Bubblegum Club

Tag: fashion

  • Trotse Tert // The alter ego unapologetically embracing loneliness

    Trotse Tert // The alter ego unapologetically embracing loneliness

    Blünke Janse van Rensburg is the mistress and mastermind behind Trotse Tert. A figure of femininity caught in an emblazoned desert of lonely hearts. Digital collage is a visual manifestation of her Old-Western-meets-neon-snake-pit aesthetic. Her creative practice integrates elements of self-empowerment, feminist rhetoric, religious iconography and sexuality.

    Each element in her images is loaded with personal symbolism. Her encasing flames are symbolic of resounding endurance, “the fire within me hasn’t burned out yet. I haven’t given up. I’m still here and I’m gonna give it my all.” This juxtaposed with abundant bouquets of flowers are representative of emotional fragility. Slithering serpents further articulate Trotse Tert as a complex creative iteration. “I’m always scheming. Don’t brush off my mischievous looks. I’m pretty, but don’t step on me cause you’ll realise I’m poison.”

    Trotse Tert was initially a mode of escapism, “I personally was feeling erg sad, lonely, bored, uninspired and that needed to change. So, I decided to get creative again and see where it goes. Out of my list of names, Trotse Tert stood out the most. Stuck in a boring town that had an aesthetic with potential, I saw my chance and grabbed it.” Blünke describes how Trotse Tert was a kind of salvation, “she was just the person I needed to be at that time to help me escape my current situation. Now she is much more than that. She’s out of Die Moot. She’s a bit older and much more confident.”

    Her alter ego has developed from, “being a girl hanging out in dodgy dive bars with old disgusting men ogling at her, drinking the loneliness away and always going home with a broken heart and tears in her eyes ’cause this isn’t what she wanted for herself to leaving, making better decisions, taking responsibility and rescuing herself. Throwing petrol on the flame within her and moving on to better things.” Trotse Tert is an articulation of being one’s own proverbial knight in snake-skin armour.

    Blünke is also interested in creating a communal-lonely space for catharsis. “The lonely desert is a space where all the loners could gather, coming together to embrace their loneliness. You have to love yourself, take care of yourself and focus on yourself and maybe the lonely desert is the perfect place to do so.” Her interests also extend beyond the digital screen and into fashion. “It’s still the beginning for me, I have so much that I need to so, so much that I want to do. I haven’t reached my full potential yet, so I’ll be working on that, pushing my work forward. I’ve been working on something for the longest time now and these digital art works is a teaser of what’s to come.”

     

    Trotse Tert is still chasing dreams and bad boys in fast cars

    drifting through the lonely dessert

    fighting the loneliness with booze and cigarettes

    erg poisonous and dangerous like her pet snakes

    fuck cake, eat her tart instead

    she’s ur queen now

     

    Digital art – Trotse Tert

    Photography – Koos Groenewald

    Styling – Gavin Mikey Collins

  • Daria Kobayashi Ritch – The photographer creating intimate romantic fashion depictions

    Daria Kobayashi Ritch – The photographer creating intimate romantic fashion depictions

    A moment is frozen in time. The beauty of youth captured. A soft approach with a tender touch. An unquestionable femme gaze. Flowers, low angle shots. Images close to nostalgia reminiscent of the MySpace era. Vibrancy. Colour tones of yellow, blues and pinks. A blown-out kiss.

    Daria Kobayashi Ritch has become well known in photography, fashion and pop culture circles for her documentation of L.A.’s coolest. With more shoots and editorials of young celebrities being crafted by her lens her creative portfolio is blossoming to include names such as Willow Smith, Solange and Garage Magazine.

    In an interview with INDIE Daria expresses that her photographic inclination was inspired during her adolescence when she and her friends got dressed up and took profile pictures for their MySpace accounts. Later in her life, she went on to study Fine Art at UCLA which she rounded off by attending art college.

    Her mission with her work is to combine an intimate take on the people she photographs with the romantic mood of fashion. Daria is inspired by youth culture and subcultural movements that relate to the indie music scene. Taking this as a point of departure she sees an unexplored depth in these individuals that she visually unravels in her arresting imagery.

    Daria acknowledges the difficulty of being a photographer, one that is not articulated enough. As a photographer, one has to establish an intimate relationship with your model in a matter of minutes. More frequent than not, people you don’t know and only just met on the day of the shoot.

