A series of summer workshops held at the faculty of Art Education at Helwan University in Egypt set in motion the coming together of art practitioners Dia Hamed and Mohamed Allam. Their collective effort was directed towards creating spaces and opportunities to show their work. This led to the founding of their non-profit independent organisation and gallery, Medrar for Contemporary Art aims to develop the art industry in Cairo by encouraging collaborations between artists locally and internationally. This is directed by the idea to build a form of collective intelligence that allows artists to have creative conversations and gain exposure to the art world. When asked about the importance of joint efforts in producing work, Dia explained that the arts scene in Cairo has been “…infused with individualistic approaches to creation, probably due to skill-based education systems. So we always try to organically encourage emerging artists to seek peers or mutual interests among local artists and others from abroad. Our educational programmes are always implying lateral methods of exchange.”
Still from video titled “Impromptu: HG Masters on SB 13” on Medrar TV
Expanding on their interest in documenting their own practice and its surroundings, Medrar started producing content for the web, aspiring to construct a full archive of artistic footage accessible online for researchers and educators. In February 2012 they began to broadcast their web-based channel Medrar TV. Reflecting on the role that documentation through video plays in audience engagement and preserving art, Dia explains that “video documentation enables [a] local audience to search back [to] what they might have missed [exhibitions and other events] and even have a closer insight on the artist himself, and reviews by others. In addition, video documentation gives access to a wide range of audiences that are distant from the events. We also perceive it as an act of conversation for the history of contemporary practices in the region that might get lost or badly archived by the practitioners themselves. Medrar TV also helps promote and highlight certain initiatives and movements locally and abroad by having all the content translated to…the English language.”
Image from video at Marwan Elgamal’s solo show “A Green House”
Located in the quiet living neighbourhood Garden City, the Medrar gallery is the headquarters for the organisational teams working on various projects. With networking and exhibiting new artists being at the core of Medrar’s growth objectives, the organisation curates workshops, festivals and events. Most notably the Open Lab Egypt project which aims to promote the exploratory fusion of digital and electronic technologies to creative artwork that is diverse in form. Additionally, Medrar hosts the Cairo Video Festival: Video Art & Experimental films. A ten day festival that brings video-artists, curators and the public together to enjoy the screening of video art productions, artist talks and discussions about new media production.
Medrar for Contemporary Art facilitates the creation of original and exciting new artwork through collaboration. It encourages experimental and interdisciplinary co-operation in order to push the contemporary art movement in Egypt forward. Making it more accessible to a worldwide audience. To learn more about these events follow Medrar for Contemporary Art on Facebook and watch Medrar TV here.
Still from video titled “Impromptu: HG Masters on SB 13” on Medrar TV
Jean Fall is the founder of CINEWAX, a cross continental film network that operates in both Senegal and France. “We want to create a network of local cinemas, to promote cultural diversity, and offer jobs locally. We want to promote creativity and African films for African citizens. We promote African cinema in France by organising film screenings, festivals, and film premieres.”
The title of the network was inspired by colourful wax prints and Jean explains that it represents the heterogeneous nature of African cultures. This is an embodiment of their vision – to share cultures and a duplicity of viewpoints.
On their Facebook page, it is stated that “wax” is reflective of speaking. Jean tells me more, “Cinewax is also ‘wax’ (or ‘wakh’) in wolof, the main tongue used in Senegal. It means ‘talk, discuss’. So I believed in a cinema that allows us to talk. If you can talk, then you can share. Cinema is for sharing. I want people to learn something when they come, and leave with new ideas, or emotions. And of course, remember what they learned about African cultures.”
Describing himself as a young French-Senegalese cultural entrepreneur, Jean shares with me how the project was fostered. On his travels to Senegal in 2014, it came to his attention that there were very few cinemas in the country and that the ones that did exist were situated within foreign country halls such as the French Institute and the Goethe Institute.
