I had a conversation with photography magician Carl David Jones about his journey as a photographer and what he has planned for his work this year.
Having planted the seed for his passion in photography during his time in university, Carl went to Seoul to teach English after confessing that his degree in engineering did not excite him much. While in Seoul he started the street style blog, SOL-SOL Street, and this is when the vision of himself as a professional photographer began to take shape. When he started the blog in 2013, Seoul was still a relatively new city for him. Walking through the streets Carl was fascinated by the how well people dressed, and started photographing people every day. “As I travelled to Hong Kong or South Africa I would take my camera with me, asking people wherever I was if I could photograph them. It first started as Korean street style but now it’s wherever I have been,” Carl explained. He met up with a well-known Korean photographer and worked as his apprentice for about a year before spreading his own wings.
Carl’s most recent obsession over the last few months has been experimenting with 35mm film, with the aim of grooming himself into a film photographer. When discussing where this new obsession came from Carl explained that he prefers the head space he has to be in while working with film. “I just felt like people weren’t making images anymore. They were just clicking away and burning through those digital images and not really concentrating on making a picture. With film, you can’t see what you are getting. It’s very limiting. You have to concentrate and get into the zone of making the picture,” Carl explained. His new love for film ties into the low-fi, gritty feel he creates in his images. “I like taking an image for what it is and a location for what it is,” he explained.
Another new adventure of his is creating 3D gifs using a film camera from the 80s, which he received as a gift from his roommate in Seoul. “The camera has four lenses, so it takes one photo from 4 perspectives. When you get the film developed, you make the gif,” Carl explained. He has incorporated this into the shoots where he works with film. “The 3D gifs can give another perspective to the story,” Carl explained.
At the end of this month Carl will be travelling to Bali and then Hong Kong where he will be meeting up with people for a small project he is working on. The results of the project should be dropping in May. He is also planning on taking SOL-SOL Street in a new direction this year. Keep an eye out for these new developments. Carl is currently not represented in SA.
You can check out more of his work on his website.
This episode features footage from Geneva. CUSS GROUP were part of an exhibition titled Held Together With Water at Le Commun in Geneva. Curator, writer and publisher Roxane Bovet chatted to us about the exhibition and it’s exploration of Post-digital culture and Post Internet art. We also spoke to South African artist Victoria Wigzell who is in Geneva on a three month residency. Her work examines how artists and those around them perceive their value. Victoria let us in on her plans for the end of her residency, which will include a short documentary. We come back to SA with our fashion feature from the streets of Braam where German artist Philipp Pieroth shows off his killa kicks and Toblerone cap.
Over the past few years artist Simon Gush has been thinking through how ideas about labour are constructed, as well as how labour is a factor which affects how people construct ideas about themselves and society as a whole. I interviewed him about his latest solo exhibition The Island showing at the Stevenson in Johannesburg which continues this theme.
How do you describe your work and your creative process?
The major part of my production over the last few years has been thinking around the problem of work. Not the problems of specific workplaces or jobs, but the central role work plays in society and the manner in which it affects how we think of ourselves. In particular, I am critical of the moralising of work. Ideas that: ‘Work makes us better,’ or “Hard work is good for you,’ are common inanities that circulate, which I take issue with. This has led me to look at histories of labour movements and the concepts of the work ethic. Specifically, my work has dealt with subjects like public representations of labour, the concept of laziness, strikes, the history of worker migration and resistance to work.
I work mainly in the form of essays, video and photography, moving between images and text. I find that I am able to approach my material differently by using both writing and image, each of which have particular ways of thinking. I am able to do more work at their intersection. When I finish a film or an essay, I find that there are questions that I could not answer in the piece. There is only so much I can do in one work. The unanswered questions then become the starting point for the next project. My essays are written and produced from my personal perspective, comprised of thoughts and anecdotes from my working life, intermingled with research around work; historical, political and ideological. It is important for me to place myself within my work.
Can you give some background on your exhibitions ‘Workplace’ (2015) and ‘Work’ (2013)? How is ‘The Island’ a continuation of or addition to the themes you looked at in these exhibitions?
‘Work’ and ‘Workplace,’ were centred around questions of work ethic and the moralising of work. The artworks that made up these exhibitions began to identify the way work is constructed in our society, the ideological aspect of work. I was conscious that, while there is a dominant idea of work, a colonial construct, society is never homogeneous. I started to realise that, in order to understand a place like Johannesburg, you can’t only look at the place itself. As this is a city built on migrant labour, I needed to start to investigate other places that have historically impacted on how work is formed here, especially those from which workers were sent.
