Tag: British Council

REFUGE – A Project Verbalizing the lived experiences of Refugees Cross Continentally

Playwright, Amy Jephta, and director and writer, Paul Blinkhorn, have reached the second stage of their project – REFUGE. The project came to life when the two were hashing out their proposal for the British Council Connect ZA‘s partnership initiative in 2017. In this collaborative thinking process, it was realized that a reality that both countries share (South Africa and the UK) is that they act as spaces where refugees seek asylum.

The project sets out to verbalise the lived experiences of refugees within these two countries and is presented as open testimonies that are portrayed and spoken verbatim by actors. The possible problematic connotations of the afore mentioned statement (the fact that actors were involved) led me to question Amy about this.

She sheds some light, “Part of what we discovered while doing the interview processes, is that refugees are often reluctant to share their stories with just anyone. There’s a lot of trust that goes into opening up when the system you’ve been in has disappointed you or betrayed that trust so often. It simply wasn’t feasible for us to expect refugees to tell their stories in person. Using actors as the ‘vehicles’ for these stories, and changing refugees’ real names, gave us both the honesty of having the story presented without mediation (in their own words), and the distance and safety that kept refugees from being vulnerable.”

Going into the parallels of refugees from these two different countries, Amy tells me about the disillusionment many of them are faced with over the countries that they end up in. “There were a lot of testimonies that pointed out how hopeful people were/had been, and how that had changed. A lot of people were left in limbo by bureaucracy, administration, red tape. That’s a universal theme: bureaucratic procedures that are designed to make it difficult and complicated to cross borders as an asylum seeker.” Other situational similarities that they share are the lack of affordability some of them are faced with for returning to their home countries as well as prejudice taking the shape of xenophobia that looms in the countries they seek refuge.

In the second stage of the project, Amy and Paul are weaving the testimonies gathered into a full script and written play that they would like to perform in as many spaces as possible. “The funding from British Council/Connect ZA was to foster a new connection, spark a new project. Now it’s up to myself and Paul to carry forward the momentum for this work. This second phase of the process is self-determined – we have no set deadline.”

Telling me more about how the interviews took place, Amy explains that refugees/interviewees were always met at a place of their choosing and that permission was asked to record them prior to the commencement of the interview. Their main question was always, “What were you seeking Refuge from?”.

My interest was in the refugees’ response and feelings about being interviewed and their sentiments towards the project as a whole. Amy shares that some people have been excited about their efforts and believe that it is valuable for their stories to be heard hoping that it would work as a catalyst for change in their situations. Others, however, were wary of her and Paul, doubting that their work would be able to change their realities. “Mostly we have felt supported and welcomed. It’s been incredibly gratifying to see how open people are to share their stories if your only agenda is to genuinely listen.”

“I think as South Africans, we live in a society where we are protected from hearing and seeing these stories up close. It’s possible to live your whole life not knowing there is an entire community of refugees from the rest of Africa who have risked their lives to leave difficult situations and come here. It’s easy to make value judgements about people and to be xenophobic when you don’t attempt to understand the complexity of these situations. We’ve met people who were doctors, lawyers, activists, preachers, who were working professionals in the countries they fled from, who now live in dire circumstances and on the fringes of the countries they came to. I think the project is valuable because it allowed us to hear the details of this particular group of refugee lives.”

Amy and Paul set forth to give voice to a group of under-represented peoples whose stories are of value by the fact that they are accounts of real life; of real emotion and of real experience told by real people. I hope that projects such as these help bridge the gap of inequality and immeasurable difficulty that their lives are riddled with. For awareness to rise, REFUGE and other organizations supporting refugee centred causes need more support from the citizens situated within the countries they find themselves in.

21 February 2018
PAINTING W/ MUSIC – Creating a visual footprint for music

When you are in the mood to dance, there is nothing better than walking on to the dance floor and feeling the vibrations of the music coming through the speakers. Cukia Kimani and Yann Seznec found a way to enhance this experience by creating visual permanence to music.