His next reflection was a personal one, “I noticed that I knew nothing about African films.” His deep passion for cinema brought him to the realization that he longed to not only consume more African cinema, but he wanted to rectify the inaccessibility of this form of cultural production and enjoyment for African people. Furthermore, he wished to make African cinema more readily available for African people living in Europe, and to all people in general. “Africa has suffered from a sound historical wipe out. Its stories, values, ideas vanished through time, because of colonization, and the process is still going on.”
Jean describes the inception of CINEWAX as follows, “In 2015, I came to Senegal, bringing French volunteers and I created a local team. We made several screenings with the means that we had thanks to a crowdfunding campaign made in Paris.” Jean now has a team of 20 volunteers that work alongside him fulfilling positions in communications, photography, cinematography, media, film critique, event organization, a database team and other volunteers that assist with the smooth running of planned events.
CINEWAX is still working towards building the access to African cinema they envision for Senegal. While growing capital for their end goal, the network runs some local programs. One such endeavour is the Kino Teranga program – a short film educational session which includes a chance to put the camera in people’s hands.
This project has been in development in Paris since 2016, and has hosted over 40 events and seen over 9000 visitors. Jean tells me that to make a success of these proceedings a collaborative approach was adopted – working with festivals, cinemas, cultural events, distributors and associations.
For 2018 their attention is on the creation of an African cinema pass, granting a larger audience access to African cinema. The ticket will grant its owner discounts and exclusive offers with CINEWAX and their afro cultural partners.
Another large-scale project they have launched is an African film database with the intention of making content accessible to industry professionals and create more opportunities and awareness of completed works for African film makers.
“I think cinema and image have a great power. It allows people to project their dreams and imagination into a picture. Dreams need to be nurtured. They need to live and evolve. And cinema allows that (through creativity and diversity). People can access these images, visions, and dreams, and it really changes everything. Cinema can really change lives, and our perception of things. You don’t need any education to access it, because it relies on images. You don’t need any translation to understand an image or an emotion. Cinema acts as an ‘exchange between cultures’.”
CINEWAX has big ambitions which lead me to enquire as to how they are hoping to accomplish these milestones. The steps are set out to me as follows: CINEWAX will situate itself within the right communities and business model for each city and neighbourhood they find themselves in adjusting their approach where needed.
Jean shares with me that funding is not essentially the concern but that other factors need to be taken into account. CINEWAX is not the first initiative of its kind that have attempted to rectify this gap. He tells me that others with good funding have failed in their attempts.
What is important is a venue to host film screenings and other initiatives from. What needs to be considered is the local inhabitants’ cultural interests, habits and activities, Jean tells me.
“That is also why I knew for sure that cinema, as we think of it in Europe, is not possible in this form in African countries (at least in West Africa). People have their own way to enjoy culture and cinema. I want to be inspired by what already exist (tv cinema, Bibandas in Uganda…) and bring a more sustainable organization. That’s why I think that implementing other activities like concerts, co-working, expositions, restaurants, can only benefit these places.”
In order for CINEWAX to be successful in their endeavours and high hopes for creating sustainable spaces for cultural enjoyment and production they require support from the Senegalese government.
CINEWAX as a network and initiative holds a strong cultural significance in the fact that their efforts have already welcomed thousands of guests as well as volunteers. African cinema is drastically underrepresented and their attempt to bridge the gap and instil cultural exchange is necessary. The fact that this organizations attempts to do so by adjusting their tactics of showcasing their films and other events to be more in line with what people in a specific region would resonate with is remarkable. One can only hope that soon CINEWAX will accomplish all it has set out to do.
“It is all about using our own words and our own agency to speak for ourselves in a world that either tries to speak for us, speak at us, or ignore us entirely.”
Iranti-org is an organisation founded by Jabulani Pereira and Neo Musangi as a response to the lack of documentation of hate crimes against LGBTIQ+ persons. In addition to this, they realised that many queer African narratives were told by non-queer non-Africans. Beginning with their documentation of the brutal murder of Thapelo Makutle in Kuruman in 2012, Iranti-org has grown into a platform that documents various milestones for the Lesbian, Transgender and Intersex communities across Africa.