‘Workplace’ was the first product of this research and took the form of a photographic essay about Mozambique. It tried to deal with the history of movement between here and Maputo. Not just by workers, but by disparate people, from the Voortrekkers to ANC exiles during apartheid. ‘The Island’ is a more in-depth look at the effects of systematic labour migration on the relationship between South Africa and Lesotho. Lesotho and Mozambique were historically the largest suppliers of migrant labour to the mines.
Tell our readers about your exhibition ‘The Island’?
‘The Island’ is centered around two major works, the eponymous photographic series, ‘The Island,’ and a new film essay, ‘Invasion.’ ‘The Island’ attempts to see Lesotho beyond the image of migrant labour. I started by looking at the sites of work within Lesotho; the factories, municipal offices, mines and so on. While I was doing this, I was thinking about the fact that the ANC used to call Lesotho “the island,” during the anti-apartheid struggle. This gave me the metaphor from which to start to differentiate Lesotho from South Africa, which surrounds it. The idea of the island also provided a way of thinking about how the forms of dependence and relationships between the two countries might be better understood. I was drawn to how the sea (in this case South Africa) serves as a resource for the island and an integral part of its economy and ecology.
Looking at these connections led me to research the Katse Dam, which provides water to Gauteng. I was interested in the invasion that happened in 1998, when South Africa entered Lesotho, on behalf of SADC, to stop protests around elections that had taken place there. I found out that, during this occupation, the SADC bombarded the Lesotho Defence Force base at Katse Dam. Six months earlier, Lesotho’s water had first begun to flow to South Africa. Because of this, the attack on the base didn’t make sense; except as a power play around the water. The military justification seemed tenuous. While researching this, I met an eyewitness to the attack. The film re-enacts two interviews I did with this witness. I had made an agreement with him to keep his testimony anonymous, hence the re-enactment, but it was also a way to make visible how histories are reconstructed and told. The re-enactments were done with the actor Phillip Dikotla.
Expand on your comment ‘thinking about a space that is thinking about someplace else’ relating to movement of people and resources between countries?
Around sixty percent of Lesotho’s population works in South Africa and will only return in December for the holidays. With the exception of the civil services, most of the formal jobs that are there are somehow connected to elsewhere. The factories are foreign-owned and the products are sold elsewhere. The diamonds from the mines are taken elsewhere to be cut and sold. There seems to be a sense of the displacement that pervades the space. This makes it a place that I had to keep thinking of, not in fixed terms, but according to flows, in and out of the country. This is, of course, true of other countries, but in Lesotho it is very present. It is a place that is hard to tie down. I like this idea as way to think about the local without the rhetoric of nationalism.
Why the focus on Lesotho?
The project started when I was by invited Lerato Bereng, (a South African based Basotho curator) to come to Maseru to do some research. She thought that I would be interested in the way in which flows of labour become visible there. At the same time, I had just visited Maputo. I had a feeling that the presence of the history that connects Mozambique with South Africa was something I wanted to speak to. In the beginning, I thought I would include other countries in the region that also have these links to Johannesburg and South Africa, and are similarly defined by labour, but it was too much for me to take on. It takes time to get a feel for the place and to start to see and understand the aspects that are of interest to the project, which not always immediately available. I have been working on this project for 3 years now and I am only just starting to feel like get some of what is going in the places I have visited.
The Island will be on show until 7 April.
Ministry of Social Development storeroom, central business district, Maseru
Creative collective StylaGang recently dropped their Black Supremacy capsule collection under their graphic sportswear label Styla Gang Original Designs. The logo for SGOD, a T Rex, reflects their desire to push to become be a black-owned South African brand that can compete with well-known international streetwear labels.
Along with keeping you looking cool, their latest collection aims to bring forward a social message. ‘Black Supremacy’ comes from reflecting on oppressive structures in our country and in the world, and encouraging a pro-Black attitude. By communicating this through their clothing, SGOD is trying to state that there is a way to speak to young people about these ideas in more creative ways.
The collection includes a black hooded sweater, a white golf shirt, a black long-sleeved tee and a visor cap. The words ‘Black Supremacy’ and ‘Believe in yourself’ are printed on the back of the shirts and sweater, to carry their social message to the streets.
Check them out on Instagram to check out the rest of the collection and to keep up with what they have planned for the year.
