Bubblegum Club

Tag: British Council Connect ZA

  • An experimental performance on what it means to be a young woman in 2017

    “When I grow up I want to be sexualised, objectified, made to feel wrong, ignored, used, abused and belittled. I want to be defined by the colour of my skin, the size of my tits or the use of a tampon, my hair, my muscles and what I’m packing in my toolbox. I want to be looked at and touched without asking, I want to be made to feel uncomfortable just for saying no, I want to be expected to be something I’m not, expected to change for you, expected to go with the flow and let it happen without speaking up.” These were the words written on the back of the flier for the performance titled Encountering the Other. When read out of context these words may cause readers to feel offended and confused. However, the purpose of this was to express what women do not wish to experience. Encountering the Other, which forms a part of the British Council Connect ZA 2017 Programme, has been described by its creators as a riotous and often times comical look at what it means to be a woman in 2017. I had an interview with one of the directors of the performance, Katy Weir from ODDMANOUT, Darlington, to suss out some information on the performance that has been produced across the two hemispheres.

    Katy tells me that ODDMANOUT’s collaboration with the Market Laboratory came about after she visited the Newtown-based theatre school in Johannesburg when she was given a grant from the Artist International Development Fund. During her visit, she learned about how the school functions on a strategic and artistic level. “This involved sharing practice, devising a piece of work with the first year students, and working alongside Clara Vaughan, Education Officer at The Market Lab and the Lab associates to open dialogue around process, cultural offerings, training, and skills sharing.”

    Katy expresses that the collaboration was a starting point for discussions zoning in on exchange, heritage, and creativity. She continues to say that these discussions highlighted the similarities and differences between young people in South Africa and the North-East of England. In further discussions, they raised questions about how they would go about exploring this creatively. The conceptualization for this project took place with both companies at the core and the four directors based in SA and the UK.

    The performance aimed to bring together a variety of voices, their stories, and experiences from two different continents with music, dance, colour and a few comical elements. As Katy explained, the foundation of this collaboration was to create a performance based on the performers’ experiences and interpretations of womanhood, including both male and female perspectives. This was all done in an attempt to allow the performers to introspectively understand themselves and the world around them.

    This collaborative project utilized live performance, the Internet, and digital media in its creation. It is important to note that this performance was, for the most part, produced across two hemispheres, meaning that the full cast did not have much time together to rehearse, leaving a sort of impromptu nature to the performance. But if truth be told, it was difficult to see this unless you were made aware of it before hand.

    When asked about the title, Katy tells me that it refers to meeting someone from a different background, but might identify with you because of a shared experience such as everyday sexism. 12 performers aged between 18-25 years old shared material with one another over the internet and based their preparations for the final piece on what they had shared. After this, the group met up in South Africa and were left with 8 days to prepare before they took to the stage collectively for the very first time.

    When asked about the meaning of cultural exchange for her, Katy responds, “Cultural exchange is about learning from each other. When the world can be a scary place we need to unite to work out how we get a more positive world, and we will only get that by talking together.”

    The collaborators from the UK are 6 emerging artists from the North of England and were auditioned in August of this year. Katy expresses that their decisions for performers were based on passion for the story, their reason for wanting to be involved, their ideas of womanhood and what they thought they could learn and bring to the experimental performance project. Their South African collaborators are second-year students at the Market Theatre Laboratory and were auditioned by Clara. They were tasked with creating an original piece of work challenging traditional notions of womanhood.

    In my interview with Katy, she explains that this performance was put together by the stories of the young performers. This story is theirs and adds an interesting twist to theatre performances that traditionally run according to the book. With this project the performers were given room for self-expression and were not told what to do with their piece.

    Katy tells me that this performance speaks to the experience of being a young female today, and how the male gaze affects us. Katy continues to say that this kind of unfair treatment towards women forms a part of rape culture that is easily brushed off. She left me with a last thought about their experimental journey – “We are trying to celebrate difference rather than pin point what these differences are.”