“We have had an overwhelmingly positive response from our allies and the LTI (Lesbian, Trans, Intersex) communities. I think in part due to the work we do to ensure that LTI stories are recorded rather than erased and forgotten, and in part due to our increasingly direct advocacy with business, government and the networking, training and knowledge-sharing events that we either co-ordinate or participate in,” states Iranti-org Writer and Social Media Officer, Kellyn Botha.
Still from ‘I RISE’
Their organizational aims are solidified in their slogan “Queer Vernaculars Visual Narratives”. The potency of this slogan comes when one unpacks each words. The use of ‘queer’ connects to a global remediation of the word, which in the past has been used in a derogatory context and as a form of othering people from the LGBTIQ+ community. This word has been reappropriated to form part of the queer communities own vernacular as an expression of pride and defiance. It again emphasizes the importance of the community using its own voice in a world that consistently tries to speak for or erase LGBTIQ+ people and their experiences. Most of the stories Iranti-org shares are in some form of visual medium.
“Iranti means ‘memory’ in Yoruba after all, and thus it is our job to record what happens in the region, both horrific and inspiring, to ensure that our history as a community is not lost.”
With their desire to focus on the necessity for LGBTIQ+ people to speak for themselves, Iranti-org started a web series in December, having released two videos so far. The significance of this web series comes across through Botha’s statement that “it allows queer Africans to create content directed at queer Africans, without a benevolent ‘cishet’ saviour guiding the way.” In 2016 Iranti-org hosted a script-writing workshop with the then newly formed Africa Queer Media Makers’ Network. With the workshop facilitator Makgano Mamabolo, the Iranti-org team chose and refined stories that would feature as part of the web series. “We feel that the medium of telling these stories, that of using fiction and more artistic techniques than one might see in our documentation work, was an experiment on our part and one that we feel paid off.” The first two web series episodes are titled ‘Bruise’ and ‘I Rise’ – stories that Botha describes as possessing messages that transcend geographic location.
Check out the two episodes below. Follow Iranti-org on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter for their next episode.
‘I RISE’ sees writer Nigel Patel express emotions and thoughts on gender, cisnormativity and violence.
‘Bruise’, the web series’ first episode, looks into the mind of Busi, a non-binary trans person struggling with agoraphobia – the fear of wide-open spaces.
The project BORN::FREE Next Steps was conceptualized as a poetry exchange involving artists based in South Africa and the UK. This three-part series of events and workshops explores themes including gender, race and spirituality, among others. The most powerful impact of the project has been the forging of relationships between South African and British live literature practitioners – specifically womxn of colour working in and outside of the diaspora.
BORN::FREE, a poetry night co-founded by writer and educator Belinda Zhawi, began as a community project in the UK with the aim of creating a space where emerging writers and well-established writers could inspire one another and share their work with one another. With the first part of the project taking place in the UK, Johannesburg and Cape Town will see Belinda travel to deliver her poetry and share her literary passion together with South African poets.
The first of the two South African poetry sessions took place at Johannesburg’s African Flavours Books store on the 5th of January. As I walked into the venue, the chatter of the attendees hummed the tune of excitement that comes with a new year, and a new experience. Although the audience was mainly made up of Joburgers, there were a few British visitors woven between those seated. Belinda began the evening by reciting poems that share experiences from her childhood in Zimbabwe as well as poems that express a mix of lessons she has learnt about life and herself. South African poets, writers, social commentators and academics Katleho Kano Shoro and Lebohang Masango shared their poems, and information about their latest published works. Katleho has recently published her debut collection of poetry,’Serebulele‘. Lebohang has recently published a children’s book titled ‘Mpumi’s Magic Beads’. Both of these are available at African Flavours Books.
BORN::FREE will then travel to Cape Town on the 11th of January and will be hosted by Ahem Art Collective. In addition to Belinda’s performance, South African poet, performer & spoken word educator Toni Stuart as well as London-based poet and drummer Remi Graves.
