Bubblegum Club

Author: Christa Dee

  • Wonderverse (e) // an experimental fashion film

    Greeted by the camera panning a rock facade towards the face of a man looking directly at you, chin up. The subtle beat of the music massaging your eardrums while his proud eyes hold your gaze. Engulfed in a computer screen framed cosmos that allows you to experience the polysemous nature of wonder, to be curious and to marvel, all at once. Wonderverse (e).

    In an interview with the art director for the experimental fashion film, Size Mbiza, he explained that the idea for the shoot was born during a conversation over lunch with the designer of DCCCLXIV, Julian Tamuka. “He was in the process of designing his debut collection and we were having a conversation about the duality between wisdom and wonder and how [this] is a sweet spot where ideas are born.” The two of them felt that presenting the collection in this short film would provide the framework for a well-rounded concept. “Luckily Neo Twala was more than interested in the capturing of the clothing, the garments and the relationship between the character and environment,” Size explained.

    Following on from their initial conversation, the name Wonderverse (e) encapsulates their interpretation of wonder as the birthplace of ideas and greatness. “The (e) is a representation of everything. So it is the Wonderverse of everything,” Size continues. The character portrayed in the lookbook, (E)zra, lives in this fictional place, and this is where he realized his potential and greatness, hence his strong posture and the intense look in his eyes while confronting the viewer.

    The location for the short film helps to build a life history for (E)zra. Taking place at a mine dump in the south of Johannesburg CBD, they are able to make a connection between the history of mining and Zama Zama miners in South Africa. “So the location fits in well with the narrative because Julian’s character has overcome great tragedies [and connects to] his forefather’s painful history,” Size explained.

    Have a look at the film below, and be transported to Wonderverse (e).

    Credits:

    Art direction: Size Mbiza

    Styling: Didintle Ntshudisane

    Makeup and hair: Didintle Ntshudisane

    Photography: Size Mbiza

    Cinematography: Neo Twala

    Model: Julian Tamuka

    Music: Badulah

    Assistant: Miya Twala

  • bigfoot.wildboy // Do it for the vision

    Ross Sey, also known as Archy, is the founder of the clothing label bigfoot.wildboy. He describes himself as a creative who is working towards creating a vision that includes elements from multiples disciplines, including music, art, modeling and fashion. The purpose of this is to get to a point where he feels he is able to adequately express what he feels he needs to express.

    Ross credits his long-term relationship with fashion to his mother, who works in the film industry as a production designer. She also runs a costume and clothes hire business. His mother being connected to the fashion industry allowed him to absorb an ability to be attuned to trends and the creative potential that fabric holds. As a result he developed an interest in the culture that surrounds the fashion world. “So I suppose the idea for bigfoot.wildboy came out of a desire to be a part of fashion culture and also the need to express myself, and it just happened to manifested itself through bigfoot.wildboy,” Ross explains.

     

    The brand draws inspiration from the Johannesburg; the people who inhabit its streets, the music that electrifies its nightlife, and the architecture that paints the iconic Joburg skyline. As a streetwear brand, reflecting the elements that give the city life is an important factor in how Ross imagines the growth of bigfoot.wildboy.

    The concept for the lookbook follows on from this premise, with models directly interacting with a raw, urban background. “The locations [for the shoot] had to be places that showed off the industrial vibe of the clothing so they themselves had to be quite industrial,” Ross explains.

    When asked about what bigfoot.wildboy has cooking behind the scenes, Ross explained that the label is “always running new events and trying to get a vibe up around the clothes and especially now that we’ve just dropped our first season people can expect some exciting new events, showcasing some new music and maybe even a yung collaboration or two.”

    Follow bigfoot.wildboy on Instagram and check out the website to keep up with what Ross has planned.

    Credits:

    Art direction and styling – Ross “Archy” Sey

    Models – Nicole Sen, Taylor Goodman, Tshepo Mokoena, LuthandoMbombo, Maya Barry, Shanti Cullis

    Makeup and hair – Paris Mia Mckay

    Photography – Dhevan Bergmann

  • Nikky Norton Shafau // ColabNowNow Storyteller

    “My vision of the future is lead by a feeling”

    For Nikky Norton Shafau storytelling is about taking ownership of the past and the personal, as a way to create joy in the future.