Cukia has a background and Computer Science and Digital Arts while Yann has a background in music composition. With their project titled Painting w/Music, they let curiosity and their willingness to experiment take the lead. When asked about how this was done, Cukia replied, “Coming from a Computer Science background I know about all of these different algorithms and then I did visual arts. You know, how to put algorithms to make circles appear all over the screen based on random numbers. But then I was like ‘What happens if I just change this one value to be midi data or frequency data?’” And this was the foundation of the project.

When Painting w/Music was originally pitched to the British Council, the idea was for Cukia to create visuals based on music that Yann would compose. This would be done by feeding the music into the programming code that Cukia had written. However, as the months passed and Cukia and Yann became more familiar with each other’s work, they decided to add in a new element to their project – a custom controller.

The controller creates room for a performative, interactive level to their larger project. This allowed those who were interested in the project to be more than just passive observers. Instead they would be able to experiment with how the project works. When reflecting on this addition to the project Yann explained that, “The main thing was moving towards a performance tool which is something I really like working with so I guess this is what happens in a collaboration. You start with an idea and each person involved brings or pulls the project in a way that they are interested in exploring. I think we both ended up being really interested in this idea of building a tool that was kind of applying these ideas of kind of visual permanence of music to a performance. It is also fun because then it means that we can do a performance at the end which was a cool focus for the project.”

This evolution of the project made it possible for them to be on the lineup at this year’s Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival. With Yann taking control of the music and Cukia managing the coding side of the performance, the audience was drawn on to the dance floor by flashing colours and shapes dancing across the screen along with them. “The core concept was to play a whole set of music, tunes and improvisations that were created entirely with this custom controller box that was built for the project. And then all of that, the music and my actions, the buttons I pressed and the things that I twisted and pulled, all of that created these visuals,” Yann explains.

Excited by how far their project has evolved since their initial idea, Cukia and Yann expressed that this is unlikely the end of the project. Their curious nature will more than likely see them pushing their project even further.

Check out their YouTube to have a look at some of the visuals they have created.

‘This article forms part of content created for the British Council Connect ZA 2017 Programme. To find out more about the programme click here.

2 November 2017
The Fake Interpreter // A cross-art performance piece

I had a conversation with writer/performer Sophie Woolley, dancer/choreographer Andile Vellem and director Gemma Fairlie on their collaborative mixed discipline show The Fake Interpreter.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

This quote is at the top of every page of the blog that Sophie set up to document the process they are undertaking to put the production together. This quote ties together perfectly the core motivators behind their collaborative show. The first being the fake interpreter that was used at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. The second being the necessity for a serious public conversation about the need for good, qualified interpreters. The third being a conversation around who controls language. And lastly, thinking about deaf power, deaf pain and deaf people being able to have these kinds of conversations on their own terms.

Sophie made her name when she started out standing next to the dj box on literary nights at nightclubs in London. She created satirical characters based on the nightlife characters she saw and interacted with. She then received the opportunity to have a column in a lifestyle magazine for one of her characters. She later got the opportunity to write for theatre. Sophie comes from a deaf family and eventually become completely deaf herself in adulthood. While writing her one person show When to Run she was introduced to director Gemma Fairlie who assisted her in the physicality of her characters. Working as a freelance director, there has always been a lot of physicality in Gemma’s work. The two of them have worked together on a number of projects, with The Fake Interpreter being the second show which incorporates sign language.

In 2013 Sophie was introduced to Andile and went to watch his show Unmute; a dance piece about his experiences growing up in the Eastern Cape and how he was not allowed to sign at school. “Sign language around the world is often oppressed,” Sophie explained. “Unmute is about my own story and the fact that I can’t tell my own story. I don’t have my own voice and it is like somebody keeping my mouth shut. With Unmute is it opening up that world for me,” Andile explained. Andile is the Artistic Director for a dance company, Unmute Dance Company, that he co-founded in 2013. With Sophie in awe of Andile’s work and having worked with him on the smaller performance I Am Not The Other at Artscape Disability Day 2015, Sophie wanted to work with him again.