I spoke to Daniel Sher about Good Good Good’s latest capsule collection, Broken Hearts Club.
Tell our readers a little bit about Good Good Good.
Good Good Good is a functional basics menswear brand for men of all sizes, manufactured in our family factory in Cape Town. While quality menswear basics is at the core of our brand philosophy, we have recently started to venture into designing and manufacturing more classic and technical menswear items with the aid of some very experimental fabrics.
The minimal aesthetic of our core basics range also serves as an excellent platform for us to collaborate on more artistic and contemporary menswear capsules, such as this ‘Broken Hearts Club’ T-Shirt capsule with Jana Hamman or our soon to be released capsule with South African artist David Brits, which were both showcased as part of our runway collection at SA Menswear Week.
Tell our readers about the thinking behind the name for the collection, ‘Broken Hearts Club’.
We feel that the capsule name has a bitter-sweet and very human feel to it. Almost everybody has had their heart broken at some point in their life, whether that heartbreak came via a romantic relationship or from another life situation. The humor in wearing a T-Shirt series of that name/with that phrase splashed across the front chest is something that many people can identify with and hopefully laugh at. It also hints at the small personal victory associated with rising above the emotional lows brought about by a broken heart.
What was the inspiration for or thinking behind the collection?
We wanted to release a capsule of love inspired T-Shirts for Valentine’s Day. Since our SA Menswear Week show fell on the 3rd of February, it seemed a perfect idea to use the runway as the platform in which to reveal a teaser of the capsule.
Tell our readers about collaborating with Jana Hamman for this collection.
Jana is always fantastic to work with. We’ve been very close friends for a few years now, and since I was familiar with her artistic style and inspiration, I felt that she was the perfect person to work with in order to realize the vision that I had for this capsule.
It was also very last minute, and I know she conceptualized and painted for hours the Sunday before our menswear week show. I think it’s fair to say that she killed it!
Once the illustrations were down, it was a quick and seamless collaborative process whereby we worked together to decide how and where to place them onto the T-Shirts.
Any other info you would like us to mention about the label or the collection?
We are busy working on the production of our SA Menswear Week collection, which consists of 2 parts; a standalone Good GoodGood collection and our collaborative capsule with South African artist David Brits. Later this year we also have a few exciting collaborations lined up with a few local artists as well as with some South African institutions which we tend to frequent.
The collection is exclusively available for purchase from their online shop.
Credits:
Photographer: Carl David Jones – the entire look book was shot on 35mm film.
Keren Setton and Sitaara Stodel have had a desire to address themes related to self-love, sisterhood, sharing knowledge and playfulness. Having met while studying Fine Art at Michaelis School of Fine Art at UCT, their friendship has formed organically. Feeling frustrated with the everyday 9 to 5 life and searching for a creative outlet, they spoke to each other about making potions as children and their fascination with the idea of the witch. Their interest in witches is related to how they view them as powerful women who have been persecuted and labeled as evil. “Actually she [a witch] is in touch with herself and the world,” Keren explains. Their playful relationship, interest in witches and mutual love for bulgar wheat combined to form the collective Bulgar Witchez.
Selfie ritual 1
Unsure of whether to describe their work as an art practice given that studying art left them unsure of the art world and where they see themselves in it, their collective is a mixture of performance, healing and playful experimentation. The digital manifestations of this mixture are shared on Instagram and are informed by astrology, rituals, plants, tarot cards and online culture. “Bulgar Witchez is about being fun and creative. And a lot about self-love and personal growth. We are both still young and trying to figure out what kind of art we want to make,” Sitaara explains. Their “spells” are made up of whatever would be needed to tackle a problem or provide encouragement. “It’s like magic for yourself,” Sitaara explains. Some of the spells they create are based on what they are going through in their own lives, and others are based on spell requests.
Friendship Spell
“We have an aesthetic that we try to stick to,” Keren explains, “but we are constantly trying to push Instagram into something interesting. We consume so much imagery that we also wanted to make the imagery that we wanted to see”. The Bulgar Witchez have recently starting experimenting with creating gifs, and hope to get their YouTube channel going soon.
Be sure to check them out on Instagram, and feel free to send through a spell request.