    Credits:

    Katy Weir – Director

    Scott Young -Director

    Clara Vaughan -Director

    Jaques De Silva – Director

    Performers:

    Katie Powell

    Brogan Gilbert

    Rebecca Graham

    Alanna Wilson

    Charlotte Grey

    Leah Mains

    Matthews Rantsoma

    Darlington Justice Khoza

    Tumeka Matintela

    Boikobo Masibi

    Ncumisa Ndimeni

    Sinenhlanhla Mgeyi

     

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

  • Kampire Bahana // ColabNowNow Storyteller

    Kampire Bahana is a DJ, writer, art organizer and storyteller from Uganda, and part of the ColabNowNow residency. I had an interview with her to discuss her background, practice and the ColabNowNow project

    The various aspects of Kampire’s work have a tendency to overflow and interlink. “I started out writing about festivals and events that I enjoyed going to, art I thought people should see.” Kampire tells me that her travels to Sauti za Busara in Zanzibar in 2014 introduced her to Santuri Safari as well as some East African DJs and producers. She expresses that the people she met and the experience of it all seduced her with music – “the sound of a good party”. In 2015 Kampire assisted her friends in organizing and hosting the first Nyege Nyege Festival. She felt connected to a community of people she found who create beautiful art outside of the mainstream. “Now, more so, I am compelled to help make the art I want to see and hear, and the events I want to attend.”

    With regards to being a dj Kampire says that “I am not the best musician and I have no desire to perform for other people.  I just found something fun that other people seem to find fun. In the end, I only aspire to make my friends dance anytime I’m playing.” Kampire is a resident DJ at the Boutiq Electroniq and explains that they host underground parties that are out of this world. By being a resident DJ, Kampire has been able to connect with many inspiring underground acts and scenes across the continent such as Africa Bass Cultures in Burkina Faso and Amani Festival in Goma, Congo.

    In her practice as a writer Kampire has done work for publications such as Okayafrica, Jalada Magazine, Afripop Mag and Dynamic Africa to name a few. She writes on the arts in Uganda and other countries in Africa with a keen focus on cultures and music that she believes are carrying a strong message that people should know about. “I write to organise my own thoughts and participate in a community of like-minded young Africans who may feel like their values and opinions make them minorities in their own countries.”

    Kampire has worked with aid organizations such as the Maisha Foundation. She expressed that she has received some remarkable opportunities through her association with them such as working on the film Queen of Katwe and curating the art garden/Maisha Garden. “I got to showcase my favourite parts of the Kampala art scene in a non-typical location and one of the city’s few green spaces. Events there like the live performance of Doreen Baingaina’s ‘Tropical Fish’ have been a definite highlight.”

    The Salooni is a pop-up hair salon project that Kampire and her friends came up which began as a proposal for the Chale Wote Street Art Festival in Ghana that they wanted to partake in. The Salooni created an installation that has visited 5 countries on the continent as well as the United Kingdom and will be on display in Rwanda in either October or November of this year. “It’s our attempt to create a judgement free space in which black women can enjoy whatever hair they have, interrogate it as a history, culture and science and imagine futures in which it is a source of strength and not a site of politics and trauma.”

    When asked why she applied to be a part of ColabNowNow, Kampire expressed that she has always aspired to work with Jepchumba, the curator of the project organized by British Council Connect ZA. For her it seemed like a unique open-ended prospect to collaborate with some interesting people. Kampire’s objective for the residency is to “make some cool work with some people!”.

  • 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.

     

  • Mukhtara Yusuf // ColabNowNow Storyteller

    Mukhtara Yusuf is a Yoruba Muslim visual artist, designer, storyteller and cultural activist from Nigeria. In my interview with her we discuss her process, ideas behind her work and the ColabNowNow residency.

    Cultural activism surfaces in Mukhtara’s practice systematically, philosophically and with regards to representation. “My work comes from a place of seeing how art and design are part of popular and personal things that are often overlooked relating to political power and structural issues. As a maker it is important to talk about those things through pieces that reflect personal, vulnerable responses to happenings in the world – especially those linked to inequality.”