When the fake interpreter life event happened in 2013 Sophie felt annoyed, as well as a sense of helplessness. This was around the same time that Sophie had a cochlear implant. Reflecting more on the privileges of hearing and the oppression of sign language, three years later those feelings had not left. Sophie was encouraged to write about it and this project was selected to be part of the British Council Connect ZA Arts Programme for 2017. Meeting up with Andile again she was able to hear his life story and how he felt about the incident. “What Gemma did was point out the fact that we both felt angry and powerless, and we felt guilty but for different reasons, kind of about our inaction at the time. She asked us to fantasize about what we could have done instead. And so we had lots of crazy fantasies about how we could have stopped the fake interpreter and so that is how things [the script] started to change,” Sophie explained. The show developed into a multi-disciplinary re-writing of the memorial service based on their feelings and experiences.

The show incorporates sign language with the sign language interpreter who supports Andile being part of the performance, and not simply signing on the side. “I am interested in integrating it [sign language] not just in an accessibility way but artistically,” Gemma explained, “We are trying to create a cross-art form piece that has dance in it, that has signing in it, that has video editing in it, that has storytelling in it. But that we bleed between these aspects. That it has that feeling of sort of creating a new genre where all of these aspects are vital to the storytelling.”. Reflecting on the importance of this show Sophie expressed that, “any kind of cultural output that shows deaf culture will be really powerful and help people to see this invisible world.”.

Andile expressed that this show provides an opportunity for advocating for deaf rights and the need for sign language to be recognized worldwide.”It’s a beautiful language. It has got variations. Now we are doing theatre, and we are doing it in sign language! And we are following sign language linguistic structures,” Andile expressed. This goes back to the Nelson Mandela quote referenced earlier; the show speaks to people’s hearts.

‘This article forms part of content created for the British Council Connect ZA 2017 Programme. To find out more about the programme click here.’

29 March 2017
Bubblegum Club and British Council collaborate on Connect ZA’s new look, linking the past, present and future
British Council Connect ZA is a cultural programme working across the UK and SA. They are reimaginging their visual identity with BubblegumClub’s help and fresh perspective. The refresh is a culmination of a collaboration between Connect ZA and BubblegumClub, and will reflect the context and connections between the UK and SA, focusing on contemporary art practices and culture amongst the millenial generation.

Bubblegum Club has a history with Connect ZA, our creative director, Jamal Nxedlana has collaborated with them on a number of occasions including Bubblegum Club producing the Innovation ZA digital film work. The new look integrates the local into the global, asserting the artistic and cultural heritage of South Africa and the United Kingdom. This collaboration forms part of the ongoing relationship between the British Council and South African creatives, it speaks to the historic exchanges that have been ocurring between the two nations for centuries but also looks towards creating new, innovative connections within the country.

This new look was a collaborative process, a standard set by the British Council in all their partnerships, a refreshing way to work. Read the press release issued by British Council Connect ZA below:

Fresh start, new look

British Council Connect ZA is looking forward; following a successful three years as part of a SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015. The next phase of British Council South Africa’s Arts programme has begun, and we want the refreshed visual identity of the programme to reflect the past, present and future connections between creative practitioners in the United Kingdom and South Africa.

“It is so exciting that we get to continue to work alongside excellent SA and UK partners, participants and engage audiences for the foreseeable future. This is a direct response to the successes and desire for collaborative creative working between the countries. “
- Levinia Jones, British Council South Africa Head of Arts
Our new look works alongside the global British Council ID while asserting the personality of the SA Arts offering Connect ZA.

“What an excellent opportunity to tap into the creative genius of the partners we have worked with these past years, and we reached out to several both in SA and the UK to interpret the vision for the future. We are thrilled with the fresh look and feel. “
- Levinia Jones, British Council South Africa Head of Arts
Joburg-based Bubblegum Club was selected as the agency to create the refreshed identity into the future. Their proposal was successful as it innately understood British Council Connect ZA as both collaborator and audience. Our history with Bubblegum Club precedes its formation: founder Jamal Nxedlana has collaborated in his personal capacity and as a member of CUSS artist collective.