    She does not identify as an Afrofuturist but finds that certain artists, aesthetics and ideas attached to Afrofutursim resonate with her. She is part of the collective Afrofutures_UK where she has, “delivered creative workshops, blogged and an aggregated some of the event as a whole. We created a tradition where each event ends with a plenary poem that sums up all of the discoveries made, which I create and share.”

    Nikky expressed that she sees all people as storytellers. For her, telling stories in nature in front of a group of people feels like the truest way to express herself. The point at which she starts to create something verbally begins with an image, so her relationship with writing has become more aural and visual.

    Taking this as a point of departure for how she sees the power of language, she mentioned that she would like to transform herself into a storybook. This started as an artistic experiment in 2015 when she wrote down the statement, ‘My name is Nikky I’m a little bit strange I want to become a Storybook’. Over the past two years this statement has come to mean more than she originally thought. “It is collaborative in its evolution, and it’s personal. It has become a statement about job titles, fitting in and personal transformation. At its heart I suppose I’m exploring ownership and the imagination.”

    The meaning of this statement has allowed the world to become her canvas. From discovering a ‘secret garden’ where she tells stories, to social media and blogging becoming spaces where she can present her journey visually as well as archive the stories of people in her network.

    Nikky has continued to create digital footprints through her involvement in mini experiments in digital spaces. “I created a simple online portal for a theatre experience I created called ‘The Adventures Of Sky The Reluctant Hero’…There were four ‘rabbit holes’ that people could ‘fall down’ to become more immersed in the character’s world before they came to the theatre experience. This included creative challenges, QR coded, a Pinterest board, a blog and a character Facebook page. Some people were seduced into the experience with letters that I planted in different locations  – park benches, bus seats, cafes. In the end those who interacted the most were invited to a VIP night time storytelling walk.” This combination of online and offline interaction made the character feel real to those who watched the production.

    Reflecting on being part of ColabNowNow, Nikky expressed that she is, “excited about starting in the unknown, the bloc party and having conversations that may breed collaboration in the future.”

    The final outcomes of the residents’ individual and collective ideas that have been fermenting throughout the residency will be presented at the Fak’ugesi Bloc Party on the 16th of September.

     

  • Lindokuhle Nkosi // ColabNowNow storyteller

    ColabNowNow resident Lindokuhle Nkosi shared with me how she views herself as a storyteller. She explained that there isn’t a specific point at which she decided to become a writer and to grow her relationship with writing. She adds that her writing has matured by being more honest and playful, and knowing that she has always been writing outwards regardless of that the fact that she wasn’t sure who was reading her work.

    “I’ve found that the things I’m writing of late are personal missives. To myself. To the people I love past, present and future,” Lindokuhle explains. For her writing has also become a container of memories, a way for her to remember all that she never wants to allow herself forget. She also sees her work as map-making and piecing fragments together; she is no longer interested in being coherent or right. “I’m more willing to be understood. I don’t know if that’s growth or petulance but I know it sits better between skin and spirit,” she adds.

    Lindokuhle is also excited about the idea of a re-imagined future, or what she clarifies further as “futurelessness”. “Time is a strange thing for me, even this idea of the future as this fixed point in time that we can arrive at and be, and become is weird to me,” she explains. Continuing from this she highlights how she has been thinking about loopholes and wormholes this year and what these mean for thinking about ideas around chronology. This ties into her MA in Creative Writing that she is working on at the moment, where she explores intergenerational trauma – the idea that pain gets passed on genetically. It’s a creative thesis, a fictionalized body of work that looks how violence folds into the body. She asks the question, “If I can accept this idea, the idea that my grandmothers experiences live in my body and affect who and how I am in the present…then what is the purpose of time? What promise does the future hold and who dictates it?”

    “I have a feeling that what white sci-fi has always described as dystopia is actually a shrinking of their privilege and a destruction of white supremacy. All the things we’re seeing now; increases militarization, the re-emergence of the Neo-Nazi, climate change – this is the world systems caving in on themselves, this is them working. This is what they’re designed to do. So things like shutdowns, like resistance and protest, the ability to arrest the future and bring it to a standstill, that’s what excites me. I don’t know that I’m the architect of any kind of future. All I have is a knowledge of how things are, the system that maintains it and allows it to exist; and an imagination. The ability to create new weapons, weapons that can not only resist but create.”