Check out the Facebook event for more info about the Cape Town event
Nikola Vasakova is the founder of Girl in Film (GiF). Working as a video producer in London, she knew a lot of women who worked in film in different positions but they all did not know each other. Nikola expressed that it can be quite isolating being a womxn in the film industry, so she decided to put together an evening where all of her girl friends in film could get to know each other. The response to this event was an indication of how necessary it is for womxn to support one another through their various positions in the industry. “Straight from the start it turned out this was something that people were really into and lot more people turned up than I expected. It grew from a small gathering of friends to a 200+ guest list of women from the film industry in all capacities,” Nikola explained. With this enthusiastic response, GiF has grown and continues to articulate its core objectives – to connect, champion and support a new generation of female-identifying filmmakers through their events and online platform.
Connected to this is Nikola’s advocacy for finding new ways for visual storytelling from the point of view of the female gaze. “We need stories with the ‘female gaze’ as much as with female sensitivity to characters, their stories, the message that they or the directors want to convey. There’s a lot that’s missing in current film landscape, stories that have for a long time been missing in our discourse whether those they touch on human rights, sexuality or identity and I find this is what interests female directors a lot at the moment, so I’m excited to be giving platform to those voices,” Nikola expresses.
Having hosted events in London, Prague and New York, GiF will be coming to Johannesburg on the 18th of December. In its first GiF event in South Africa, Zandi Tisani, Bee Diamondhead, Sihle Hlophe, and Phatstoki, will dissect the topic of young womxn spaces, race & politics in the South African film and creative industry.
I had an interview with Nikola to find out more about GiF and the event in Johannesburg.
Who is part of the GiF team and what is everyone’s creative background?
Nikola – I’m the founder, producer and curator of our online output. I’m mostly running GiF in UK on my own but I’m surrounded by incredible women that help me on the way – like Julie Machin who is producing our Jozi event. There’s Julie Zackova who is running GiF in Prague. There’s also a string of freelance writers, spearheaded by amazing Leah Abraham that has contributed many articles to our website. Jaqueline Awuku and Dora Cohnen who researched so much content for the site. Many other people on the way that helped with events, writing, connecting etc, big shout out to Vanessa Dos Santos in US too! I’m connecting with people in NYC to make our event there a regular occurrence.
How has GiF evolved since it first started?
I’m still in awe that from a small idea that started as a friends gathering in 2016 we have now visited NYC, Prague where we now have a solid branch and have come to South Africa! That’s huge for me, I really never dreamt things would happen so quickly and I’m so happy and humbled that women around the world are responding so positively. I’m really excited for the future – I have big plans to 2018 but I don’t want to get ahead of myself yet.
Why do you think it is important for GiF to have an online presence in addition to the events you host?
Events are great way to connect with people IRL instead of just URL – however, not everyone lives in large cities – it’s important to represent voices in different parts of country or different countries and give them platform too – which is why I started the online video platform.
It appears that GiF is based on an intersectional foundation. Could you please share more about this?
GiF has always been intersectional largely due to the community it grew out of. As an immigrant WOC in London, surrounded by other WOC, representation of racial and social diversity was never a question for me. Initial name ‘Girls in Film’ was mainly penned as I liked that it spelled out ‘GiF’ which is a nod to digital culture that we are all experiencing at the moment – rather than routed in the traditional film & TV, GiF mainly represents new generation of filmmakers who’s films are often found online than on terrestrial channels. However, by having ‘girls’ in name doesn’t mean we are ageists or exclusive of non binary, female-identified people. So yes, intersectionality is very important for us to communicate.
Could you share more about the kinds of events you have hosted in London, Prague and New York?
We have hosted screenings, workshops and panel talks with leading figures in the industry.
What influenced your decision to come to Johannesburg this year?
Julie Machin, who is part of our GiF family has been working in Jozi on and off over the years and during her last visit, she decided it would be great to set up GiF event as there are so many great creative womxn doing interesting stuff. Conversation about representation in the industry are as valid here as they are everywhere else and Julie spent some time talking to creatives in Johannesburg to make sure this event is their own and they can decide what they feel is important to talk about.
How did you decide which films would be screened on the 18th?
