Tag: cape town

The Kool Out Phenomenon: how rooftops and hip hop can ‘put you in your place’

We use the word ‘place’ to mean many things. Most obviously, place is location — a space in the world. It may also be a ‘place’ in the social order, as in to ‘know your place’ or ‘be in first place’. In a third sense, place is performance: events ‘take place’. If there is any event series that knows how to ‘take’ and ‘make’ a place, it’s Kool Out. Whether it’s the mellow kick-back of Kool Out Lounge, a concert gig at Kool Out Live, or Koolin in the City over a Sunday skyline; the Kool Out crew know how to produce place with hip hop.

In its most recent edition, Koolin in the City saw crowds gather on a Troyeville rooftop. Shoulders slung over the balcony railings. Heads rested on the distant edges of Ponte Tower. Mouths pulling smoke, stoking orange light. Then exhaling Biggie, Erykah and Bobby Caldwell over the used car lot below. ‘Is this your first Kool Out?’ No-one said yes. These were pilgrims, like birds regularly migrating home, coming to rest atop another Kool Out skyline.

For the past eight years, Kool Out has been cultivating this sense of place. The brand began in Cape Town, founded by DJ ID (Akio Kawahito). ‘I was an old-school hip hop guy’, he explains, ‘and there wasn’t really that scene on Long Street’. The city’s hip hop heads had been ‘placeless’ since the early 2000s, when DJ Raiko had run Cape Town’s biggest hip hop night, The Lounge. They needed new turf and Akio set about finding it.

‘The way that I always found places to DJ, it’s not like I’ve been to a spot and I’m like, “Yo, this is the music I’m into. I wanna play here”. It’s more like I’m into a spot and I’m not even listening to the music. If it’s the vibe, I’ll play here, and I’ll play what I wanna play. But this is where I wanna play what I wanna play.’ Place was paramount from the start.

Akio chose the Waiting Room, recognising potential in the above-street space, teetering on the pavement-edge of Long and Kloof. ‘The décor, the ambiance is cool. The crowd is there. You’ve got views of the city.’ He knew that the ways places affect us was not about individual locations, or even the bodies within them, but about the interaction between spaces and bodies — and how curators like Kool Out could connect people and place. In this first series, artists, lyricists, poets and hip hop lovers were strung together on a Cape Town rooftop.

‘This was before Waiting Room was what it is now’, Akio explains. ‘It was very much on an electronic tip. They said they didn’t do hip hop’. In spite of this, Akio began running Wednesday hip hop nights, having fooled the venue managers with an instrumental demo. ‘Really by the fourth month, it was poppin’ off’.

As Kool Out grew, it also ‘took place’, reclaiming territory. ‘For the first time, hip hop people — even black people in general — were going to the Waiting Room. Before that, it was like straight up a white spot.’

There were tussles over turf: the venue soon discovered what Akio was doing.

‘You can’t be doing this hip hop stuff’, they told him, ‘The crowd is too rowdy’. Kool Out was urged to relocate, but they held their ground. They knew their place, and quickly put the Waiting Room in theirs. Within a year, they were the city’s biggest monthly hip hop event.

In 2011, the crew moved to Johannesburg. Turntablist P-Kuttah (from Durban) and Emcee Reason joined the team. So did Banesa Tseki, Kool Out’s Creative Producer, whose role has been to put the vision in place — to make place happen.

‘Johannesburg has a beautiful downtown skyline. Within the last four years or so, people are starting to come downtown again. [We thought], “Let’s take something — a new space — and try build it up”’. The bricks and mortar would be immaterial things: the sound, the senses, the feel of a place. Using space like a ready canvass, this was about how to inject a site with meaning and attachment.

They began at Kitcheners in Braamfontein. ‘We always try to use a nice, small, compact space’, Kuttah explains. ‘So it gives you that house party feel’. Kool Out wanted crowds to feel intimacy and familiarity, as though they owned the place. Meanwhile, the team were also looking for their own place, to reclaim turf from venue managers. ‘We started off as artists [on the decks]. Then we became promoters [at the door]. But you know where the real money is? The motherfuckin’ bar! (usually claimed by the venue). ‘[So] we were like, “let’s take the door and the bar, cos that’s where the power’s at, you know”’.

‘We did site checks everywhere’, Akio explained. ‘Me and Raiko. We needed a place that nobody else was doing, where we could define it’. That place was the Kool Out Rooftop on Commissioner Street.

‘We saw a gap’, says Kuttah, ‘to do rooftop parties.’ No doubt there was something about being above the city that made it feel like it was yours. Like you could pluck the Hillbrow Tower from its place and pin back your hair with it. As night fell, Koolin in the City morphed: its people became a shadow-mass of silhouettes, while the city, all alight, was let in. It reminded me of that J-Z lyric from City is Mine: ‘You belong to the city, you belong to the night’.