    Through all of this, Lindokuhle realizes the weight that words can hold, and that her primary economy is language. ” I hope to break things, to unburden meanings, to fuck around. To open spaces in the meanings, spaces in which we can inject ourselves so that sentences are not prison terms of definitions.”

    As part of the ColabNowNow residency, she is open to the ideas that will come to be through interacting with people from Southern Africa, East Africa, West Africa and the UK.

    The final outcomes of their individual and collective ideas that have been fermenting throughout the residency will be presented at the Fak’ugesi Bloc Party on the 16th of September.

  • Disorient Culture Club

    Disorient Culture Club is a media platform for diaspora creators and anyone interested in exploring the nuances of immigrant cultures. Co-founders, Dinika Govender and Karen Jean Mok, met four years ago through Facebook. At the time they were ambassadors of a global community of young professionals called Sandbox and connected online in order to share experiences and ideas around community-building. Dinika was based in Cape Town at the time, and Karen in San Francisco. They spent the next few years building their friendship through sharing experiences and questions related to identity, responsibility to family, immigrant culture, the experiences of being minorities with non-linear histories in the U.S and South Africa, and mid-20s existential crises. I had an interview with Dinika to find out more about how this friendship developed into the decision to create the Disorient Culture Club.

    Dinika describes herself as a “creative storyteller and journalist with an entrepreneurial streak”. She was born in KZN, raised in Johannesburg, and was educated in Cape Town. She explained to me that Karen, Chinese-American, is a former consultant turned designer turned food entrepreneur working towards normalising cultural industries that would otherwise be considered “ethnic” and “exotic”. The conversations that grew their friendship guided them towards a burning desire to contribute towards “issues of misrepresentation, ongoing cultural appropriation and erasure of – and by – Eastern and Asian diaspora communities – but to do it in a compelling way. We wanted to create the space where we could cultivate a much-needed self-love without shying away from self-aware cultural critique.”

    The name Disorient holds this desire within its double meaning. Dinika explains that it is first a response to Orientalism – “the gaze regime employed by European colonial powers to paint the East as an exotic place filled with ‘submissive lusty women and meek, violent men’.” Secondly, it refers to disorientation. “We’re intentionally spotlighting creators and slices of culture without a linear, or binary, narrative. We’re spending time getting to know establishments in our home cities, and in underexplored corners of the internet, that are sources of cultural knowledge and heritage,” Dinika explains.

    Therefore, the catalyst for Disorient is related to wanting to add to a global library of cultural knowledge while asking and answering questions about immigrant identity in a beautiful way.

    Disorient collage ft photography by Yumna Al-Arashi

    A newsletter sent every two weeks was the first channel they used in the making of the Disorient Culture Club. “It’s our vehicle for sharing our disorienting findings, meetups, events and write-ups with a growing audience of (mainly) millennial readers who can resonate with the idea of finding ‘home in more than one place’,” Dinika explains. The newsletter links to more information that can be found on their recently launched site, and offers insights into cultural corners in Johannesburg and San Francisco. The information that they share focuses on food, media and design, as these are the spaces that they are both closely connected to, and this allows them to come from a place of authenticity.

    Their newsletter and site offers a kind of digital archive of cultural pasts and presents, as well as an alternative mapping of Johannesburg and San Francisco, with their first-hand experiences of these spaces as the reader’s guide.

    “We believe every person has valuable cultural knowledge, and we’re just busy figuring out a way to be a platform that supports and amplifies cultural agency…We’ve seen from our growing community of readers and crushes how creators embed these immigrant experiences into their work – whether it’s business, non-profit work, art, photography, literature or food. There’s this tangible desire to preserve heritage – even for those who are five, six, seven generations into a new country. At a moment where we’re only just beginning to solve for the imbalances in cultural narratives and misrepresentations of ‘othered’ identities, the significance of Disorient playing a self-aware, creative role in this moment is not lost on us.”