    With her interest in designing systems and an investment in access, Mukhtara’s designs consist of more than images and objects. Mukhtara makes use of community participation in many of her projects thereby involving the people it will serve.

    The philosophical arch of her work revolves around the idea of power and questions whose knowledge is published as academic texts. “I prioritize the challenging of existing value systems and the dominance of European ways of knowing as a way to enter my making.”

    Mukhtara tells me that architecture and environment play into her textile and clothing designs as wearable surface designs or objects. Mukhtara’s architectural practice takes the form of buildings, organizational principles and systems. She attempts to understand urban ecologies that she wishes to improve with the objects she creates or by transforming them into practical systems.

    Black speculative design pedagogy is term that Mukhtara developed and came about for her out of frustration by speculative design and the issues that it address. Mukhtara explains that the issues that speculative design addresses overlook the history of colonialism and creates a space in which these values become unrelenting. “Who owns the future? Who gets to dream, whose difficulties are seen as worthy of being considered in something as lofty and idealistic as speculative design. This is the ethos of my work, that I am trying to cultivate practically. By doing so it goes beyond a philosophy.”

    Speaking of a future vision she frequently creates work from speculation or imagination. “What would it be like if European knowledge wasn’t the epistemology that dominated design thinking?” Mukhtara has a desire to make it more than just fantasy.

    African futurism, Afrofuturism and black speculative pedagogy are terms she chooses to use in relation to one another. She explains that these terms begin to narrow in on what she conveys in her conceptual practice. “I am considering critically what time is as a field of knowledge and how it influences people’s notions of knowing as well as ideas on social oppression.” Mukhtara sees time as a construct and feels that the linear understanding of time comes from colonialism. She continues to say that Africans were placed at the beginning of a timeline that is in need of a second stage of modernity. Her interest lies in how the conception of time is used as a means of creating disgrace and disregard towards the pain that stems from structural and private concerns.

    The challenges Mukhtara is faced with in regards to creating in Nigeria has been the supreme inspiration for her cultural activism.  “It has really shown me how much influence infrastructure and class have on people’s ability to create.”

    Mukhtara’s motivation for applying to ColabNowNow came from her desire to work in collaboration with other like-minded African makers. She wishes to learn from other participants’ practices and build on her own knowledge. With a hope that the residency will create long-term collaborations, Mukhtara hopes to gain resources in order to create positive change in Nigeria. Her art tells the stories of her people.

     

  • 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.

  • ColabNowNow // An exploration of collaboration and art making

    British Council Connect ZA has put together an experimental programme titled ColabNowNow as a way to bring together artists and storytellers from various disciplines to explore collaborative processes and art making. Participants were selected from South, East and West Africa as well as the UK to be part of the programme as a way to emphasize learning, networking and making. The participants will be guided by the curator of the programme, Kenyan digital artist and writer Jepchumba.

    The culmination of their work of the 10 day programme will be showcased as part of the Fak’ugesi Bloc Party on the 16th of September.

    The 15 participants have been broken down into 5 storytellers and 10 artists. Along with being encouraged to work with the artists, the storytellers will document and engage in the collaborative activities of the artists, telling the story to audiences in their respective countries. These include writers, photographers, videographers, and vloggers.

    The 10 artists all work in some way within the digital realm as visual artists, architects, programmers, sound artists, performers and animators.

    Jepchumba explains that the project “unleashes the best skilled, dangerous minds from Africa to re-imagine future forms of African storytelling by creating an interactive and immersive experience. 10 artists and 5 storytellers from West, East, Southern Africa and UK with multi-disciplinary talents will explore the creation of narratives in a post-screen, post digital world where non-linear is replaced by multi-linear, multi-modal, multi-layered and multi-access; content is scalable both fixed and mobile, across surfaces, across environments, across technologies for Africa!”