Jo’burg is a city to which many belong — a place of many places. ‘The funny thing about Jo’burg’, Kuttah says, ‘I think about 70 percent of the people you meet in Jo’burg aren’t from Jo’burg. [They’re] from all over the nation.’ On stage at the most recent Koolin in the City were AKMG (out of the Eastern Cape), Kandy Koated (from the Vaal) and Durban’s Nasty C. Place has always been integral to hip hop, as artists make a point to ‘rep their hood’.

The culture of Kool Out is fed by Jo’burg’s cosmopolitan energy. By Kool Out is also literally fed by Jo’burg, where the crew have been able to live off their work for the first time. ‘We were on the top of hip hop in Cape Town and we were broke. Going out with hip flasks and shit’, Akio remembers. In Jo’burg, ‘you can make money off this shit.’ It’s like that Biggie lyric. Akio recites: ‘You never thought hip hop could take you this far. That’s how I feel! Everything is done from me being in hip hop. I own a house here. I’m buying a car next week, cash money. That shit blows my mind!’ While running an incredibly successful event series, Kool Out also consult for corporates and music festivals and have facilitated local tours for big international acts: People Under the Stairs, Ras Kass, DJ Babu, Talib Kweli and more.

Ask Kool Out pilgrims what keeps them coming back and they will say ‘the music’. That’s what transforms a non-descript space into a place where people feel they belong and connect. We hear a track and we remember where we were when we first heard it, how we felt when we first loved it. Then, in our communal recitation of lyrics, the memory is transformed into something shared. It is as though all of us here now, were also there together, at the time when we first loved this song. And so a bond is manufactured between us, like old friends and family coming together for a reunion — despite having never physically met. These days it doesn’t even matter where the venue is, coming to Kool Out means coming to a place that you know.

Kool Out works as this music meeting-place because DJs don’t just play the latest ‘turn up’ tunes. ‘We’re not trying to be about any trend’ Banesa explains. ‘We’re not dictated by who’s on radio. We’re not dictated by who’s big on social media. It’s not about who’s cool and who’s not. It’s just about what’s dope’. Interspersed with old-school hip hop nostalgia, Kool Out audiences will also be introduced to something new, discovering unchartered sonic territories together. ‘You get to kind of educate people on music’, says Kuttah. ‘It’s not subjected to you having to play commercial stuff all the time’. As such, artists are able to carve out their own space at Kool Out. ‘The funny thing is, even club DJs, when you put them here, they play different sets here.’

At Koolin in the City, those who come early enter free, after which tickets stay a reasonable R60. There’s no VIP and no price variation based on who’s performing. Whether it’s an international act like Sky Zoo or a massive local artist like Nasty C, it’s a normal Koolin in the City. ‘It’s not supposed to be artist-dependent’ Akio explains. ‘It’s difficult, but what you want it to be is: everybody loves your brand and they don’t care who’s performing. They go anyways. If it’s Nasty C, dope. If it’s someone you don’t know, then it’s probably somebody cool if these cats are putting him on’.

Underground artists and open mic emcee’s share the stage with big acts. Internationals and locals are given equal turf. Each has an option to claim and contest space. I saw young women (both female emcees and audience members) putting weak rappers in their place, attacking the dancefloor, and brazenly halting proceedings to call out misogynist lyrics.

Literary journalist, Joan Didion, once said that ‘ a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that [they] remake it in [their] own image’.

This is how the geography of Kool Out has been made. There has been acute sensitivity to physical location, but also a devotion to the immaterial sound and sense-scapes that make a place what it is. And while Kool Out has cultivated a very particular sense of place, it has been with enough openness that audiences claim it as their own. ‘Everyone just feels like home’, Banesa says. ‘A lot of people say Kool Out is their church or their home’.

4 July 2016
The Foxy Five – Women forging intersectional footholds

Staccato stabs erupt between creviced creases of the mountainous form. Backlit by blue skies, institutional columns stem forth. Symmetrical colonial stone is foregrounded by five womxn. The iconic campus of tertiary education was the site of recent student protests – a rupturing ripple that will resist all forms of erasure. The figures stand armed, in formation. Assault rifles extend from arms held high. Donned in a uniform of 70’s chic – highwaisted trousers and cropped shirts. These are The Foxy Five. A living legacy.

Jabu Nadia Newman is redefining the terrain of identity politics in the South African context. As born-free filmmaker and founder of the The Foxy Five she has created a web series that fictions the narrative of five womxn who stand at a metaphorical crossroad – the ideological intersection between race, gender, class, sexuality and other axes of power and oppression.

