Bubblegum Club

Tag: collective

  • New Photographic series ‘Like Flowers Grow’ by TRYBE COLLECTIVE

    New Photographic series ‘Like Flowers Grow’ by TRYBE COLLECTIVE

    We interviewed members of TRYBE COLLECTIVE about their new series Like Flowers Grow:

     

    Please share more about how you came together as a collective?

    TRYBE COLLECTIVE came together as a collective in early 2017. We started as 4 friends, all living in a house share in the infamous suburb of Observatory, Cape Town, with different artistic abilities. All of us artists with something to say, we soon realized the potential of the collective and thus began the process of transitioning from the individual to the collective. Originally it was just us for 4, Jesse Goosen on styling, Babalwa Tom focused on performance and dance, Ashley Smith working photography and Thuthukile Hlatshwayo on I.T. programming. “Grooves and Groves” was our first child, an event we hosted at ERF81 farm to raise awareness to the farm and its history. As we grew we continued to support each other’s artistic projects plus those of friends around us and soon grew into a larger collective movement.

    What is the thinking behind this series, in terms of mood,  styling and photography?

    The styling, mood and photography of this series was inspired by the name of the series, “Like Flowers Grow”. I also aimed at capturing the queer body as a mythological spirit of nature. This alchemy of “flowers” which occur naturally [and in a mythological way] with its disputed legitimacy, best represented the queer body and the arguments that have been disputed, and continue to be disputed, over such bodies. The whole mood was therefore centered around the galvanizing or play on fact and fantasy (Comfo Mo Czalo – photographer).

    Please share more about the importance of your collective, in relation to the lives of queer people in Zimbabwe?

     As a TRYBE, our aim has always been to raise awareness and support to each other’s artistic endeavors. When Comfo, who is one of our Zimbabwean members, approached us with this idea to start documenting queer bodies in Zimbabwe, we immediately joined them in excitement, seeing this was a topic close to home. We share a vision that such stories will serve as inspiration and strength for the queer body navigating through Zimbabwe on a day to day basis.

    Why do you think art, fashion and photography will help you articulate your collective aims?

    We believe, Art, Fashion, and Photography have an unstoppable potential to stimulate, trigger, inspire, enliven and influence a generation. These also provide a safer space for dialogue.

    What are you hoping will be the impact of your work?

    We can only hope that our work will serve to, trigger and influence a new conversation on the dignity and legitimacy of the queer body in Zimbabwe. At the very least it must serve as awareness to the existence of such people in the community.

    Please share more about the name for this series?

    “The name was very personal to me, I like to view society a living organism, a tree, and I see queer people as the flower parts of that tree, that is, the best part. Additionally, the name came as a play on what is deemed natural and unnatural, as this is still the level of conversation we are at as a society, in the Zimbabwean context.” – Comfo Mo Czalo.

  • Thulile Gamedze // a transdisciplinary approach to disrupting the coloniality within educational institutions

    Thulile Gamedze // a transdisciplinary approach to disrupting the coloniality within educational institutions

    Thulile Gamedze is an artist and writer based in Cape Town, working towards a Masters in Philosophy. Her research and creative endeavors look at ways to unpack and disrupt the coloniality embedded within institutionalized pedagogical practices, and develop relevant, experimental and Africa-centred teaching methodologies and content. Hers is a personal, artistic and textual intervention, and a research-based undertaking.

    As part of the all-womxn collective iQhiya, Gamedze’s practice draws on her own investigations and that of her collective. Her work offers strategies of intervention, departure points and moments of reflection entangled with contemplations on South Africa’s tensions and history. As someone who took art as a subject at school, and as a past Fine Arts student, Thulile has recognised gaps in the curricula, and actively attempts to add in and connect dots for a fuller picture of South African art history, and its relationship to other aspects of society.

    Installation view at AVA Gallery Cape Town, 2016

    Thulile is continuously active in animating and stimulating spaces that exist outside of traditional art spaces. Her participation in the two week online residency, Floating Reverie in 2017 is evidence of this. Taking on the visual and discursive markers present in online teaching videos, Thulile asked participants to unpack ideas related to transdisciplinary learning, knowledge production and the dissemination of such knowledge.

    Thulile is interested in the “radical potential of education as a central project of liberation, with her practice borrowing from strategies of collaboration in popular pedagogy, and subaltern African histories.” In this sense, she thinks about decolonisation as an art practice.