“Reflecting back on our involvement in various Connect ZA initiatives/programs we felt that the most genuine connections happened where there was an intuitive understanding, an ability to relate to, or recognise the other.”
- Jamal Nxedlana, Bubblegum Club
A milestone in the relationship was Bubblegum Club producing the Innovation ZA digital film work, which was specially-commissioned to open the festival in August 2015.

Their approach was grounded in the belief that it is both common experiences and our unique perspectives that connect us.

“We began looking for ways to visually interpret and explore this idea, ways through which to express the idea of seeing something familiar but from a completely different perspective. Exploring different techniques and along the way found that it was the collaging of familiar imagery to create something completely new, which resonated most with people we showed the developmental work to.”
- Jamal Nxedlana, Bubblegum Club
The process has been collaborative. The sort of relationship British Council Connect ZA strives to develop and maintain to while supporting partners.

BACKROUND: British Council Connect ZA is a cultural programme developed between the UK and South Africa.

From 2013, the programme has supported cultural connections between young people aged 18-35 in the UK and South Africa with a range of arts projects and use of digital platforms to build creative networks through art forms including, fashion, music, film design. Between 2014 and 2015 the programme fell under the SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015, a project between the British Council and the South African Department of Arts and Culture. This was a multifaceted bilateral collaboration between the two nations, with a particular focus on artistic and creative capacity building and relationship development intended to raise cultural relations between the two countries.

As of April 2016, British Council Connect ZA continues to develop projects, reach new and diverse audiences for the arts and stimulate innovation, while inspiring connections between SA and the UK by enabling innovative creative content, collaborations and skills exchange. We do this through linking creative communities, partners and audiences between the ages of 18 and 35, both online and offline and across discipline.

For more information, please contact:

Serisha.Letchmiah@britishcouncil.org
22 April 2016
On The Intersection of Cultures: A Conversation With Chris Saunders

Chris Saunders is a filmmaker and photographer based in Johannesburg, his latest project; Ghost Diamond, is a film inspired by and shot in the Johannesburg while featuring creatives from near and far afield. Ghost Diamond is a collaboration between Saunders, Manthe Ribane and OkZharp. It is a meeting of music and mythology, reflecting on Joburg as an international space which balances Western imperialism and modernity with African migration, culture and creativity. Johannesburg provides a canvas and character for Saunders, as his work offers multi-faceted expressions of the city and the inspiration and challenges it offers its inhabitants. Ghost Diamond is currently being promoted in Europe by the trio of Saunders, Gordon and Ribane.

Jamal Nxedlana, interviewed Saunders in Johannesburg just before the onset of the European tour; the nebulous, sometime dubious but most often inspirational character of the inner city is expounded upon and appreciated here.

Why did you choose Johannesburg as the location for the film?

Johannesburg plays a character in the film. More than just been a location for the shoot the city brings something that not many places in the world can bring to the equation. Manthe and myself are both based in Johannesburg so it made sense logistically to shoot here. In the short film I try to also capture a less literal Johannesburg, to feed off the cities energy and translate it into the general emotive output of the project. The project directly feeds off my inner vision of what Johannesburg feels like for me. Sometimes dark, other times optimistic most times incredibly exciting.

You directed Sebenza in 2012 and in a way it captured the times. How do you feel Johannesburg has changed since then?

I think Johannesburg and especially the inner city has developed and stabilized in a sense since 2012. When I say stabilized I mean more in the sense that there is less rapid development happening downtown and it seems like the space has a more consistent identity at the moment. Back in 2012 the city was undergoing massive change with new developments cropping up on different sides of the city each week, we found ourselves hanging out in places that were previously abandoned or industrial, it was all very exciting and the new energy in the city implanted many images in my mind.

What cultural production do you feel is defining the current moment?

Things that I feel are relevant at the moment are not necessarily new or from new players, I feel attracted to things that have been around for a little while, that have managed to keep their identity and make a name in different arenas without compromising or changing but by improving.

Okmalumkoolkat for example, has continued to make unique, lyrical music, he has mastered the balance between lyrics that appeal to people locally in SA but are well thought through and still sound catchy and attractive to other audiences. This is intelligent, good quality music and I think he is a brand, which will transcend in the next year into the international market even more while still maintaining support locally.