She says, “I’m interested in showing a new view of what it means to be an African, while being open to the fact that I’m still figuring it out for myself” In this way, the discourse around identity politics is emanating internally – dismantling prescriptive external boundaries.

In depicting the lived experiences of five womxn – expressed visually through Womxn We, Blaq Beauty, Unity Bond, Femme Fatal and Prolly Plebs – Newman reclaims the space of representation – a crucial element in redefining and exploring nuanced conceptions of identity. Shifted modes of power are used in this Post-Colonial context to reimagine an alternative to a white-washed historical narrative.

Using the rhetoric of intersectionality and “Africa for Africans” The Foxy Five march on. A powerful stance is struck; their gaze meets you head on. An assurance in position is executed with military precision. You are left only to stare down a barrel of a gun.

“This time we’re gonna make sure we’re the ones running the shots”

Watch episode 1 of The Foxy Five below.

1 J.Hunkin. (2016) Janu Nadia Newman: Intersectionality with a side of pop culture. Between 10&5 http://10and5.com/2016/06/16/jabu-nadia-newman-intersectionality-with-a-side-of-pop-culture/

24 June 2016
Crayons – Street Colours

The word crayons conjures images of fun and free expression. Raees Saiet, the founder of the Crayons streetwear label has taken this to heart. For the Crayons launch event in 2013 they released colourful limited edition t-shirts and dungarees, while another pop-up incorporated a screening of Home Alone.

Crayons latest release is a new set of t-shirts, sweaters and caps. The focus is on classic colours and technical designs. Simple, yet stylish, white, blue and black. The visual design on the new wear is similarly understated. The shirts and sweaters are framed with detailed abstract design patterns. Black snapback caps are embroidered with a stark label of three white crayons. As with all the best streetwear, its aesthetic is low key but expertly defined. It’s bound to make a strong impression wherever the wearer chooses to casually flaunt it!

This latest shoot was done in collaboration with Upper Echelon, another Cape Town based street couture label. The label was founded by Ahley Benn and Keenan Appollis and is driven by a desire to put street wear of a new level of influence. As they describe it themselves their brand is ‘’ aimed at enlightening individuals through designs that tell a story, while simultaneously opening individuals minds to what is relevant and most times overlooked in today’s society.’’ One of their most successful products to date has been the Indigo snapback, a classic black hat with an alluring green underbill. For Winter 2015, they dropped the ‘ It’s Dark Outside Collection’, providing minimalism for the winter months. Their latest collaboration with Crayons is a meeting of two groups with a shared commitment to craft and quality.

The collection will be available at DIP ST and for more images visit crayonsclothing.tumblr.com

10 June 2016
Born Out of Boredom – Apathy and Glamour

People are more saturated with popular culture than ever before. Through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter we are constantly bombarded with the antics of the rich and famous. Celebrities have dramatic break-ups on social media, cause firestorms of outrage with offensive statements and throw shade on their rivals- all in real time. But through such overexposure, popular culture runs the risk of losing a fundamental glamour and mystery. A tawdry example is provided on the social media of people like 50 Cent and DJ Khaled. Covered in money and diamonds, their efforts to convey the message of success instead become meme punchlines. When you show everyone all aspects of your life, your image goes from being legendary to boring.

Nqaba Fatman, has been exploring this mix of fascination and apathy with his new street wear label Born Out of Boredom. The label started from a professed love/ hate relationship with popular culture. It began with his Instagram feed, which is curated to highlight tedium and lack of interest. Listing its main theme as ‘social anxiety’, @shakesbored shows Nqaba and his friends trying to stay awake through the banal events of everyday life. However, the atmosphere of apathy is misleading. The photos and images are expertly framed and styled, giving the work a casual glamour. With this foundation in place, Born Out of Boredom has now joined a wave of DIY designers coming off the internet.

Its first collection dropped in February this year, with a limited collection of t-shirts. Their slogan captures the label’s ironic ethos- NOTHING INTERESTING. WEARY AND UNINTERESTED. SENSIBLITIES ALWAYS FOREVER.

And just in time for Winter it has released a second collection of long sleeves and hoodies. The accompanying photos (shot by Liam Volschenk) position models in a humble suburban home. This makes the stark red and blacks of the clothes stand out, and it shows the label as a source of durable and stylish street wear. In the age of overshare, the laid back quality of Born Out Of Boredom speaks volumes without having to raise its voice.

Photographer: Liam Volschenk
Stylist and director: Nqaba Shakes Fatman
Models: Nikho Rudah and Lucas Carr
Assistants: Isabella Vernes and Larissa Armstrong

6 June 2016
Premiere: Swishy Delta drops ‘Bronwynne’, exlcusively with Bubblegum Club

Today we drop an exclusive to settle you into the crisp, cold months ahead. Coming out of one of the coolest label in Cape Town, Swishy Delta has all the right co-signs from Damascus to Yes in French… but let the music speak for itself.