Curating films for GiF always lies in finding the talented creative voices and stories that are relevant to the audience in each territory. Johannesburg will probably be different to Prague but that’s the exciting part. However, the quality of filmmaking stays the same throughout all our curation. We are selecting films from the speakers but we’ve also chose to open the event with Femme in Public from Jabu Nadia Newman. She’s in Cape Town so a bit of her will be with us and we feel her film will also be a great catalyst to open the discussion about the non-binary representation on and in films.
How did you decide who will be part of the panel discussion on the 18th?
As we are talking about race, we wanted to make sure that women of colour are navigating this discussion and we were lucky to be able to secure these amazing womxn (Zandi Tisani, Bee Diamondhead, Sihle Hlophe, Phatstoki, Palesa Shongwe) to come and share their knowledge and opinions on stage. We also wanted to make sure we bring together highly creative minds and a great representation of diverse voices by their style and industry specificities. Phatstoki is the new generation. Bee is highly successful and navigating in between creative and commercials projects. Zandi is making moves with her TV show in development and her long feature project. Sihle has so much experience and her new film is touring festivals now, and being able to have Palesa Shongwe as the host will bring a lot of knowledge in the discussions.
What are you hoping will be the outcome of GiF coming to Johannesburg?
We hope people leave inspired and that we inject some self confidence in womxn that want to pursue career in creative and film industry. And also hope that this is the first in many more to come!
The event will take place on 18 December at The Bioscope in Maboneng from 18h45.
One thing you don’t necessarily expect to see in Braamfontein are the streets shut down by thousands of kids having a rowdy, but fun, moshpit. Or what looks like a scene from a Nirvana music video being sound-tracked by Kayne West and Desiigner. But that’s exactly the positive energy that the Onyx collective have been generating with their various street market and ‘rage’ events. Bubblegumclub recently had an interview with group member Gondo, who provided us with an insight into the works of this collective of ‘black boys that have good ideas and exceptional vision’.
As he puts it ‘Onyx started as an attempt to make an event that we’d enjoy cause we didn’t like the event scene that people were giving us. We were always turned away because of the way we dressed and how young we were. The music they played at all these other parties weren’t what we’d expected, we wanted alternative music and all the stuff we weren’t hearing on the radio.’
The result has been a series of spectacular carnivals which have gathered major crowds. With regards to the Desiigner mosh-pit, Gondo notes ‘Yeah that shit was crazy! We’re the ultimate moshers. There is no average Onyx event. We always come in, play what we love, encourage the kids to be confident and to let all their aggression and issues out in the Mosh pit. Onyx events go on for as long as the music is playing, or until some official comes through to shut us down- which happened the day of the crazy mosh pit you saw. For our major events such as Street Market and Onyx Rage Festival we garner an attendance of 1500. I think this year is going to be crazier we might see a massive crowd of the kids come out to play in their numbers’.
For the future, Onyx plans to keep delivering special for its niche market.- ‘We’re very rooted in the progression of a culture of confidence and self-sufficiency in South Africa so we’re not going to run to corporations to make more money because of the money. We do it for the people’.
The next Onyx Steet Market takes place in Juta Street Braamfontein on the 09 July, from 13H00- 01H00.
Until Until are a fast-rising crew of young entertainment entrepreneurs, curating events that attract as many as 4000 partygoers. After only 3-years in the game, this squad of 11 twenty-something’s describe their members as ‘pretty socially relevant’: a humble understatement since each boasts 1000-or-so Twitter followers and an astonishing ability to pull crowds.
As a young brand,Until Until have been consistently under-estimated by venue managers. ‘We told them, “Look guys, we’re going to have 3500 –4000 people. And we could just see, they just doubted us’.
Today, they’re claiming territory among industry heavyweights, attracting coverage from major media houses and collaborating with some of the country’s hottest DJs and performers. Their recent 2016 flagship party, Genesis All Black, boasted in its line-up: Euphonik, Khuli Chana, Das Kapital, DJ Speedsta and PH. Advertised dress: ‘Strictly all black’ Time: ‘from 4pm until until’.