    Thulile’s online residency with Floating Reverie, titled WOW_3000ZF
  • Off The Meds: Swedish tech house with a South African touch

    Off The Meds: Swedish tech house with a South African touch

    Adrian Lux, Carli Löf and Måns Glaeser, the producer’s behind Off The Meds, have been active in the industry for the last decade, working and touring collectively and as solo artists. They have made a name for themselves through major releases as well as writing and production credits on a number of Swedish and European releases. Joined by South African photographer-cum-vocalist Kamohelo Khoaripe the four have released their debut EP ‘The Meds Are Kicking In’ a year after the successful release of their bouncy single ‘Geraas’.

    Recorded in 2016, after a chance encounter between Kamohelo and Måns Glaeser at a studio afterparty, ‘Geraas’ was picked up and released by the label Play It Down in 2017. This prompted the four to formally band together as Off The Meds, a name which Adrian came up with after returning from New York and describes the fun mentality of the group.

    Released independently with the group’s label Off The Records, the four-track ‘The Meds Are Kicking In’ EP features the chant-driven vocals of Kamohelo underlayed by high-energy tech house. “It’s pretty much everyday life.” explains Kamohelo of the lyrics. “My childhood memories, situations in South Africa. Happy times. Maybe it’s a song I used to sing in daycare and then I just mash it up with modern stuff. There’s one song that’s like [influenced by] football commentary.”

    Cover design by Mzwakhe Ndlovu

    With three producers, each with a passion for synthesizers and music gear, the productions on the release are born in the machine and feature minimal samples. Speaking of the energy and sound they were trying to achieve Kamohelo says, “Every song is influenced by each and every gig we played [last year]. Every time we got back from a festival we recorded a song. So it’s the vibe we got from people, [and] we’re just giving [that] back.”

    Scandinavian summer will see Off The Meds hit the festival and rave circuit once again, while their next release might come towards the end of 2018. “We’ve been making a lot of music. We might release in December when winter comes this side. We might release another EP and then next year release an album, or keep on releasing EPs because we have enough material to release more EPs.”

    While they have no plans to visit South Africa anytime soon, a tour isn’t off the cards. “I’m trying to get the guys to come [to South Africa] because I was there in December for a month and I played a few songs for some of my mates and some radio people, and they liked it. So if we get a gig we will go down.”

  • DOOMSNITE // A new party for young people of colour in Cape Town

    “We are the future, for the kids by the kids,” states Antonio Druchen, one of the organisers of DOOMSNITE, a new party for young people in Cape Town. Antonio along with Qaanid Hassen, Naledi Holtman, Raeez Kilshaw and Likhona Camane created the event with the intention of gathering young people like themselves in one space for celebrating and connecting. Under the guidance of Crayons’ Ra-ees Saiet, they were able to host their first event on the 29th of January. Their hope is that this event will grow and become a space that represent creative freedom.

    Reflecting on the time that sparked the idea for the collective, Raeez expressed that, “I felt as though we [had] all met before, in a spiritual realm.” This is representative of the kind of collective connection they have already created through their time together since meeting at a project hosted by Corner Store called Summer Camp. This was an apprentice programme for young up-and-coming artists in Cape Town to show them that they can cultivate skills in creative practices such as DJing, styling, and photography, and be successful.

    The team refers to themselves as a kind of collective that also allows for each member to work on their individual practices independently too. This allows them to build a brand for their event, and offer each other support, without being completely absorbed by one project. Therefore, their collective is not exclusively about producing together, but also about providing each other with creative and emotional support. This is reflective of the direction that a number of people of colour from Cape Town are taking with regards to cultural production.

    Influenced by underground, English-born hip hop artists MF DOOM, the team curated their first event around this. “MF DOOM’s ability to use music to portray many different characters reflects how music came first for him and for us, it’s the same thing,” explains Naledi. “Inspired by MF DOOM, we find beauty in creating a whole new world of intricate personas, vivid visuals and detailed bodies of music, all behind a mask,” Likhona expressed. Ensuring that the space was representative of the energy that has brought them all together – freedom, creative pleasures and wholesome music – their first party was explosive. Expressive visuals, music and dance coloured the night, and this included performances by Garth Ross and Guillotine Squad.

    In addition to being a space for having a good time, the aim for the party is for it to be a platform that can facilitate networking between young people. This extends the party into an informal support structure.

    Be sure to check out their next event in February at The Living Room.

  • Love is a Difficult Blue // Cathartic Moments in Collaborative Practice with Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh

    Washes of colour bleed into pools of pleasure. Delicately drawn and intricately articulated. Forms of flesh emerge from thread. The intersection of love and lust. Interjected by a moment of escape from a solitary echo-chamber. Lured by siren call of paint and brush – lifting the veil of separation. Transitioning from viewer to maker. Transgressing from one space to another. Liberation from the binding constructs of one’s own perception, into another dimension.