In this episode of Bubblegum Club Stories curator of the South African Pavilion Lucy MacGarry chats to us about artists Candice Breitz and Mohau Modisakeng, and their work on identity construction. Tabita Rezaire helps us find the light for our inner fire and gives us a head’s up for next solo show “Exotic Trade”. Director Lenzo dishes us a Korean-style inspired look. German media artist Lorenz Potthast chats to us about his contribution to the opening exhibition at the new space TheOtherRoom Durban. We also speak to Lebogang Rasethaba about his creative process and what he is working on at the moment.
I had a conversation with young photographer Danielle O’Neill about her views on the power of the lens and a collaborative project she did titled Las Brujas.
“I’m really interested in how photography looks at looking, and looks at the way we preserve our ways of looking,” Danielle explains when discussing her love for the camera. This anthropological approach to her practice allows her to see the photograph as problematic in that it can encourage self-policing and inaccurate preservations. However, she also highlights the potentiality for the camera to be a tool and a weapon that works to make denied bodies and identities visible – it opens up a space to interrogate the gaze.
“When you wake up in the morning and you are feeling really good and you turn on your phone camera and take a selfie, there is a reason why are feeling the reason need to preserve that moment. There is particular identity in that moment in time that you are wanting to preserve, whether it be for yourself, or for a post. That’s how we live and it’s important to recognize that,” Danielle expresses. For her, photography can transform, repackage and recapture identity. It is also one of the visual mediums that speaks to access – “bodies, words and minds can be made visible”.
Stemming from this approach and understanding of photography, Danielle shared with me her thinking behind the project Las Brujas. Taking inspiration from Nina Simone’s song Four Women which is centred around breaking down the stereotypes attributed to Black women through popular culture, Danielle explains that she was inspired to collaborate with other womxn to bring to life a piece representing black and brown womxn & femmes outside of the exhausted imaginings of our bodies. She worked with creatives Lihle Ngcobozi, Rafe Green, Upile Bongco, Wairimu Muriithi, Kirsten Afrika, Georgina Graaff Makhubele, Thathi Mashike, Mosa Anita Kaiser and Michelle Mosalakae to put this project together.
La bruja is directly translated to mean ‘witch’. This was an interesting starting point, as Danielle was trying to look at the historical placement of the witch, and how it is an image that has continuously followed female identity. She explains that in some Afro-Latino cultures bruja is a space of sisterly communication and is a term of endearment among women. It is a term that is associated with sisterly and matriarchal showing of affection. She wanted to look at the witch outside of white, Western, patriarchal, historical narratives that have been placed on black and brown womxn and contemporary ideas of womanhood and femxle sexuality.
To check out more of her work follow her on Instagram.
Fashion and art have always been close cousins, drawing inspiration from each other to redefine themselves. Lebo Mashigo recognizes this close relationship and has brought them together to create the art and fashion exhibition Night In The Garden. “I have always loved the creative industry and wanted to find a way of contributing to its growth,” she explains. Teaming up with Kean Laurens, Njabulo Nhlapo and Thabiso Molatlhwa, Lebo has created an avenue for local designers and artists to be noticed and celebrated.
Thinking about a theme that would allow exhibitors and the Night In The Garden team space for experimentation, the exhibition on the 18th of March will revolve around the theme Hydration, and is fittingly hosted at Poolside in Maboneng.
Alone
The sub-brand The Holiday Boyscouts from OHYESLORD will show a collection that reminds us to be playful and fearless in our style choices. New to the exhibition is the brand Alone, whose collection is inspired by the universe and heartbreak. North West brand Embedded is another new edition to this year’s exhibition. A collection by Oddity will show how comfort and style can work in unison. The Uniconz and TRNSD will also be showcasing some of their garments to add to their already growing street cred. Illustrators Lorenzo Plaatjies and Mbali Tshabalala, along with photographer and videographer Alternative Visuals will be sharing their individual pieces with attendees. Artist Karbz will also be putting together a live art fashion installation that focuses on local streetwear.
Keep an eye out for the lookbook Night In The Garden will be releasing on the day of the exhibition by checking out their website, Facebook and Instagram.
German digital artist Lorenz Potthast is spending time in South Africa to present on his MA project on the oceanic routes of the internet as well as to be part of the opening of a new gallery space in Durban called TheOtherRoom. His background is in design but has always had an interest in digital technology, specifically how it changes the way we behave, interact, and see the world. He wanted to use design to think about how people interact with technology without necessarily having a commercial interest.