I got together with two members — Thandile (Honx) and Thulani (Thulz) to chat about the micro-politics of the ‘turn-up’, starting with the very first party they threw:
‘June 16 was that Friday. On Wednesday we were like “Yo, what are we doing this weekend? What’s happening for June 16?” And there was nothing on the party calendar. So many friends were coming home. Thursday we announced. Friday it happened’.
Dubbed ‘High School Cool’ and pumped with a heavy dose of uniform-clad high-school nostalgia, the party was hosted on the tennis court of a friend’s Bryanston home and functioned as a tribute to ’76.
‘We had 700 people inside the house and about 400 people outside’
Big numbers for a suburban home. I imagined crowd insurrection disrupting the strictly-regulated pristine of Northern Suburbia.
‘Well look, we did tell the neighbours it was a traditional ceremony’ (laughs).
On face value it was hilarious subterfuge, but Honx was on to something. Among their multiplicity of social functions, traditional ceremonies serve to welcome returning relatives, celebrate achievement, mark rites of passage, pay homage to the ancestors, and cement connectedness between family and neighbours. Fuck it, ‘High School Cool’ did it all.
The middle-finger out-of-placed-ness connoted by an imagined traditional ceremony on a Bryanston tennis court was carried until until. Through each subsequent party, initially reluctant ‘North boys’ were hauled into the once-elusive city centre. ‘Popping bottles’ was made Braam-affordable so everyone could ‘have a shout’. And so elitism and inclusivity were brought into spectacularly contradictory collision.
With an off-hand reference to traditional ceremonies, Honx had messed with the neat Durkheimian demarcation between the sacred and profane. He had acknowledged that parties, rather than being simple triviality, were a cacophony of celebration, mourning, worship, rage and attachment. Protests, spiritual assemblies and political caucuses — like parties — so often rely on music, dance and a heaving crowd. We are regularly skirting the lines between play and politics.
Both marketing majors, Thulz and Honx understand that millennials frequently express their political selves through play: comedic memes and vines circulate online, reporting our socio-political milieu with damning satire. And just as we are bitingly playful in our politics, so too are we political in our play. In marketing their 2015 ‘Pyjama Party’, Until Until drew on design-styles from USSR/USA propaganda, catalysing an explosion of online gimmicks about the party/political. Themed The All Black Army, Genesis 2016 was inspired by a wave of student protests. Drawing on military imagery, it sought to connote a rallying of troops, unified by the colour black.
‘And how would you respond to the accusation that you are commercialising, even belittling, ‘The Struggle?’ I asked.
‘Firstly, the state of our country right now, that’s where we are. That’s where our minds are at, especially the youth. We can’t run away from that. You can’t ignore it. It’s there. You can think of something political and think about Until Until in the same light. We’ve given the brand a voice in this countrywide conversation. People will always party, whatever’s happening. So why not give you a party where it’s not like you’re running from something? You’re not partying to escape the realities. You’re partying knowing very well what’s happening’.
A trenchant critique of night-time escapism.
Thulz and Honx narrate Jo’burg nightlife as a raced status quo:
‘White people party there, black people party there, Indian people party there, coloured people… The fact that Taboo has two accounts: one called Taboo Urban Nights and the other just Taboo. Kong on a Friday is called Kong Urban Nights and then Saturday is called Kong. I guess they just don’t have a name for White Nights (laughs)’.
For these young entrepreneurs, night-time segregation results from a mode of music curation that under-estimates its audience, and consequently, produces audiences that miscalculate their own complexity. We’re intimidated by unfamiliar genres. Through raced assumptions about our tastes, nightclub owners unwittingly dictate our explorative capacity. Presumptions that ‘every young black must love hip-hop’ or that ‘EDM is for town-dwellers’ orchestrate dangerous comfort-zones.
Thulz: The reason an event like Genesis works is because I know that you as a white guy, you like Ricky Rick. You just haven’t been put in a situation where you’re listening to him.
Honx:I think Henry Ford said, ‘If I just asked people whether they wanted faster (horse) carriages, they would have said yes’. They wouldn’t have said ‘I want a car’. They wouldn’t have thought of that. I think a lot of club owners ask too many questions. They build this thing based on questions like ‘What do you want to listen to?’ For us, we didn’t ask if people wanted to listen to EDM at Genesis. We just put it on the line-up. We’re not solely focused on one genre. Get as much music as possible, as many people as possible, and put them in one place’.