I think Maxhosa by Laduma, is a clothing brand which also proves that by making a good quality product that people will wear it, not only because of its novelity but because it is a quality product. He has taken something that could have been pure novelty but instead created something that combines a strong identity with incredible workmanship.

Lastly, I wanted to mention one more brand I love, Dokter & Misses, a family run business with new relevant design, well priced & well made in Johannesburg. Again, I love a product which can be from a place that is unexpected and still compete on a global scale. South African products are now more than ever becoming more obtainable, we should be focusing on export with our weaker currency, how to benefit both from our services and industries.

What do you think makes the cultural production coming out of Johannesburg interesting to people abroad?

As mentioned in the previous answer, some South African products are unique and good quality and if they were more available, I think could possibly compete on a global scale. We live in a place where innovation is necessary for survival, we live on the intersection culturally between western and diverse range of local cultures. All of this makes the aesthetic and ideas very interesting. If we can embrace the local industry internally as well as find new ways to export and find avenues to make things work internationally South African products and work will continue it’s appeal abroad.

Do you feel there is enough space/support in South Africa for cultural production with less commercial motivations and more exploratory ones?

No, not really. I speak for myself of course… having had to recycle money from my commercial work personally to create new projects most of my career, I always think how many nice cars or if I would have managed to pay off my house by now if I hadn’t taken this approach but then I realize that my methodology also keeps me relevant because by keeping the balance between innovative and commercial practice, as well as sometimes innovating commercially the two will always feed off each other because the commercial world is always looking for new references and if you can provide that you stay relevant. But going back to the question, I don’t think there is enough support for new ways of thinking in South Africa and it’s now more than ever, important to stick together and form partnerships where we can find support and create better products and services as collectives.

Having watched your career develop you seem to involved in longer term projects and working with a similar group of people – why is this?

My newest projects needed the time. They firstly weren’t as simple as previous endeavors. They were longer, more in depth and had more meaning to me. I wanted to do them justice by giving them the attention they deserved. In a world where temporary and quick output are the norm, I feel that it’s important to give projects more attention and to be even more thorough than before. The projects that I have been working on have also mostly been self-funded, its taken time between projects to keep the ball rolling financially too. Again, the balance between completing something properly, finding the money to do it and making sure its still relevant are always hard work.

What is it about the people you worked with on the film, which made you want to work with them?

Firstly Gervase Gordon aka OKZHARP. He is an incredible musician with foresight, talent and skill. We started the project together and without each other it would have never exsited. A true collaboration. It was also good to have two different global perspectives, Gervase been in Lodnon and myself in Johannesburg. The project is the output of those two elements.

Secondly, Manthe Ribane, her performance in the film drives the visuals and gives the music so much more emphasis. I feel strongly connected to dance and how it enhances music. They are reciprocal art forms – music needs dance and dance needs music, otherwise they both don’t exist hence the reason I think they co-exist so well in this film.

The other characters in the film, including Khaya Sibiya who narrates the project is someone I have worked with many times in the past and who was a surprising addition. He saved the day in many ways I cant mention here and ended up making the film more colourful and interesting.

On the design side, working with Jamal Nxedlana on the clothing really gave the film its pizaz, clothing that I feel was inspired by the urban surrounding been put back into it, giving Manthe’s performance more character. Deon van Zyl our editor and cinematographer for some fo the shots worked longer hours than humanly possible and the vibe in the piece was translated so well into the pictures with his uncanny skill. All our other characters too, Zaki Ibrahim who helped us on our first shoot with styling as well as been a character in the project and a voice on the track in episode 5 in the film. I hope I have mentioned everyone, all amazing people, we are very lucky!

1 February 2016
British Council Commissions Bubblegum Club To Produce Visuals For Innovation ZA 2015

A film about connections and their potential to stimulate innovation. Commissioned by British Council Connect ZA for the launch of InnovationZA 2015 at iThuba Arts Gallery in Braamfontein.

26 October 2015