    Follow Disorient o Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to keep up with what they get up to.

    Disorient Collage featuring artwork by Lady Skollie and photography by Saint Heron

  • Jacque Njeri on her ‘MaaSci’ series

    Artist and designer Jacque Njeri has always had a close relationship with art, which she expressed through various mediums growing up. She took this experimentation with art as a child and channeled it into formal training when she completed her degree in Bachelors of Art in Design.

    The aim of Jacque’s work is to look at everyday scenarios but through a whole new perspective. “It is almost as if to answer the hypothetical question, ‘If not this, then what else?’” she explains.

    In contrast to her previous Stamp Series, Jacque’s latest digital series titled MaaSci, a portmanteau of Maasai and Sci-Fi, sees Maasai people walking on the moon and traveling through space on UFOs, as well as sitting on or walking towards celestial objects on earthly terrains. Her strategic use of layering and taking into account the sitting and standing positions of the Maasai people she portrays in her images, allow the final images to come across as photographs rather than digital constructions. Jacque explains that the role of the Maasai people in this series “was to provide that rich cultural aesthetic to the different science fiction themes represented in the compositions.” Her images also speak back to the documentary-style photographs coupled with narratives that highlight African cultures and their traditions as occupying a kind of anachronistic place in the present. Instead the Maasai are seen to be inhabitants of both the past, present and future, playing with linear chronological thinking, and highlighting Maasai cyclical time.

    Artists from the continent are often categorized as Afrofuturists. Thinking about the almost immediate categorization, I asked Jacque what she thinks about this. She replied by saying, ‘I love it! It sets an African future apart from other futures. It alludes to a future for us and by us. It shows ownership of a voice in matters pertaining Africa…sort of.  I have been an Afrofuturism enthusiast even way before I started contributing to that genre.”

    Jacque has a number of projects that she is working on at the moment, but is planning on extending her MaaSci series given the positive reception that is has received.

  • Dawit L. Petros // place-making and cultural negotiation

    Born in Eritrea and now based in New York, visual artist Dawit L. Petros creates photographic images and installations that engage the possibilities of reconsidering the relationship between African histories and European modernism. Research and his travels influence how he conceptualizes his works. In his bio he explains that, “By drawing upon forms rooted in diverse histories, [his] artistic language enables a metaphorically rich articulation of the fluidity of contemporary transnational experiences and attendant issues of place-making, and cultural negotiation.”

    The Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict resulted in his family having to move around a number of times. His experiences as an immigrant is molded into his practice. His explorations during his travels and the works which come from this are an attempt to capture each cities’ sense of place, while also being informed by experiences of being an outsider.

    ‘Untitled (Prologue)’

    In his project titled The Stranger’s Notebook (Prologue) he traces borders in his journey across countries on the African continent and into Europe. This year-long trip was captured through photography, sound and moving images. The original title for the project Le Carnet de l’Étranger comes from the 1942 book by French writer Albert Camus. Although this did not end up being the title for the project, it still references themes related to experiences of “outsiderness” that Camus deals with in his book. Petros also indirectly references German sociologist Georg Simmel’s conceptualization of ‘the stranger’ in society – referring to the paradox of how the stranger is physically close but psychologically distant. This project also highlights the complexity of migration within the African continent, and the relationship between self and place.

    His works have been recognized with awards including an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, an Art Matters Fellowship, and Addis Ababa Photo Fest. His works are in institutional collections including The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Royal Ontario Museum of Art, The Center For Photography at Woodstock, and numerous private collections. Petros is represented by Tiwani Contemporary in London, UK.

    ‘Act of Recovery, (Part I)’

  • Cukia Kimani // making magic in the gaming world

    Having been captivated by the world of gaming from when he received a PlayStation for his 7th birthday, Cukia Kimani knew that he wanted to be part of that world. “From the moment I put it on and saw the magic on the screen, I knew I had to become one of those magicians making the magic,” Cukia explains. The Kenyan born game developer, spent primary school dreaming about how he could realize this desire but unfortunately did not have anyone close enough for him to learn from. “So, I just passively went through school waiting for some sign like ‘making games here’”.