The 21st century is the age of multi-hyphenates and slashies, creatives have unbounded themselves from genres, titles and mediums to infiltrate the attention spans of the online audience. Swishy Delta aka Daniel Mark Nel, painter/beatmaker has hitherto expressed himself through atmospheric paintings and graphics and is now releasing his first solo musical effort, Bronwynne; a 4 track EP released via Quit Safari. The sounds are fresh and emotive, with smatterings of urban sounds and new-age-y murmurs.

Quit Safari is headed up by Bas Van Oudenhove and Sebastian Zenasi. The Cape Town based label is releasing some interesting sounds, and this first effort from Swishy Delta is a welcome reminder of all the edge and emotion that can come out of the Mother City, the meeting of the natural order with urban elements spills out of the sounds and offers something to sway and maybe have sex to this winter.

Just listen, it is so lush.

3 June 2016
Just for the Drama: A Trip through the Nu-Flex Party Archive 2006–2008

We’ve become expert archivists of our lives after dark. At nightclub entrances and dotted across our dancfloors are clusters of partygoers huddling to snap that essential Selfie. A big night out is an exercise in self-curation — the clothes, the music, the crew, the venue – each serving as raw materials in our imagining of the space and our place in it. The imagery is then methodically logged on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat: a clublife catalogue, a recreation record.

Recently I was offered a rare glimpse into a party archive, recorded and documented before the social media take-off, before our night lives were exploded into a kaleidescope of online albums. The catalogue belonged to fashion designer and DJ, David West, who in the years 2006— 2008 facilitated a series of Cape Town-based parties called Nu-Flex.

Nu-Flex emerged in conversation with Nu-Rave: a wistful wave of post-punk and acid house, which hit the UK/European club scene in the mid-2000s, draped in UV glitter, glow-sticks and neon skinny jeans. Nu-Rave sought to re-interpret and revitalise 90s Rave Culture: ‘The likes of BoomBox and other club nights in London, where dressing up was a thing’, David explains. BoomBox offered a spectacular collision of fashion and music — novel for its time. Partygoers revelled in the shambolic dress-up, mingling with many of London’s fashion heavyweights. Relatively short-lived, Nu-Rave served as a passing moment of ephemeral euphoria. It came and left, leaving in its wake a dazzling debris of bold prints and lime-stained nostalgia. The novelty had a life-span, David said. ‘It’s better to burn bright than burn out’.

Back in the mid 2000s, Nu-Flex partygoers would amass on a more-or-less bi-monthly basis at Disko-K in Cape Town’s CBD. Today, Loop Street is a popular night-time destination. But at the time, this was ‘a part of town that nobody ever went to. Sailors came in for drinks while docked in the nearby harbour’. Disko K, which no longer exists, ‘had the most ridiculous sound and light set-up and it had kareoke.’

The Nu-Flex crowd included droves of students, interspersed with an older group who had lived through rave’s first wave. ‘We did also have lots of visitors from Johannesburg and yes – some kids used to travel in from Wellington and Worcester to be there’.

Nu-Flex was draped in audacious colour. But David concedes that the scene was predominantly white. Not much has changed about Cape Town since, he added. Contributing to the narrow demographic were the limitations of David’s own audience. The Nu-Flex crowd, he explained, was often an off-shoot of Evol, an edgy divebar, which David also ran and describes as having been ‘very white’. In a time before social media, news of Nu-Flex travelled by word-of-mouth. This gave it an ‘underground cool’, but also entrenched forms of exclusion. Perhaps there’s something to be said about the relationship between rapid-fire-tweets and the democratisation of dancefloors.

Nu-Flex parties were heavily themed, encouraging partygoers to be daring in their outfits. Drugged-up Spring themes included: Tropi-core, Optikamax, Antihistaflex. Add to the mix the metallic Hyper Go-Go and the garbage-glam-themed Gutta-Flex. The time of Indie boys dressed in black-and-white, eyes cloaked in mascara, had peaked, giving way to an exuberant and colour-crazed fashion revival. All across town, partygoers would gather for the ‘Pre-Flex’, revelling in the act of ‘getting ready’.

Rather than the mucho masculinity commonly associated with nightclub bouncers, Nu-Flex had a ‘Door Queen’, with drag being an essential component of the party aesthetic. ‘I hired a make-up artist to style my friend Andrew (who had done loads of drag in the past)’. The Door Queen screened partygoers’ attire as they entered, commenting on their lack of effort or offering compliments to those who had come out in style. ‘The gay scene had already become very bland and hetero-normative, so I was hell bent on encouraging the queerness of the party’. For David, Nu-Flex would have been incomplete without a Drag Queen on the decks, so he made it a point to learn drag himself.

