co.uk/nhs-workers-why-they-absolutely-deserve-a-pay-rise/ 

Book: 'Massive Attack - Out of the Comfort Zone' on Bristol's music, art and activism

How Bristol became a musical and artistic melting pot

Get in touch at melissa.journalist@gmail.com

 Writer and columnist about multiculturalism and activism

 Cultural Journalist writing on art, music and politics

Event: Art of Resistance

At The Last Frontier Festival, exploring Bristol’s art/activism, on Sat. 5 March 2022  https://www.trinitybristol.org.uk/activities/art-of-resistance/events/the-final-frontier