    When he moved to South Africa his high school offered programming. This was the first step in the direction to becoming a game developer. Highlighting the difficulty of this journey, he was elated when he made it to university where he studied Computer Science and Maths. Beginning to see the world through numbers and code, the spirit of his seven year old self never left him. He decided that instead of going to work at a bank after graduating, he began to learn about game development in his spare time. After working on a few smaller projects he was invited to be part of the festival A MAZE./ Johannesburg. With the game Boxer which he created with his fellow final year student Ben Crooks won the inaugural A MAZE./ Johannesburg Award in 2015. Boxer is a top down boxing game played using only the analogue sticks. On his website the game is described as stripping out “all the boredom of boxing and gives you what you really wanted to see in any boxing match: juicy punches to the face. No hugs, no running – just boxing”. With the award as a recognition of his ability and vision, Cukia realized that he was well on his way to making his childhood dream a reality. “I was like ‘Shit, you can REALLY do this’. That festival in many ways kick started my career with access to international independent game developers to learn from,” Cukia explains.

    Curious about the indie gaming world and taking into account the way in which context influences the cultures that form from and around technology, I asked Cukia if there is a difference between African indie game development and those from other parts of the world. “Yes and No. Yes, we have a different outlook on life, different access to resources but at the end of the day with digital distribution and the internet you’re just as close to your customers as anyone else in other parts of the world.”

    Since then he started a digital art and indie games development studio called Nyamakop with Ben Myres. One of their big projects is a game titled Semblance which is described as a “puzzle platformer where your character and the world it inhabits is made of playdough.” Semblance is a game that makes the platformer, one of the most saturated and stale genres of games today, feel fresh and interesting again. Players are able to squish their character and the world they inhabit to solve puzzles in Semblance’s soft, bouncy world.

    Cukia has also been invited to be part of conferences, festivals and panel discussions focused on the thematic framework of gaming, including game design and game development as a whole. These kinds of spaces have influenced the way Cukia thinks about his own practice. “When I visit an international conference or festival I’m inspired by what everyone else is making. I just want to get back home and make cool stuff to show people. I’m motivated because other independent game developers are also struggling with the same issues I am. The more I attend you find people to collaborate with. Meaning more diverse games from all over the world!”

    He has spent time working with Yann Seznec on the project PAINTING W/ MUSIC. The idea behind this project is to create permanent visual artifacts – a digital painting – with music. Using MIDI data from the music and generative algorithms, together the two will create a digital painting.

    “We’ve developed an installation piece and performance for the Fak’ugesi festival. It’s funny to think that the original pitch of the project was 3 paintings and 3 songs on a website. Now, it’s blossomed to something that other people can interact with as well as be performed. So, developing it from that point of view has been about user experience. We developed sounds that can be tweaked at the same time as the visuals together,” Cukia explains about how the project has evolved.

    When asked about what direction he sees South Africa’s game industry going, he left me with these words: “I like to say it’s like when a star is being born. It’s small but it’s dense and HOT. It’s only going to get bigger and brighter.”

  • Bubblegum Club mix Vol 14 by Christian Pahud

    Swiss drummer, instrumentalist and electronic producer Christian Pahud is spending a few months in Johannesburg as part of a Pro Helvetia residency. He hopes to create a mixed arts project based on the meeting between African culture and his own experiences and perspective as a Swiss artist.

    Practicing as an artist for almost 20 years, he has created music for films and theatre. As a visual artist he has produced drawings and video work at exhibitions in places such as Lausanne, Zürich, New-York, Paris, Casablanca. He has created sound performances and installations and worked with a number of visual artists, musicians and choreographers.

    A self-taught drummer, Pahud has also been the founder of several groups, such as Honey for Petzi, Larytta and Bombers. He also engages in experimental sound and solo projects focused within the genre of electronic music.

    He will be a face to look out for at this year’s Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival, and has put together a mix which pays tribute to women who were important pioneers in the experimental and electronic world of music. This mainly includes music from the 60s and 70s. The mix also includes contemporary feminine artist who continue to push these genres forward. His own music is also included in the mix. Mainly producing rhythmical and dance music, here he shows another side to side work – ambient and abstract music.