‘I was a club kid. I was schooled in aesthetics in the 90’s at Rave and House clubs’. Both as a fashion designer and party planner, David’s muse was club culture. ‘It’s been a huge part of my life and allowed me to contribute to the city culturally over time’.

Reflecting on Nu-Flex, he said: ‘I was desperate for something bright, fabulous, happy and over the top. I remember one night, I had a net full of silver-foil balloons released from the balcony at the peak of my DJ set. Just for the drama’. This was a celebration of excess: reflected in eccentric décor and dress, in being encompassed by a 303 synthesiser, in losing oneself in Nitris Oxide or psychadelics, and finally leaving the club in a 4am haze. ‘You danced so hard, it was more like a flex’. Alongside David himself, DJs included Pierre Estienne, Dario Leite (the Midnight Men), Gazelle and Bradley Abraham. Spoek Matambo and Marcus Wormstorm would perform as Sweat X. ‘Most were old enough to have had experienced the early 90s to some degree’.

Nineties nostalgia continues to hold weight among South African millenials, with much of our aesthetics harking back to the technicolour of a post-94 transition. It’s evident when we drop a TKZee lyric , or rock a Spice Girl choker, or revel in Brenda Fassie bubblegum.

‘I think many of the kids today appreciate the cheese factor of the nineties sound’, David says, ‘like Venga Boys or Crystal Waters. But they can’t handle actual rave and acid house. There seems to be a need to be able to attach irony to something for it to be enjoyable today. Do I sound old? I guess I’m waiting for something to emerge that sounds as new as House/Rave/Techno did in the 90s. And then of course, when a scene emerges around that, I think that will be thrilling’.

David yearns for the club cultures of old:

‘Nightclubs should be places of self expression and freedom, a fantasy world even. I am saddened by the clubs (or lack of them) today. Where’s the pizzazz? Where has the spirit of rebellion and non-conformity gone? Why is it all about mainstream pop music today? What happened to the underground or alternative?’

There’s no definitive answer. But if I were to go in search of one, I would ask the gqom artists playing new mixtapes out their car boots in Durban. Or the crew gathered in a courtyard to hear the latest electronica from a friend’s home studio. Or the audiences that galvanise sonically and politically around FAKA and Angel Ho. When it comes to contemporary cultural production in South Africa, I am full of that old-school, pink-glazed, neon-clad idealism, with which David would be very familiar. I see young people delight in the experimental, perhaps with less of an inclination to pursue escapist bliss. Stylistically, politically and musically, we are increasingly inclined to disrupt. But we also see the importance of giving disruption mass appeal and mobilizing for inclusivity. Like David, I believe the emerging scene will be thrilling — pumped with a powerful mix of critical nostalgia and uncompromising futurism, an unhinged blend of radio-hit consumability and radical resistance.

The Nu-Flex catalogue teaches us to pay attention to our party archives: as testaments to a generation imagining, wrestling, searching…

The Posters

The Decor

The Door Queen

The Kids

17 May 2016
SECTOR – Uncharted Territory

The South African comic book industry is growing at a fast rate. Local writers and artists like Lauren Beukes, Dale Halvorsen and Jason Masters have all had their talent headhunted by major American publishers. These creators all appeared at the recent FanCon event in Cape Town, alongside international stars like the US writer Jason Aaron and British illustrator Jamie McKelvie. The event also showcased lots of independent South African work, the most visually striking and conceptually interesting of which is the anthology book SECTOR.

Already on its Sixth Issue, SECTOR provides a platform for mature sci-fi and fantasy, drawn in detailed and gritty black and white. Its current series include Red Air, a deranged tale set on Mars and the freebooting pirate fantasy Uncharted Waters. The anthology format works really well as it allows the creators to develop long form stories in short bursts, and to constantly ramp up their narrative and artistic ambition. Published on a bi-monthly basis, SECTOR takes clear inspiration from iconic international anthology books like Heavy Metal and 2000AD. Such magazines have historically given an opportunity for new creative voices to experiment with graphic storytelling. 2000AD famously was the testing ground for British writers like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, who would later revolutionise the American comic book scene in the late ‘80s. The anthology format still holds up. Last year Image, the publishing house which is currently setting the standard for comic book excellence, began to release Island, while Heavy Metal is being relaunched.

SECTOR’s current contributors include Daniël Hugo, Karl Mostert , Moray Rhoda, Diorgo Jonkers , Ben Rausch, Nas Who and Michael Smith. By pooling their collective talents, they are pushing South African comics into a bold new direction. It will definitely be worth keeping an eye on where they choose to go next. SECTOR 6, and the back issues, can all be purchased online at indiecomics.co.za. The site is a great platform to further explore self-published local work.