Genesis audiences testify to its extraordinary genre-bending, in which there is no explicit switch from one genre to the next. DJs transition seamlessly from house, to hip-hop, to UK-garage, EDM and festival trap. ‘What sound that’s hot right now did you not hear at Genesis?’
I guess one could ask, ‘Aren’t Until Until manufacturing an artificial Rainbow Nation — a worrying faux-utopia?’
From a demographic perspective, the answer is plainly no. This is not a racial mixing-pot with equal doses of white, black, brown and everything in-between. But neither is South Africa. On some level, it’s a party that makes satisfying demographic sense. But more than that, Until Until are trying to rise to the nuanced complexities of their audience — to invite them (for this one night) to discover that they are more of a mess than their simplified typecasting. They remind us that nothing in us, or indeed in our politics, is pure or sacred or untouchable. And at the same time, everything is.
On the 28th March, the Nothing Gets Organised group is opening a new project space in the Johannesburg CBD. NGO – NOTHING GETS ORGANISED will highlight a wide program of visual arts against the unassuming background of a converted commercial property wedged in next to car repair shops. The event spotlights a diverse range of multimedia work from South Africa and beyond. Included with the NGO collective, are the Brazilian artists Cinthia Marcelle and Tiago Mata Machado, along with Pratchaya Phinthong, Nyakallo Maleke, Caner Aslan, Lerato Shadi and Donna Kukama (with Nadia Myburgh). The opening night also highlights a special performance of Donna Kukama’s work ‘To be announced’.
The Nothing Gets Organised project was founded by an original core of Johannesburg based curators and visual practioners. Dineo Seshee Bopape, Gabi Ngcobo and Sinethemba Twalo have all previously experimented with using unexpected spaces in the city as a platform for showing contemporary art. This has involved taking art out of the white cube and gallery space, and into unexpected, sociologically potent settings. Gabi Ngcobo was previously the curator of the now defunct Centre for Historical Reenactments, which specialised in striking and original interventions into Johannesburg’s historically traumatised psyche. For instance, PASS-AGES was staged at the site of a former Pass Office in Alfred Street, a space which had been used for the Apartheid state’s surveillance and control of black people’s basic freedom of movement.
The NGO project takes these interventions in a new direction, by focusing on creative a progressive aesthetic for the challenges of the present. NGO’s mission statement is an interest ‘ in un/conventional processes of self-organising – those that do not imply structure, tangibility, context or form. It is a space for (NON)SENSE where (NON)SENSE can profoundly gesticulate towards, dislodge, embrace, disavow, or exist as nothingness!’.
In recent times, Johannesburg has seen a lot of an attempts at the corporate regeneration of the inner city. But behind the rhetoric of upliftment, the reality has been the creation of securitised, exclusive spaces which often reinforce segregation and inequality. By contrast, NGO have taken it upon themselves to open creative spaces at a grassroots level. Over the last months, their Facebook page has shown their busy work on getting the venue ready, and the sheer joy of building a unique creative space in an often imposing and alienating city.
NGO, 127 Albert street, 28 Nuggett Square, 2001, Johannesburg, South Africa
City life breeds cynicism, after attending event after event, countless nights in clubs, exhibits en masse and even the odd lecture, new events, alternative spaces and new movements can be received with skepticism. For Black Girls Only is a new and necessary addition to what is offered as fun in Johannesburg. It may not boast what jaded Joburgers may be accustomed to in terms of entertainment or alcohol availability, but it is revolutionary.
A public space, where black women can share in public what has only been conferred and experienced in private; Sisterhood. The Sunday sun blazed and brown skin beamed. All around and everywhere to be seen, was black woman, beautifully shaped and come to commune with her kin. Picnic baskets and brown children sprinkled the scene and there was some sensual music to be swayed to. A marvelous occasion unfettered by pettiness and pretence, providing a unique opportunity to share black femininity in a sweet setting. May there be more.