    The artists selection for ColabNowNow include from East Africa: Intersectional feminist and photographer Darlyne Komukama, Visual Artist John Magati and DJ, art organizer and writer Kampire Bahana. The UK artists include: Illustrator Olivia Twist, Cult Storyteller Christopher Lutterodt-Quarcoo and Storyteller Nikky Norton Shafau. The West African artists are: Visual Artist Papi, Visual Artist, designer and cultural activist Mukhtara Yusuf and Art Director Prince Kojo-Hilton. The Southern African selection includes: Illustrator Hugo Mendes, writer Lindokuhle Nkosi, Digital Artist Janus Fouche, Director and playwright Eliot Moleba, multidisciplinary artist Candida Merwe and lifelong art student Nyasha Madamombe.

     

  • A GUIDE FOR FAK’UGESI AFRICAN DIGITAL INNOVATION FESTIVAL 2017

    “Iba nesbindi ne-Technology” | “Be Tech Brave”

    For the fourth time in succession the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival runs from the 6th until the 16th of September in Johannesburg’s Braamfontein. The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation has once more conceived to offer an interactive space for creative intercommunions amongst Africans all over the continent. Launched as a “celebration of digital technology, art and culture”, the festival is intended to embolden its audience to reconsider their eyes for digital technology on the one hand, as well as a way to expand their creative and cultural working procedures with(in) digital innovations on the other hand.

    Using the “Upgrade To Brave” theme, Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation 2017 embodies a ten day long festival platform – located in Braamfontein’s recently envisioned tech hub Tshimologong on Juta Street – for inter artistic exchange between creative minds of different directions to (re)create an innovative collaboration of artful creativity and sustainable technology. In the course of this, it proposes numerous events around exhibitions and installations, workshops and talks, performances and parties. Employing favoured events of the previous years, this year’s Fak’ugesi entrenches furthermore new inspiring projects.

    The Fak’ugesi Digital African Residency (from the 14th of August until the 16th of September) annually hosts young digital artists all over the African continent as its residents. Supported by its partner Pro Helvetia Johannesburg with the ANT Fund, it invites creative individuals to exhibit their work and participate in further events like workshops and talks in order to both explore and represent the Festival’s theme through professional eyes. This year’s residents are Komborarai Chapfika and Dananayi Muwanijwe both from Zimbabwe and Julia Hanjo from Namibia.

    In partnership with British Council ConnectZA, Fak’ugesi Festival inhabits a Digital Africa Exhibition, running from the 8th until the 16th of September. Aimed to emphasizes the relevance of digital arts through over the African Continent, it focuses on New Media and Technology Art made by Africans for Africans.

    Likewise as a first, Fak’ugesi 2017 adds the one-day long Fak’ugesi Conference (14th of September – 9am until 5pm) as an inherent part of its program. On the basis of the thematic framework “The Future of Creative Innovation and Technology” the conference – led by diverse professionals of technical and digital innovation spheres – majors on relevant questions of the development of artistic and technological transdisciplinary in Africa, in order to prioritize the importance of collaborative work even across national and vocational borders.

    Intended as a thematic access to the Festival’s theme, The Making Weekend, taking place from the 8th to the 10th of September, allures the visitors to practically experience the thrilling diversity of technological innovations through offering a variegated workshop program such as ‘Making A Talking Roboter’ (8th of September – 10am until 12pm) with IBM Research Africa, which – as the name suggests – encounters to create a pronunciation skilled Robot. Including ‘DIY Game Controllers’ (9th of September – 10am until 3pm) with Bear Season teaching to design individual controllers of various materials. Conclusively, The Making Weekend’s aim is to improve already technically accomplished skills as well as to help (yet) non-technical user to delve deeper in technological features.

    In addition, Fak’ugesi 2017 includes its annual Market Hack (9th of September – 10am until 4:30pm), as one of its favourites event. The Market Hack – in cooperation with South African Maker Collective and Accenture Liquid Labs – is a daylong annexation of Braamfontein’s popular Neighborgoods Market – connected with various playful activities and games around electronic and digital applications.