15 May 2016
Sol-Sol x Young and Lazy drop an exclusive, collaborative collection at Corner Store CPT tonight!

This Friday the 13^th, the stars have aligned and luck is in your favour with two of South Africa’s finest streetwear brands, Sol-Sol Menswear and Young and Lazy, dropping an exclusive, collaborative capsule collection at Corner Store CPT.

Creative directors and designers Mathew Kieser and Anees Petersen have been inspiring aesthetic attitudes across the country and now join forces to create an internationally relevant, yet locally inspired collection with the versatility to be worn across a wide variety of cultural and economic situations; from the wayward delinquent to the advertising executive, from the care-free skater kid to the carefully-curated clothing geek.

Scope the impeccably crafted collection in the lookbook below, shot by Ricardo Simal; with classic long and short sleeved tees, collaborative text-based logos that will get the cool-collector drooling, reworked outerwear denim with the freshest silhouette, as well as beautifully detailed and reworked chinos.

With its quality, uncomplicated approach, combining a minimalistic pallet with subversive pops of colour, a tasty combination of fabrics, and an interestingly unisex feel, you can easily scoop one or two special items or wear it head-to-toe.

Check out the drop and party here and claim a piece of this important moment in SA clothing culture!

Credits:

Photographer – Ricardo Simal

Stylist + Director – Anees Petersen

Model – Pierre Carl Vermeulen

13 May 2016
Skattie Celebrates – Spotlight on Rose Gelderblom Waddilove

Fashion and design website Skattie has been piloting a new way to give emerging artists exposure with their Celebrates parties. The concept is that a gallery space is hired out for one night only and turned into an exhibition/party. There previous exhibitions looked at Laura Windvogel and Unathi Mkonto, while this weekend’s will focuses on Cape Town artist Rose Gelderblom Waddilove.

Rose trained in print media, but works across painting, performance and new media. As she told us- ‘Stories of art and pain have motivated much of my research’. A recent trip to occupied Palestine had been especially significant- ‘it has allowed me an opportunity to reflect on the state of the nation in South Africa, the symbolic ending of apartheid and issues of solidarity and identity’. This focus on the contemporary moment in South Africa incorporates a particular fascination with ‘the position of an individual within the crowd’.

For her Skattie show she will be showing a broad spectrum of her prior work. These will include prints she made while studying at UCT and performance piece collaborations with artist Adam Jon Williams. A particular highlight is the painting she made on the border wall in the West Bank. The party will also showcase some of her new work, dealing ‘with major statistics, crowds, trauma and loss. This year marks 50 years since the declaration of District 6 as whites only area. 2016 marks 40 years since the 1976 Soweto Uprising as well as 20 years of the Constitution. My most recent work aims purely to begin to locate creative self-expression at this moment in time’.

Alongside the exhibition, Skattie will be providing a downloadable online publication of Roses work, created in partnership with Art Africa magazine. The party will also feature a wide line up of dj’s for the evening. It starts at 6PM on Saturday at the Ava Gallery, 35 Church Street, Cape Town.

6 May 2016
The subversive love of Nolan Oswald Dennis’ Furthermore

Nolan Oswald Dennis’ current exhibition, titled Furthermore, at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town resists (neo)colonial logics of closure and destabilises the necrological dimensions of neo-imperial violence that continue to suffocate the vitality of life within the “always collapsing social fiction” of a ‘new’ South Africa. Instead of circumscribing what constitutes ‘reality’ through the exclusions of reductive tendencies, Furthermore seeks to open up a wide field of engagement where points of tension are explored through an acknowledgement of multiple epistemologies and perspectives.

The title of the show is an indication of these complexities in its significance as both a stereotypical trope of political jargon and as a word that continually expands the centre to bring into orbit the significance of that which is constructed as peripheral. What does it mean to notice the complexity of gestures involved in the recent removal of the statue of Rhodes, where it wasn’t simply unceremoniously toppled in a realisation of necessary decolonial vengeance but was carefully hoisted by the arm of a crane, holding preservation together with removal? What could these movements signify if seen in relation to the archaeological violence of the removal of other statues over a hundred years ago, which facilitated the incorporation and appropriation of the Zimbabwean Birds into Rhodes’ personal mythology, and moved toward stasis where the best ‘specimen’ remains in The Groote Schuur Manor House, the current home of South Africa’s president? How do bodies contain the traces of technologies of violence enacted in the bizarre melting-down of artefacts through the Ancient Ruins Company?

