Bubblegum Club

Tag: African artists

  • Pop Caven // a streetwear brand foregrounding African pop culture

    Pop Caven // a streetwear brand foregrounding African pop culture

    Pop Caven is a streetwear brand that combines pop culture, cheeky plays with typography and African histories in their collections of tees and sweatshirts. Started in 2016 by sisters Joan and Doreen Caven, the name for the brand is a showing of gratitude towards their father who they credit for nurturing the “pop culture loving, classic film obsessed, African art history geeks we turned out to be”. The intention for the brand is to highlight African artists, musicians, tastemakers and influencers who continue to pushed back against the distorted views of the continent, and who solidified the importance of local knowledge systems and creativity.

    They recognize that pop culture is large worldwide and that African people have an equally large buying power. Joan and Doreen take the nostalgia they have for their childhood, their exposure to global pop culture brands and mash them together with culturally significant references from Nigeria. One of their most recognizable tees sees the Coca Cola typeface with the words ‘Kola Nut’, which is sacred in Igbo culture (their own culture) and is used to welcome guests into one’s village or home. They have also used the FILA logo, and changed the words to ‘FELA’ as a tribute to one of Nigeria’s musical icons. There latest collection includes ‘Accra’ written in the DHL font, the ‘Africa is not a country’ slogan and ‘No Wahala’ [slang for no worries or no problem] with records, roses and leopards on tees. While these items take on a the character of a parody, each one serves  as a platform to teach, inspire and remember. Wearers and viewers have to do a double take, flipping the script for these well-known logos and typefaces.

    The Pop Caven website allows browsers to shop for their latest collections, as well as have access to information about fellow artists, designers and creatives of African descent in the section ‘Pop x Platform’. This is a direct step towards making sure creatives are able to present their work to a global audience, and offer the opportunity for them to build their own brands.

    “Straight from Africa, delivered to the world”. This section in their brand bio emphasizes how the two aspects – their clothing and their platform for other creatives – combine to take ownership of creativity and distribution.

    Check out the Pop Caven website for their latest tees and sweaters.

  • South Africa, What’s Up? Residency at ANTiGEL Festival

    Over the last 8 years ANTiGEL Festival has grown to become one of the largest cultural events in Geneva. By bringing artistic experience to parts of the city that are detached from this kind of engagement, the festival aims to be a reminder of the importance of making spaces for arts and culture. Africa What’s Up is a residency that falls within the festival. Artists from South Africa and Egypt have been invited to put together an evening dedicated to cultural music and cultural production on their countries.

    Photography by Chris Saunders

    Throughout the week-long residency, South African and Egyptian artist have been interacting with cultural producers from Mali, Nigeria and Switzerland. It has also provided a moment of pause and refection. In addition to the time spent networking and teasing out performance plans, artists have been able to engage with one another and the residency organisers in daily roundtable discussions. This expands the purpose of the residency to that of a space for conversations that directly affect artists. These include conversations around womxn’s access to performance time and how this is connected to networks, resources and development. Discussions also included the larger question of access for artists in general with regards to visa applications and funding to sustain their practices.

    Photography by Viviane Sassen

    Even though the residency has a focus on music, it also embraces the importance of cross-disciplinary pollination. This can be seen by the performance element.

    South Africa’s CUSS Group and the Swiss cultural organisation Shap Shap co-curated the South Africa What’s Up lineup, which includes performances by FAKA, DJ Prie Nkosazana, Dirty Paraffin and DJ Lag. Choreographer Manthe Ribane and Swiss electro-soul duo Kami Awori will be presenting their collaborative effort. Having met in Johannesburg, they have combined music, choreography and a visual display to present a full sensory experience.

    Photography by Kent Andreasen

    What is particularly important about the residency is how it encourages cross-disciplinary pollination and has opened up discussion around what it necessary to facilitate easier access to gigs and spaces for African artists. It has also provided a space to draw out how these kinds of conversations need to be translated into pragmatic steps for action.

    Photography by Chris Saunders

  • FNB JHB Art Fair // the Culture of Capitalism and Complexities of Autonomy

    Clinks of champagne glasses and soft murmurs reverberated around the lofty sky-matrix of steel beams and prefabricated walls. The tenth annual edition of the FNB Joburg Art Fair, located in the aspirational opulence of the ever expanding Sandton central business district, boasted over 60 exhibitors from 12 countries across Africa, Europe and the US. The three-day event held an extensive array of public programming.

    On entering the space, a large panel displayed the 25 partners and sponsors of the Art Fair. Patronage has always influenced the economics of art. Historically art was supported by the likes of kings, popes, the wealthy class and other institutions. In the contemporary moment, it appears that commercial brands have adopted a similar strategy.

    In the centre of the labyrinth exhibition of the Art Fair was the Cartier Lounge, the FNB private wealth lounge and Esther Mahlangu’s display presented by BMW. These particular brands positioned their relevance at the Art Fair under the auspice of collaboration. Collaboration can take a multitude of forms within artistic practice. However, more important is to consider the level of reciprocity this kind of trade really entails – as with all forms of patronage. One hopes that artists are always one of the beneficiaries of the cultural capital they produce.

    As typically the nature of Art Fairs, there was too much to see. However, some personal highlights included the clambering figures embodying the fierce flame of Lady Skollie’s exhibition Fire with Fire. “This is my opportunity for collective catharsis, ‘Fire with Fire’. A divine interpretation of grief, so bright, so gory, that we cannot and will not look away. Let us be cleansed with fire. Let us not light candles in remembrance. I’m done with being remembered. Instead, I see a burning phallus, melting, bubbling, its demise signalling our own rebirth.”

     

    Another of the affecting exhibits was FORTIA by storyteller and digital artist Keyezua. The series of red-robed woman clad in beautifully articulated masks – constructed from recycled matter to articulate identity beyond anonymity.  The series utilises, “a female body to portrait the stories told by Keyezua, a daughter of a disabled man through the hands of a group of disabled men that are alienated in their own society. The project is based on personal experiences that explore sorrow.”

    Both of these artists channel a personal narrative and interesting mode of storytelling to visually articulate their process of catharsis and agency.