    As a further project, Fak’ugesi 2017 presents – once again in partnership with British Council’s ConnectZA – ColabNowNow, a collaborative project aimed to combine different digital works to an interdisciplinary level. Proceeding from the 6th until the 16th of September, ColabNowNow engages 10 artist as well as 5 digital storytellers, picked from diverse African states from the East, South and West and the United Kingdom, to flourish inter artistic networking connections.

    Fak’ugesi Beats Lab (7th until 16th of September) – as a weeklong boot camp curated by Weheartbeat – builds a space for various artistic minds of technological, musical and filmic spheres to cooperatively work together in order to amalgamate unique developments and creations. As a clou, all upcoming results will be seen at the Fak’ugesi’s final event, Fak’ugesi Beats Bloc Party on the 16th of September, which embodies the crowning glory of those 10 days, supported by both national and international musical highlights such as Masego, Nonku Phiri, Petite Noir and much more.

    Moreover, from the 13th to the 16th of September, Fak’ugesi features A MAZE. Since 2012 in cooperation with Goethe Institute Johannesburg connects both international and national developers, entrepreneurs and artist of the gaming and playful media sector. A MAZE functions as a networking platform for gamers all over the world to connect through various projects around the thematic framework of virtual reality, such as digital installations, game designs and much more.

    Since 2014 Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival, founded by Prof Christo Doherty and Tegan Bristow from WITS Digital Arts including Prof Barry Dwolatzky from the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), initially  created a platform to mobilize Braamfontein’s Tshimologong Innovation Precinct. Nowadays this has since evolved to celebrate the relevance of technological innovation and creativity by and for Africa’s youth. Harnessing a foundation that births a platform for future African digital innovative leaders to explore and leave their footprint in the world of technology. According to its name – Fak’ugesi” – a Zulu expression for “put on the electricity” let’s put the future development of Africa’s technological front into Africans hands, let’s turn on the young minds.

    For further information about the Festival in detail check out their website.

  • ONE – creative and spiritual hybridity

    I had a conversation with multifaceted creatives and Vela Souls co-founders Yana Seidl and Nyaniso Dzedze about how they conjoined their creative and spiritual journeys. Working together with Tribe of Doris and Drama for Life, Yana and Nyaniso bring their performance piece ONE to life as part of the British Council Connect ZA Arts Programme for 2017.

    Nyaniso began his artistic journey at the Wits School of Arts. Since then he has been part of a number of well-known productions including the movie Hear Me Move, the TV show Ashes to Ashes, the theatre productions Shape and James Ngcobo’s Thirst, as well as interned at the dance company Forgotten Angle. In 2012 he was again invited to be part of Thirst which toured various cities. The final stop for this tour, Manchester, saw Yana and Nyaniso’s paths cross. Quite fittingly the arts tied them together romantically, creatively and spiritually. While Yana grew up in the UK, a lot of time was spent travelling with her family. This exposure to multiple ways of being influenced her perception of human expression and cultures. At school she realized she wanted to be a dance choreographer, a camera woman and something like a councilor, but better. As her creative journey has unfolded she has seen her herself come full circle, with her childhood vision being given flesh.

    In 2016 the couple took part in an emotional clearing journey called Spiral. Given the impact that they felt it had on their lives they travelled to Australia to become Spiral practitioners. Shortly after completing their training their creative practices and spiritual journeys conjoined, and Vela Souls was born. ‘Vela’ is an isiXhosa word which when translated to English means ‘to appear’. “We want people to step into themselves,” Nyaniso explains, “We want souls to appear in their entirety.”. This shift in their lives and creative practices centres the permeation of positive energetic frequencies to invite those in the presence of their work to open up to themselves and to the world. “Art heals people. It is just that now we are putting a greater, more conscious intention to heal,” Nyaniso explains. “We advocate a holistic approach to creativity,” Yana adds. The creation of their performance piece ONE under Vela Souls stems from this understanding of performance as more than entertainment, but a vehicle for healing.

