MAGIC The Spirit of African football
Founded in 2003, Co+Life promotes top-class international photography through books, exhibitions and events. Co+Life’s mission is to generate exposure for creative work, photography and art of international standard. Our objective is to reflect human life and living conditions, with a focus on sustainability. Our exhibitions highlight synergies between the different elements of sustainability and promote greater knowledge of the world we inhabit.
We have worked with the best photographers in the world, producing exhibitions in Europe and selling books around the globe. We intend to not only provide the public with a positive experience, but to empower people with a deeper understanding of what it takes to improve life for all of us, and the role of personal responsibility in that process. Co+Life is part of Co+Høgh, one of Scandinavia’s biggest media and communications groups.
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Introducing:
Magic
The Spirit of African football
Power
forward
In a world full of challenges and transitions, football is a beacon of spirited competition at the center of modern life in many African nations. It is a sport that reflects the landscape of our societies: the punishing training, the taste of victory, the missed shots – echo the complexities of human experience. Football is a force of sound and silence, blurring the space between those with money or power, and those with little more than powerful dreams. The sport unites boys and girls, men and women across borders and boundaries, whose talents stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the field. Photographer Tine Harden worked for the Danish daily newspaper Politiken for 19 years before going freelance in 2004. Tine has won many prestigious international awards for photography - among others a First Place Prize in the World Press Photo Competition for environmental work. She has twice been Photographer of the Year in Denmark, and her portraits of boxers in Uganda earned her the title of Sports Photographer of the Year. Tine has exhibited her work around the world and produced and co-created several photography books, including The Tree in the Desert about travels in Niger. As a child, she played football with the boys; as an adult, Tine’s exuberance for the beautiful game has remained strong.
Journalist Kim Faber has worked for the Danish daily newspaper Politiken since 1993 and has reported on wars and conflicts in Kosovo, The West Bank and Lebanon. He has covered Africa, among other subjects, since 2000, visiting South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Niger and Ghana. Kim has written and co-written a number of books and in 2004 was awarded a prize for excellent reporting from the Danish Aids Foundation for The Book of Esther, describing the life of a Ugandan woman living in poverty with HIV. Kim has reported on football and has played it almost all his life - except for ten years when he was captain of the Danish national volleyball team.
Teamwork Ready to run
uplifted
Fans united
Outside
inside
Persistance has a footprint
Competitive
spirit
Introducing:
The Book
Magic – The Spirit of African football Football transcends daily life to a place of rich significance in African societies. Fromsporting clubs and superstitions, to the shaping of local and national identities, the sport has many poignant narratives. These are its stories.
Dust to dust The little boys feet are whirling like drumsticks, as a pack of them chase a flat rubber ball on a small square on the outskirts of the slum. The dry smell of the red dust mixes with the pungent aroma of cooking, of litter in acidic decay, and that of too many human beings in too few square meters. Not far from the boys, in the middle of the broad dirt rsoad that intersects the area, another group of slightly older boys are playing. They are controlling the ball with excellent technique, although on the uneven surface it bounces unpredictably, like a drunken frog.
of the stalls surrounding the pitch flocks of men are crowding to catch a glimpse of the small, flickering TV set deep in the darkness, showing a national game played thousands of miles away.
At a distance, a stone’s throw from the playing kids, 22 adults are having a game. On a big, dirt field with naked iron post goals, tough tackles, yelling and rapid movements. In front
It could have been any major city in any African country. Because to millions and millions of Africans, football is the hub around which their existences turn.
It’s a random day in September 2007 in the Bukom neighbourhood, one of the oldest and poorest areas in Accra, the capitol of Ghana, where, as far as the eye can see, children and grown ups are playing soccer.
Football fever The tackles are tough, the tempo is sky high. The players’ performances are both athletic and unconditionally focused. It looks like a critical struggle for points in a championship match - but it isn’t. It is a Saturday in the middle of September 2007 at the newly renovated El-Wak Stadium in the eastern part of Accra, the capitol of Ghana. Under normal circumstances at this time of year, a match between the two top Ghanaian clubs, Hearts of Oak and All Blacks FC, would be a game in the local Premier League. But due to a court case concerning corruption in two qualification matches, the entire tournament has been postponed. So the showdown between Hearts and All Blacks is merely a training game.
Nevertheless, more than five thousand spectators have shown up. And like the players they are performing as if everything is at stake. Singing, shouting, playing drums and a broad variety of musical instruments, they are cheering for their heroes on the playing field. Together with millions of fans all over Ghana they are warming up for the biggest soccer event ever in the country: the 2008 African Cup of Nations. Ghana is shivering from a serious attack of football fever.
The big dream Waris Majeed does not remember exactly how old he was the first time he kicked a football. To the 16-year-old Muslim boy from Tamale, the main city in the northern region of Ghana, it seems as if he played the game all his life. But he remembers clearly the day, almost three years ago, where the football academy Right to Dream held a try out for the young footballers of Tamale.
Today the parents are proud of their son. Waris was chosen among several hundreds of boys from across Ghana to join the football academy in the green hills, an hour’s drive north of Accra. And Waris has excelled at the academy, both in football and in school. He is captain of his age group at the academy. And he is likely to be offered a scholarship to play in the United States next year. Or a stay in an English Premier League club.
He remembers that his parents didn’t want him to go, worried that their son would waste his life chasing a ball and an impossible dream instead of doing his homework and getting an education. And Waris remembers how his football coach convinced his parents to let him go and take his chance.
So today, Waris’ dream no longer seems that impossible. “I want to be a professional. We all do,” he says. But if he doesn’t make it, it’s not the end of the world. “Then I’ll play at a club here in Ghana. I’ll never stop playing.”
Introducing:
A multi-channel platform Magic is an uplifting illustration of the sporting experience
Exhibition
Photographic art displays in well-travelled, urban locations are a profound way to communicate a story. Co+Life has experience with world class “art-meets-life” exhibitions, with projects that span Europe and a forthcoming exhibit titled “Spirit of the Wild” making its North American debut in New York City.
Documentary
Kicking the ball around Africa. Using a football “logo� zipping through different locales across the continent, this documentary series is a top to bottom view of the sport from various perspectives. Professional athletes, political icons, local citizens, community figures and children will describe what football means to them. Corporate partnerships will ensure this is branded entertainment concept, to deliver an engaging production that shows the emotional range and spirit of football to a wide audience.
website for the project will be a virtual classroom with Website The educational materials, instructional games and tools, and links to schools in Africa for kids around the world to learn and grow, as both students and athletes.