    Here is the track list (artist/track/timing):
    Laurie Spiegel        “patchwork”   00′
    Christian Pahud     “Storm & Destress”  3’20
    Daphne Oram         “Amphitryon”   8’00
    Daphne Oram         “Fireworks”  8’30
    Delia Derbyshire     “Talk out”  9’04
    Christian Pahud      “Sub Alpen” 9’25
    Delia Derbyshire     “Liquid Energy” 10’55
    Aisha Devi               “Aurat (tool)”  11’23
    Else Marie Pade     “Prolog I Himeln”  13’02
    Christian Pahud      “Bateau craque” 13’17
    Christian Pahud      “Für Francis” 14’20
    Holly Herndon         “Chorus”  18’22

  • Inciting a sense of energy and a feeling of action // A conversation about Fak’ugesi’s visual identity

    As a digital innovation festival which hopes to encourage young digital makers to be leaders in technological spheres, the visual identity for the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival was born out of the energy that students were emitting while Wits lecturers Tegan Bristow and Christo Doherty were building their vision for the festival. Teaming up with Vincent Truter and illustrator Michale Tymbios, lightning bolts, clenched fists and illustrations mimicking wires in a circuit board are the visual signifiers that have been carried over as the festival has expanded each year. This pays homage to the spirit of youth and the cultures on technology that continuously develop within different city contexts. I interviewed Vincent and Tegan to explore how they have translated this into a visual identity that is easily recognizable and disperses this electric energy.

    When you first started Fak’ugesi, what was your thinking in how you wanted to visually represent ideas around digital innovation? How did you carry this through in the 2016 and 2017 posters?

    VT: At the time when Fak’ugesi started we sensed a strong political and revolutionary climate on the Wits campus. There was a lot of very political and revolutionary iconography on student and other posters and stickers. This sense of a revolutionary mind-set would later culminate in the Fees Must Fall campaign.

    We drew on the beginnings of this energy and started looking at poster designs and icons from the past revolutionary movements. Drawing on a Russian constructivist print style we developed the hand as the central metaphor, and secondly we brought in the lightning bolt – to metaphorically represent what Fak’ugesi does and means – to set things alight, to strike with a bolt of energy. We did not want to take the route of bringing the tech element foreground in a kind of sci-fi way, rather we rooted it in a very human form, with a revolutionary metaphor and crisp clear iconography. As you know the fist has also been a strong symbol in SA for Amandla and associated with many revolutionary sentiments. We added a circuit board texture that celebrated the digital. The founding imagery was developed in collaboration with illustrator Michale Tymbios. So the main ingredients were born. The human hand, the lightning bolt, the circuitry that acts like veins. Its energetic, bold, and always a sharp stab to the senses.

    The first illustration was inspired by the cut-out and mis-print aesthetic of Saul Bass. The second years use of multiple feminine hands was inspired by hands at the Fees Must Fall rallies holding up phones to document the event. This year the hands were inspired by a softer set of hands giving, sharing.

    The colour palette is also always a mixture of a tonal set of hues with a really wack uncomfortable colour thrown in. It’s actually not a very easy palette on the eye – and we love it for that reason. It needs to agitate a bit.

    The slogans you have used on the posters over the years have been “Rise Digital Africa”, “Afro Tech Riot” and “Brave Tech Hearts Beat as One”. Would you like to share a bit about the thinking behind these slogans and how they tie into the visual language you have used to symbolize these?

    VT: We wanted to keep the conceptual and thematic language uncomplicated and direct. No fluffy highfalutin phrases that try and say so much and end up saying so little. In the first year we actually developed a type of copy-driven praise poem to add the sense of movement and pace through the language. This was then distilled in a short punchy slogan “Rise Digital Africa”. Like a great rally slogan in a march, the Fak’ugesi slogan should incite a sense of energy and a feeling of action.

    TB: Each slogan is almost like a challenge that we pose with the Festival each year. We iterate this every year, drawing on how people are working with the space of technology and culture. In 2015 there was a lot of focus in the media on what was being called the “Digital Revolution” in Africa, we were skeptical about this and wanted to ask questions about where that power really existed, so the “Rise Digital Africa” and the old use of the black power first came into being.