    ONE is centred around mirror theory – the idea that everything we see and experience is a reflection of who we are and how we feel. “The idea that we are all different expressions of the same thing,” Yana elaborates. ONE is a performance that represents that unity. The show features Nyaniso as the main character who turns to the mirror whenever he has to deal with the outside world – the mirror symbolizing the “oneness” in the universe. The show also includes six dancers on stage performing choreography by Yana and Liz Collier in a film projection who embody The Woman in the Wind – an entity who represents the energy of creativity. The music created by Owl, Faisal Salah and Thembinkosi Mavimbela complement these elements, making the experience whole. Welcoming the audience to experience the hybrid between the creative and the holistic, to witness the vulnerability of the performers, the show becomes a moment of complete openness through voice, film and movement.

    The show will be running from the 20th -22nd of April at the Wits Amphitheatre.

     

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

  • Everything you need to know about Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival 2016

    Everything you need to know about Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival 2016

    “Ungaphthelwa Innovation Yako” / “Own Your Innovation”

    In a collaboration between City of Johannesburg, Tshimologong Precinct and Wits University, this year’s Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival is created for conversations, collaborations and projects for Africans by Africans. It runs from the 19th of August until the 3rd of September. The annual festival is an “African celebration of digital technology, art and culture” in Johannesburg aimed at encouraging people in the city and on the continent more broadly to own their creativity and innovation through thinking about and constructing African visualization of the city, the digital, the playful and the future. With this year’s larger theme being the “AFRO TECH RIOT”, explorations of African knowledge systems, femininity, community and spirituality in relation to technology and the digital are the threads pulled throughout the two-week long festival. Johannesburg’s newly constructed tech hub Tshimologong on 47 Juta Street Braamfontein will be turned into a collaborative space through workshops, talks, installations, exhibitions, performances, pitches, awards, parties and gaming.. The festival asks participants to think about and engage with the idea that relationship between art, technology and creativity are “culturally embedded phenomenon” (Bristow 2014: 168). The revolutionary spirit of the festival is supported by its other partners British Council’s ConnectZA, Goethe Institut, and the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE).

    Major events this year include old time favourites along with new exciting projects and talks:

    Fak’ugesi Digital African Residency in which local and international digital artists and creatives are invited to be on residency to explore the festivals theme. This year, with Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, saw an open call for creatives within the SADC region. The festival residents will be exhibiting their work and participating in discussions in the Reverse Digital Hustle (with Livity Africa) on the 24th of August, the Fak’ugesi Residents Exhibition from the 29th to the 30th of August, as well as being part of other smaller workshops at Tshimologong and the Fak’ugesi Soweto Pop Up in Orlando East. This year’s residents are Vuyi Chaza from Zimbabwe, Cebo Simphiwe Xulu and Regina Kgatle from South Africa.

    fak'ugesi residents

    The Agile Africa Conference (22 & 23 August) hosts African software professionals to discuss and brainstorm better ways of working with and creating software, as well as what this means within an African context.

    This year also includes a talks program in which digital artists and technological innovators discuss African knowledge systems in technology and the digital space and get a deeper understanding of “cultures of technology” (Bristow 2014: 169). The first being the Reverse Digital Hustle Talk featuring this year’s residents and guest Tabita Rezaire (24 August). We also see Fak’ugesi’s twin festival CairoTronica feature with its Director Haytham Naywar forming part of the second Fak’ugesi Talks (26 August) along with Joshua Noble and The Constitute.

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    The role of women in technology is being given multiple chances in the limelight this year with events including Maker Library Network & Geekulcha Open Data Quest workshop (24 August) which challenged participants to use online data about Women and Human Settlements to put together a story board that explores and tries to address the social relations involved around these social issues. Other events include the Women in Tech @ Fak’ugesi (29 August) which is a discussion and networking platform focused on the need to support and highlight the achievements of women in the tech industry. The Creative Hustle as part of the new Fak’ugesi Talks program with ConnectZA, puts together industry professionals Karen Palmer and Valentina Floris to talk about pushing boundaries and how technology and creativity combine.