Do You Agree, 2016His work flows in two directions, the first taking a critical look at various aspects and practices related to digital technology. His project Do You Agree? is an example of this kind of work. This work investigated licensing agreements we accept to before we install or sign up for software or an online program. This involved printing out these licensing agreements for viewers to see their length and complexity in their entirety. However, in order to enter the exhibition space, viewers had to walk up to a computer and click ‘I agree’ on a blank licensing agreement page, the same way that most people click ‘I agree’ to these programs without reading the text. Viewers did not realize that they were agreeing to be monitored throughout their time in the exhibition space. On their departure, viewers were handed a printout with information based on an analysis conducted during their time in the exhibition. This included categories such as estimations about their race, gender, happiness and speed. This work aimed to comment on how through these elaborate agreements we agree to be monitored and allow information about ourselves and our activities to be profiled.
The second direction of Lorenz’s work relates to his fascination with what the digital allows us to do, which he channels through the work he does with his collective Xenorama. Xenorama is made of five members who mainly work with projection mapping, and were brought together by their interest in creating digitized surfaces.
Facade Dialogs with Xenorama, 2015
Lorenz first came to South Africa in 2015 as part of a cultural exchange between his city, Bremen in Germany, and Durban. He worked for a year at BAT (an arts and culture centre) in Durban and helped to set up a computer room. This year he was invited by lecturer and digital practitioner Tegan Bristow to give a talk at Wits about his MA work on the oceanic routes of internet cables. This project stems from his interest in understanding what the internet is. His time in Johannesburg is also linked to the fact that it is the city that is the data centre for South Africa, despite the fact that Durban is the landing point for the internet cables that connect South Africa to the global network. His work will be looking at how to think through this digital logic.
Tied to his research, Lorenz also spent time in Durban to be part of the opening of a new alternative gallery space called TheOtherRoom. As part of the opening, there was a performance by artist Simphiwe Xulu, aka Mr MediaX, in which he embodied a mythical creature called Mami Wata. Lorenz explained that there are many theories about this creature, but one specific one describes this creature as having a mermaid-like figure and having travelled to Africa from the first ships of the colonizers that had mermaid figures carved into them. Over time this belief has travelled from the North of the continent to the South, creating varied versions. In the exhibition, Mami Wata was imagined as a piece of information, as data travelling through Africa. Following one of the beliefs about Mami Wata, that one can communicate with her through telepathy, and working with Donnavan Orr who conceptualized the Body of Wata exhibition, Lorenz created a tweet bot that lives in the Twitter servers in San Francisco. On the night of the opening there was a projection of the world map on a wall, and tweets sent to Mani data were digitally routed on this map. This was an attempt to visually portray communication with Mami Wata and to imagine the concept of Mami Wata as a digital entity.
To check out more of his work and that of his collective, go to Lorenz’s website.
Ghanaian-born Kasen Midichi has always found art as the easiest way to express himself. Initially discouraged by understandings of art as work for “lazy people” within his community, he re-discovered his love for creating visual magic when a friend asked him to create a piece for a store.
His paintings portray celebrities, public figures and well-known artists – people he thinks made it to the top within their specific field. In his painting one can identify who he is portraying, but the red skin and big eyes make the work recognizably Midichi, creating a sense of the familiar yet unfamiliar. In explaining to me his obsession with reading and watching biographies about those he considers the best in their fields, he also confessed that he has always wanted to be associated with that greatness. As a way to do this he inserts Midichi at the end names of the figures that he paints in the titles of this works.
As a man who enjoys literary indulgences, he is currently working on a painting inspired by the line “I’m like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good” from the book This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. In the same way that readers create images of characters in their minds, Midichi is trying to transfer these words into a visual language. “When I read a line that intrigues me, I want to paint that scene of how I see it in my head regardless of what the author had in mind,” Midichi explains.
Go to Midichi’s Instagram page to check out more of his work and to keep an eye out for his website.
This week we visited new media artist Simphiwe Xulu, aka Mr MediaX, at Assemblage Studios to check out the beginnings of the logo he created with Sanele Omari Jali for the “I Make Africa’ project being hosted in Harare. We also share some behind the scenes footage from our latest cover shoot with the talented Zandi Tisani, who let’s us in on what she is working on at the moment. Rosie Parade chats to us about bringing Ikonika over to SA for a teaching residency and her first gig at Kitcheners. Slice Frederico serves us our fashion feature for the week. We also visited the new spot in Braam, Kota Kings, and chatted to co-founder Tankiso Tank Makwela about how they are switching up the way you eat your kota.
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