    After that the hand and the fist stayed in our iconography. In 2016 I used “Afro Tech Riot” to reflect the really important student upraising around #feesmustfall, which pretty much ran from Twitter and was largely led by strong female figures. Therefore rather than have one fist, we introduced three hands: a fist – to continue the tradition of uprising; a hand pointing up to the gods – representing spirituality; and a hand holding the phone with the slogan “Afro Tech Riot” on it – to reference how the revolution was being led in twitter and via images and videos. These hands where all very feminine, with soft hands, jewellery and flowing garments.

    In 2017 I wanted to represent a more global engagement with technology. 2017 was the year that Trump won his US election through targeted social media, it’s is also the year that followed a major global recession. I felt that all the kids that had started amazing things with tech and innovation in 2017, where still out there alone and with not really enough engagement and support. So “Brave Tech Hearts Beat As One” was to ask questions about unity and the role of supporting and collaborating with each other through difficult times. Our hands therefore became supporting and protecting, holding this beating technological heart – a very brave heart.

    The slogans and icons you have used evoke thoughts around revolution, taking a stand, courage and being heard. Was this intentional? How does this relate to the direction you see African digital innovation going?

    VT: Africa has the ability to use technology to leapfrog through developmental challenges, to use its revolutionary energy to break down ineffective systems and really envision and create new ways of being. This spirit is at the heart of our festival and innovation in Africa.

    TB: Yes absolutely, we all know that Africa is culturally disenfranchised in the globalised information economy. The slogans act to challenge this and also allow us to claim our own knowledges – cultural, subaltern and insurrectionary.

  • Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Residency // Meet the artists

    The annual month-long Fak’ugesi residency which continues into the festival aims to support young, African digital makers. This year Dananayi Muwanigwa and Kombo Chapfika from Zimbabwe team up with Julia Hango from Namibia.

    Dananayi shares that in Zimbabwe there used to be an elite recognized few who were spearheading digital arts in Zimbabwe, mostly in Harare and Bulawayo. In the last few years has been a growing community of young aspiring digital artists. With the Global Citizen Internet boom, more and more aspiring artists have access to the information via the internet, particularly through browsing on their mobile devices. “The Zimbabwean Millennial is more open minded to new ideas and different digital art disciplines. Although the community is still marginal compared to conventional mediums of expression, it is definitely a growing one,” Dananayi explains. “The digital art scene in Zim is still in its infancy, with it mostly being photography and graphic design, some film & animation. Most often people produce digital art as an accompaniment to other art forms, especially fashion,” Kombo adds. Julia paints a similar scene when asked about the digital art in Namibia. She explains that there are a handful of artists, graphic designers and photographers who are involved in contemporary artistic expressions.

    Identifying as a nudist and a feminist, Julia who works under the name JuliART, uses a variety of art forms and works with the naked human body to break barriers and binaries in society. “I believe the body is a very powerful tool for social change, especially when in its raw and most authentic state,” she explains. Dananayi also works with the human figure, specifically the black body to think about its connection to divinity, beauty and its relationship to power as well as themes around alienation. Kombo describes his work as “Retro-Futuristic-Afro-Kitsch”. Explaining that Afro-Kitsch is everywhere, he expands on how he conceptualizes this in his work: “It’s all the recognizable tropes of African artwork: market scenes, sculptures, masks, etc. It can be reductive and reduce aesthetic objects or ideas into easily marketable forms usually for a foreign gaze and then Africans internalize it…I enjoy distorting it, satirizing it, subverting it. It allows me to simultaneously pay homage to it and take the piss out of it.”

    Continuing with this, Kombo explains that he enjoys subversive messaging and coded images which can be interpreted in multiple ways, especially when debunking expectations of what African art should be. This sentiment continues with Julia’s desire to break down barriers and Dananayi’s emphasis on blackness, power and the divine.