    The moment Reza Farkhondeh put paint to one of Ghada Amer’s canvases he experienced a cathartic release. An instant free from his own practice. At the time she was away traveling,on seeing what he had done, she was initially shocked and upset. However, over time she warmed to the collective piece. Reza described the experience as “a meeting of two minds…You can create and also watch – you are a part of it, but also not.” The dynamic tension between presence and separation is integral to their collaborative practice.

    Since the early 2000’s they have explored a relationship founded on trust and reciprocity. While working out of their studio in Harlemthey still maintain individual identities and autonomy while engaging in collaborative space. Navigating this can at times be challenging. However, overtime Ghada and Reza have carved tools to combat conflict. Combined authorship is at the crux of their decision-making process. The two artists flip a coin to see who will place their signature above the other’s and hold a secret ballot to decide which of the works are finished. If the outcome does not reveal two affirmative votes, then the piece is further worked into. These democratic systems are used as effective tools to avoid potential moments of tension and ensure a fair trade.

    Their current show, Love is a Difficult Blue opened at Goodman’s Cape Town Gallery on the 18th of January and runs through to the 24th of February.The work explores notions of women and nature as both bearers of life – captured within an industrial patriarchal system of exploitation and oppression. Ghada enlists the female form as an archetypal icon – constructed from an amalgam of images. She uses these bodies, charged with notions of desire, to subvert stereotypes created by the white western male gaze. Intentionally provocative, the figures act as catalysts for conversation around the conventions of art.

    Her use of thread and embroidery stemmed from a frustration around not having access to the ‘man’s world’ of painting. In an interview with Brett Littman she recalled that in 1991 she decided that, “in order for me to paint, I would need to come up with my own technique – which was using the traditional women’s technique of sewing.” Reza describes the forms as “mechanical woman” – rooted in reproduction and systematically flattened through the process of embroidery. This connects to the historical erasure of women and female artists in the western cannon – something Ghada experienced in the curriculum while studying at École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts à la Villa Arson in France.

    This art school also happened to be the site at which they met, in 1988. At the time, Reza was completing a MFA in video and short film. Prior to his engagement with images of the natural world, he worked on a series called Made in China. The series of oil paintings depicted objects that appeared in Dollar Stores – all worth 99 cents. This was followed by a depressive episode – one which was broken by the conceptual freedom of working with landscapes and the catharsis of collaboration. “I guess what broke me out of this self-doubting period was when I painted on Ghada’s canvas in 2000.”

    The two have unified their practice through a process of exchange.  Ghada and Reza both begin in their mark-making working independently on individual canvases, once content, this is followed by exchange for the other to imprint upon. Reza remarked on the moments of voyeurism the shared studio enables – allowing brief windows into each other’s work and process. The pair however, are very careful not to disrupt the other’s practice in those early tentative moments – providing space for the work to evolve quietly.

    Initially their collaboration was established purely as a visual juxtaposition of medium and style. However, this organically grew into integrated layers – with each artist playfully trespassing into the other’s domain. These moments of slippage occur when Reza traces the female form and Ghada raises her brush to his botanical subjects.

    It is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed  – Steve Lacy

  • Cuss Group Teases New Project in Switzerland

    testimonial 1The Cuss Group, co-founded by Bubblegum’s own Jamal Nxedlana just released an invitation for “Solution Night” an event they are hosting at the TOPIC project space in Geneva, Switzerland. The Cuss Group is comprised of Jamal Nxedlana, Ravi Govender and Zamani Xolo who founded it, along with Lex Trickett and more recent addition Chris McMichael.  The invite is accompanied by a series of celebrity testimonials together with an ominous text which you can read below.

    “Daily life is a space of  intense  contradiction.  The promise of infinite self-actualisation and attainable dreams runs alongside the constant coverage of violence and panic.  People are constantly told they can become and achieve anything while seeing evidence of the depths humanity can sink too.  The latest fashions and music next to the latest atrocity footage.  Glaciers of jewellery on Instagram, melting glaciers in the artic.   Drone selfies, drone assassinations. Gangs post pictures of money, kidnappings and executions on facebook. Social media, Narcomedia, Necromedia.  Livetweeing from the back off the bus while it rolls off the highway, lighting for the disaster provided by etoll grids.

    The surface is chaos which threatens to tear the individual apart.  But this is an appearance which disguises another reality. The individual now has more power than ever, to build or destroy, from behind a screen.  No need for constant doubt, just pure focus. We understand only ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Only ‘black’ and ‘white’. No ambiguities. No half-tones. No equivocations.  Pure will, pure power for those who dare to grasp it”.