    In thinking about technology by African for Africans, #HackTheConstitution (26 August) provides an interactive version of South Africa’s constitution in which lawyers, developers, UX specialists and artists are invited to work on creating a prototype app that can make the Constitution more accessible.

    A MAZE Johannesburg will be adding to the playful aspect of the festival with their events, talks and workshops running from 31st of August to the 3rd of September for gaming enthusiasts.

    The Market Hack, one of the festivals popular events, with ConnectZA and South African Maker Collective (27 August) is a daylong takeover of The Grove at South Point (Braamfontein) involving activities related to play and learning about 3D printing, virtual reality and sound.

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    Maker Library Network & Geekulcha (1 September) will be running 3D fashion experience in collaboration with designers from the Tshwane Fashion Project to explore how the 3D experience can add to the fashion industry.

    Also new to the program is a “future sounds” workshop (25 – 27 August) with Goethe Johannesburg will bring together the Create Africa Collective and Berlin-based digital artist, The Constitute, to mix technological innovation with the re-imagining of sound. The results of this collaboration will form part of the Alight Bloc Party/Tshimologong Precinct Launch (1 September) and will light up the Precinct with featured projects including Future Sounds, installations provided by UK-based creative studio SDNA and light-based installations from South African artists to officially open up the Precinct.

    The A MAZE and Fak’ugesi Soweto Pop Ups (27 and 28 August) will be held at Trackside Creative in Orlando East which will provide a mixture of virtual reality experiences, game design workshops, live digital installations and various projects related to video, performance and other technological forms.

    Visitors can also check out The Rotating Exhibition Room which has an ongoing exhibition until the 31st of August featuring video art from artist Magdalena Kallenberge, Ahmed Esher, Carly Whitaker, Mohamed Allam, Foundland and students from The Animation School.

    To find out more information about the festival and to look up the other smaller workshops and events they will be running check out their website

    References:

    Bristow, T. (2013). “We want the Funk”.

    Bristow, T. (2014). “From Afrofuturism to Post African Futures”.

  • Creative Open Call announced by the British Council’s Connect ZA Arts Programme

    The British Council’s Connect ZA Arts Programme supports, highlights, and extends collaborative cultural exchanges between South Africa and the UK. They work across a wide variety of art forms in order to discover and nurture new and existing talent and connections between young people aged 18 to 35. They’ve been pioneering innovative ways to understand and engage creativity for three successful seasons and, following hot-on-the-heels of the reconceptualization of their visual identity in partnership with Bubblegum Club, are launching their next dynamic and exciting phase through the 2016/17 Creative Open Call.

    Whether you are an individual, a small to medium sized creative organisation, or a large scale cultural institution, Connect ZA invites your bold proposal to culminate in a “high quality live, or digital performance, showcase or other public facing event” through the open call titled ‘New Partners, New Projects, New Spaces’. As the call states; “We are looking for a strong mix of projects that may be a combination of more than one art form” but there is particular emphasis on proposals engaging the sectors of live performance and visual art. The call also strongly encourages applications from women in order to try to address issues of their underrepresentation within creative industries.

    Connect ZA are eager to back original and potentially ground-breaking new projects that are devised and designed for a contemporary urban context, as well as for the correct age demographic. It is also important that proposals are mutually beneficial for artists, audiences, and participants in both countries and that they are able “to engage and extend reach across multiple digital platforms,” such as social media. There are amounts of up to £3 500, £7 500, and £15 000 available within the three different Creative Categories so, if you have a great idea, but aren’t able to realise it without some financial support, check out the full guidelines here and download the application form here. Take note that applications close on Monday 18 July 2016. Fingers crossed!