    The artist’s balancing act at present is between her artistic visualizations for herself and the fast world of fashion. Keep yourself up to date with new developments in her work here.

  • Seize The City Season 2 // Reflecting youth and subcultural moods

    Seize The City Season 2 // Reflecting youth and subcultural moods

    Strobe lights cut through the crowd with shades of blue, red and white. Sweaty bodies are dictated to by the vibrations moving from the speakers through the floor. A rundown building in the middle of Johannesburg’s city centre is transformed into a sonic experience with the invitation to queer space through one’s presence. Yellow cups float between the people on the dance floor with the name of the party translated into a declaration of intentions – Seize The City.

    Jose Cuervo‘s Seize The City Season 2 was a moment to fully embrace the now, expanding on their motto, Tomorrow is Overrated. As a kind of call-to-arms for every rebel and nightlife activist, the party served as a platform to celebrate young people in Johannesburg and the energy they inject into the city through their cultural production and subcultural expressions. Taking place in a functioning recycling depo in Selby, the space echoed this sentiment, with fragments of the underground 90s rave scene flying in and out of memory.

    Well known as well as up-and-coming artists, designers and other creatives were present, indicating the significance of the space for young creatives. “It felt like an Instagram feed coming to life. A lot of people you see on the internet were there and a lot of internet friends able to connect,” states Natalie Paneng, artists and Seize The City attendee.

    Fashion mirrors cultural moods, and subcultural foundations, and this had a strong presence. Fashion played an important role as a signifier of taking the spirit of the party to heart, while also reflecting the spirit of the people who attended. Oversized pinstriped blazers, stockings used as tops, the bra as a shirt, platform shoes, fanny packs trapped across chests, combined with pins, fishnet stockings and pale pink sunglasses. DIY aesthetics engulfed in the flames of unapologetic self expression. An experiment in styling and self-making, on an individual and collective level.

  • The performers bringing SA flavour to M.I.A’s shows

    The performers bringing SA flavour to M.I.A’s shows

    M.I.A will be performing for the first time in Africa in Cape Town and Johannesburg on the 7th and 8th of June, and some of South Africa’s best talent will be sharing the stage with her. The selection of DJs and performers bring together sonic and creative experiences that touch on South African genres and their evolution. K-$, Jakinda, and Angel-Ho, will inject SA flavour at the performance in Cape Town, passing the torch to Buli, DJ Doowap, Phatstoki and Dear Ribane the following evening in Johannesburg. I interviewed the supporting artists to find out about their connections to M.I.A’s work and what audiences can expect at the shows.

    This will be the first time Cape Town will get to experience one of Angel-Ho’s live sets. When asked about the connection M.I.A’s fearlessness and determination and their own musical journey, they expressed that, “being fearless is something I grew into, being on stage my whole life, I developed a strong sense of self playing the roles of many characters. The same sensibility and comfort of performing is my greatest strength and I think that speaks to my journey to empower the voiceless.” Buli shared similar sentiments stating that, “I’ve always stayed true to my sound. I’ve never compromised my art for the purpose of trying to appeal to mainstream/commercial crowds. I think that’s the one thing I’ve always taken away from observing M.I.A as an artist. She always stays true to herself and sound; she never tries to compromise her music or herself.”

    K-$ will be kicking off with a 2 hour set, taking the audience on a trip down memory lane, and then increasing momentum for a real jol. Jakinda will draw on his Afro-futurist and industrial sound, while allowing space for experimentation. Phatstoki’s appreciation of feeding off the crowd’s energy will be the guiding premise for the set. As someone who enjoys re-inventing herself through fashion and music, DJ Doowap will be mimicking her brightly coloured hair and striking clothing with bass tunes. Transcendental and futuristic will be the name of the game with Dear Ribane, while Buli brings together a mix of electronic and ambient elements backed up by hip-hop based/inspired drums.

    With fearlessness, determination and an understanding of the connection between music and movement as the thread that is present in the journey’s and work of each performer, these shows are definitely not ones to miss.

  • Art director and photographer Lubabetu Abubakar creates honest, bold images

    Art director and photographer Lubabetu Abubakar creates honest, bold images

    Lubabetu Abubakar aka Lubee Abubakar studied law, but has been making the transition to a full-time photographer and art director. With a focus on fashion, she illuminates the people she photographs with her delicate approach to capturing each image. She has been presented as one of the photographers bringing attention to her home country, Nigeria, with her participation in the 2017 LagosPhoto Festival.