Another Country I to VI (image courtesy of Goodman Gallery)

Furthermore points to ways in which both the presence and the absence of memory can indicate how it is institutionalised or ideologically incorporated into (and appropriated for) nationalist conceptions and (neo)colonial forms of domination which seek to invalidate alternative imaginings and thus, the creation of alternative forms of life. The implications of memory are expanded through considerations of complicacy which circumvent particular ascriptions of identity and subjectivity and breathe against unequivocal integration into hegemonic forms of political sovereignty. In all of these foldings, Furthermore illuminates the ways in which acts always contains their own dissidence and seems to suggest that it is this difficulty that can actually enable engagement and understanding.

Dennis’ work carries the feeling of a contemporary articulation of Aimé Césaire’s resignation letter to Maurice Thorez, where Césaire stated that; “I am not burying myself in a narrow particularism… But neither do I want to lose myself in an emaciated universalism… My conception of the universal is… enriched by all that is particular” and that “it is life itself that decides.” In a vital embrace of becoming, Furthermore exhibits a transformative form of politics concerned with altering ontology, with irrupting integration into the bankruptcy of artificially discrete ideas.

The work of Dennis exploits inherent tensions in order to turn a system back on itself. The scent of this is carried in the way that Furthermore manipulates the aesthetic markers of the official and mimics the austere and processional tone of that which is sanctioned. The box is a central concern in the way that is can simultaneously obfuscate and draw attention-to. What constitutes a blanket-statement and how does this relate to a texture touching skin? History is captured in the impermanence of wax. There is a kind of urgent short-circuiting of algorithmic meaning played out in the patient intricacy of networks of lines. The aggressive pontification of the linearity of time is suspended through the co-presence of rocks and screens, unattributed texts from indiscernibly ‘different’ times which resonate together. There is a sense of the way in which graves are sometimes marked by deliberately damaged pots; of how new meanings can emerge and circulate.

Dark Places I & II (image courtesy of Goodman Gallery)

When I spoke to Dennis about Furthermore, he spoke about the symbolism involved in how gallery spaces attempt to present neutrality through a deliberate lack of self-memory, an active evisceration of all signs of what has come before; how the ‘art world’ is a huge industrial machine for moving money across borders and the ways in which everything else just functions to validate this; how an awareness of these limitations saw a manoeuvring of format for growth and explorations which can then perhaps enable other kinds of engagement; how the work can never be about the completed objects which are really just the excess of the work of trying to understand; how even intimate autobiographical aspects get captured and claimed, constantly repeated under the reductive and paradoxically distancing guise of ‘engagement’. All of these threads that weave together, all of the attendant things; the continuities in spite of the projected fragmentations.

Furthermore demands a new language and speaks to ways in which South Africans are no longer satisfied with the placating illusions of freedom, suspended in a series of active irresolutions. It reflects a radical praxis and offers an example of how some of the most thorough decolonial work is happening beyond the codified landscapes of engagement. Furthermore is part of a subversive love that will see South Africa invented anew and that risks singing madly with Sankara that we must dare to invent the future,

Furthermore…

28 April 2016
Alma Martha, she’s not your mother; the unibrow to highbrow art practice

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha is the unibrow to highbrow art practice, rebelling against predefined forms of practice and codified systems of meaning-making through an often playfully provocative approach to moving alongside established institutions. Born towards the end of 2014 and sustained through the collaboration of artists Juliana Irene Smith and Molly Steven, Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha seems uninterested in replacing one kind of haughtiness with another and so openly acknowledges the necessity for commercialised arts practice while responding to some of the experimental limitations of official gallery spaces by opening-up alternative forms of engagement. Through Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha, artists are provided with a system of support for working through the potential value of being-in-process and for teasing out tentative responses to some of the more sticky questions skulking around what actually constitutes ‘artistic production’.

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha doesn’t shy away from the awkward or the uncomfortable but seems to view these moments of tension as necessary and generative animations against stagnation. Unlike formal or educational institutions, this is not a space that necessarily rewards those who speak the loudest and for the longest, it is just as interested in failure as a generative process as it may be in ‘success’. What happens in your body when you’re blushing? What does that respond to? Maybe that says more than artificial bravado so, Darling, bring your shaky voice to what was the silence of this space. Their byline states that “She is not your mother”; you aren’t going to be haunted into a corner through threats of hairy palms, so you can get as unrighteous and juicy as you like.

This isn’t about the labour of producing neatly formed human beings with neatly defined and expressible concerns; this is a romantic, playful platform for the bastards of a system that often cannot properly love or regard its children. This inclusive, experimental attitude is expressed in the description for one of Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha’s previous events, Ridder Thirst and Other Readings One Should Ignore; “the imbibed monologue, the that’s-what-she-said preclusion, the soutie sonnet, the Lutheran sermon, the bonanza-SMS, the homeboy homily, the retrieved-from-trash coming-out letter, the reluctant manifesto, the floating quote, the .PDF reading group, the eunuch operetta, the proxy press conference, the refused award acceptance speech, the amen-men-amendment, the track-changes bar in Word, the golly guidebook, etc.”