    Having officially met at the airport as they arrived in Johannesburg, the artists immediately started sharing ideas about what they could put together for the Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Exhibition that they are working towards. Pointing out overlapping concepts and interests in each other’s practices, having a collaborative aspect to what they produce is an important factor that they all agree on. Not wanting to reveal too much during this early stage, Dananayi mentioned that he is thinking about exploring the idea of ‘’the divine afrofuturist black human form’’ in an alien world. Kombo is hoping to create work with visual energy that leverages both older African symbolism and contemporary urban iconography. Julia was a little more secretive and left me with the words, “All I can say is that there will be some #Bravetech art to feast your eyes on. Come with an open mind.”

  • Visa Street Food Festival // approaching food with a playful yet critical consciousness

    The Visa Street Food Festival has put together a party for your tastebuds in September with Cape Town and Johannesburg playing host to a celebration of street food prepared by some of the country’s best chefs and food makers. Think vinegary fish and slapchips, and the best braai, straight off the fire. This experience includes a new night market in Cape Town as well as the Visa Food Studio conference focusing on the business of food that will take place at the end of August.

    The fourth edition of this festival will start off in Cape Town at Side Street Studios in Woodstock on the 2nd of September with the launch of the night market, and will continue on the 3rd with a day of street food, DJs and free talks. On the 10th the festival will move over to Johannesburg and will take place at the Common Ground in Maboneng.

    Considering that the consumption of street food is an experiential activity, as well as the fact that the festival taps into South African food culture, we highlight the parallels between the food festival and Johannesburg food culture.

    Image via Visa Street Food Festival

    With our lives getting busier, people are constantly looking for easy, accessible food and drink to consume. Food that does not take long to prepare or eat. This is a contributing factor towards millennials being drawn to street and market food. Street and market food is the perfect alternative to cafes, restaurants and fast food outlets. This speaks to their interest in re-imagining traditions, as well as ties into their health, environmental and political consciousness.

    In conjunction with busy lives, consumers have embraced a holistic approach to looking after their health and well-being, including combining scientific and natural answers to create tailored lifestyle plans. Part of this is being more critical of where and how food products are produced. This can be seen with the popularity of organic food products in big food stores as well as among smaller suppliers. With food and drink producers recognizing this shift in culinary thinking among consumers, disseminating  knowledge has becoming part and parcel of the culinary experiences that consumers are presented with. Street and market vendors share with consumers the stories behind their products, including connections with local suppliers, where and how their produce is grown as well as thinking about the spiritual significance of food consumption.

    Image via Visa Street Food Festival

    Connected to this is the recognition that consumers are formulating monetary value based on their social and political values, as well as the value that they place on relationships and community. Therefore, value is calculated beyond function and price. This once again highlights the need for transparency in the process of food production.

    Tying all of this together is the popularity of enjoyable and novel activities that are geared towards shared experiences. This creates more meaningful connections with food consumption, with the sharing of food and drinks an acknowledgement of the time spent together. By being involved in experiential activities with others, people can network, catch up and learn. This is important for young people as work is often intertwined with their social lives. These experiences also allow consumers to have direct contact with independent producers who without these platforms would never be able to enjoy their foods and drinks.

    The Visa Street Food Festival is an experience which amalgamates these approaches to thinking about and experiencing food and drink. The participants at this year’s festival embrace this new wave, as they contribute towards the positive impact that celebrating South African food culture and approaching food with a more critical eye has had on our consciousness.

    Image via Visa Street Food Festival

    Johannesburgers can look forward to Crate Talks with some of our favourites, including Dawood Petersen who co-founded Mamasan, a Cape Malay inspired restaurant in Johannesburg, as well as Gary Kurt Smith from Kotze Rooftop Garden Project among others. Along with these conversations, your tastebuds will be entertained with food from vendors such as ALS CHUCK WAGON for the carnivores and SA’s first true pop-up ice cream parlour, The Knickerbocker Ice cream Company for those with a sweet tooth.

    Capetownians will be introduced to writer and home cook Nobhongo Gxolo from the monthly food club Third Culture Experiment, as well as cake designer Nikki Albertyn and others. Vendors include Tao’s Yum Dim Sum will bring spring rolls and an assortment of dumplings for those looking for Asian inspired flavours as well as treats from the online-based Pâtisserie Studio, LionHeart.

    Get your tickets for the Street Food Festival online now.

    Image via Visa Street Food Festival