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha embodies the principle of learning-while-doing and this has seen the collective thrown into some contentious waters within its first year of existence, making both ArtThrob’s best and worst listings for shows held in 2015. But what could be more vital than a collaborative where the creators are as open to critique and active learning as the artists it embraces? If anything, this is an indication of a radical space and network that is more interested in creating opportunities and pushing cultural production forward than it is in anxiously micromanaging a pitch-perfect brand.

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha have just concluded the public art event A Lot, which featured the work of Jaco Minnaar, Bonolo Kavula, Katharine Meeding, and Lonwabo Kilani in an abandoned lot in Cape Town. As the description for the event stated, “We are not seeking to dull edges, to be a clean-up crew or make places accessible, even though we do seek to access you as an audience.” These concerns regarding questions of access, of space, of audience, and of interactions between the public and the private will continue to be explored throughout 2016, through various site-specific manifestations as Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha reflexively play with their own practice in response to a recent abandonment of their physical space after numerous break-ins. Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha are currently engaging with SUPERMARKET, an international artist-run art fair in Stockholm, Sweden, where they are featuring the work of Jamal Nxedlana and Chloe Hugo-Hamman. The SUPERMARKET show will also be displaying Wearable Art created by friends of the Collective including; Anthea Moys, Herman de Klerk, Black Koki, Liza Grobler, Chris van Eeden, Miranda Moss, Critical Mis and Buhlebezwe Siwani.

I can’t get some of the images from Conjugal Visit out of my head. Through an engaged but un-curated approach, the tone of Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha has a propensity to shift without warning, and you’ll want to check it out because “How long could your relationship last without a kiss?” You can see more of their work on Tumblr or on Facebook.

20 April 2016
Imraan Christian: The Decolonizing Gaze

Imraan Christian is a young photographer and filmmaker from the Cape Flats whose work is capturing international attention. After graduating from the University of Cape Town in 2014, he was on hand to document the explosive events of Fees Must Fall in October 2015. His photographs are a powerful record of the wild days of student protest erupting across the country, with his keen eye capturing both the passion of the young protesters and the violence of the state response. While much of the media tried to infantilise and criminalise the student’s demands, Christian lets the slogans on placards wielded by demonstrators speak for themselves. An image captured on a march from UCT reads- ‘post-apartheid racist society says: you are poor because you are uneducated. Go get a degree! Colonial elitist universities say you are too poor to take yourself out of poverty. # we are fucked’. Such eloquence contrasts with the brutal images of police meeting students with tear gas, stun grenades and assault. The establishment’s inability to understand young people is captured in a darkly humorous image of higher education minister Blade Nzimande standing behind a gate with a look of total incomprehension while a protest storms around him.

Christian’s powerful photographs quickly went viral on social media, and were syndicated in international publications. But these photographs are just one aspect of his artistic project. His diverse portfolio ranges from the South African Film and Television Awards nominated documentary Jas Boude (co-directed with Georgina Warner) to numerous photography projects . This work is united by the desire to confront structural racism and inequality, and its corrosive effects on the lives of young people. In the series Rise From The Roots, he used the fashion editorial format to ‘subvert and transcend the accepted colonial narrative of a group of black men being dangerous and/or criminals’, by showing the elegant clothes of the ToneSociety collective on the streets of Cape Town. A similar subversion occurs in Jas Boude, which follows a group of skateboarders from the dangerous Valhalla Park into the city centre. Through the film’s intimate focus on character the spatial inequalities of Cape Town, and South Africa more generally, become glaringly apparent. Behind the image of a gilded tourist trap, the city is characterised by catastrophic violence, poverty and trauma. The State is all too happy to have these problems contained in ‘peripheral’ spaces on the Cape Flats. Black and coloured youth are trapped between a lack of formal opportunities, criminal stereotypes and a system eager to send them to the prison or the cemetery. Christian is challenging this bleak picture, through both his work and career. At a young age, he has challenged hateful typecasting of young coloured people by winning international acclaim through his sheer mastery of visual mediums.

His more recent projects blend political documentary and protest art. Death of a Dream is a stunning and disturbing response to state repression, in South Africa and beyond. In it, student activists are decked in funeral black. One stares at the camera with simulated bullet wound, fired by a sinister masked gunmen behind her. The point is clear- both the physical death of young bodies, and the symbolic destruction of their hope for a better future. The photos are staged so perfectly that the activists almost seem like mythological figures of death, their gazes drilling into the viewer’s skull. Along with documenting contemporary South Africa, Christian’s imagery resonates with global issues of power, control and oppression.

18 April 2016