    With her transition to a full-time creative practice Abubakar allows herself to experiment while finding a way to create a signature in her imagery. She plays with colour in bold, and sometimes subtle ways, forming a visual language that draws the viewer in and engenders a curiosity around the people in her photographs. The models in her images often have an intense engagement with the camera, looking directly and confidently at the viewer. However, Abubakar softens this intensity, making their stares come across more inviting than intimidating.

    One of Abubakar’s more personal projects, a series titled ‘Ojoro‘, explores themes related to womanhood and welcoming a woman into adulthood. This series is accompanied by a text that intimately expresses what a woman feels when on her period. The connection between the images and text shares with audiences an honesty and rawness that provokes emotive responses.

    The presentation of her work online appears as a puzzle, with each photograph and gif on her home page pointing to different aspects of her work. Viewers can see commercial work alongside images that take on a more documentary style, showing a diversity of work.

    Check out Abubakar website to keep up with her work.

  • ‘Embroidery For A Long Song’ // merging the traditional and the modern in a neon-inspired meditation on female energy

    ‘Embroidery For A Long Song’ // merging the traditional and the modern in a neon-inspired meditation on female energy

    ‘I rise, I run. I even try dancing’ – these are the first words one hears after being greeted by the music from ‘Khaleeji’ (the ten piece band of folk singers) in the opening scene of ‘Embroidery For A Long Song‘. This short film is a neon-inspired meditation on female energy, and it creates a bridge between the modern and traditional by examining the histories of the Gulf region through music, fashion and poetry.

    Filmmaker Amirah Tajdin  has always been fascinated by the connection between fashion and film. With designer Faissal El-Malak‘s concept for ‘Embroidery For A Long Song’ she was finally able to explore this. A few months before Faissal asked Amirah to get on board with the film, she had created a fashion film for his Spring/Summer 18 collection. They had been friends for a while, but while working on the fashion film they discovered a new kind of creative synergy. When Faissal was approached by the W Hotels and Mixcloud team a few months later to curate the Dubai edition of their Future Rising event he automatically thought of making a second film with Amirah.

    Faissal was given the broad brief to combine music with ideas about the future and a wonderland. These elements came together in his mind through nostalgic memories of the traditional music shows and concerts he used to watch on tv while growing up in the Gulf. “The sets of these shows were oddly futuristic; they created something very interesting visually where the tradition was respected and preserved within an ultra-modern context. It was sort of a wonderland where technology and an abundance of LED lights created a space to express one’s self fully. This was not a foreign concept to the way we live our daily life in a region that has seen exponential growth and has embraced very quickly modern and futuristic architecture as a norm, but that still hangs on very strongly to tradition, most notably in the way most people still wear traditional garments on a daily basis.”

    With these memories and his desire to further his knowledge about women who play traditional music, Faissal began to ask around about this practice. He was also influenced by the words and pseudonyms used by millennials who revived the tradition of spoken word poetry through platforms such as Flickr and MySpace. These pseudonyms – ‘Eye of the Gazelle’, ‘Daughter of the falcon’ and ‘The one with the khol lined eyes’ – are interpreted visually through the animated illustrations that appear at particular moments in the film. “The expression of traditional music is in itself a collaboration between sung poems, the traditional garments, beats and dances coming together to create a feast for the senses,” Faissal explained. The connection between poetry, fashion and music is intimately displayed in how the film unfolds.

    At the core of Faissal’s approach to fashion is his appreciation and celebration of Middle Eastern textiles and motifs, designing women’s ready-to-wear garments that offer combine the traditional and the modern. There is a parallel display of this in the film. A string of symbolic gestures echo this, such as the ironing and incensing of the main character’s hair and her dancing in the hall on her own. These traditional references are juxtaposed against the futuristic elements of the W Hotel hallways and neon lights. Trippy, distorted sonic encounters are merged with the instruments and chanting by Khaleeji. A poem is used as a device to narrate the film, inviting viewers into the mind of the main character.

    This film is a loud celebration and a quiet reflection all at once. It offers itself as a compilation of memories presented in a way that excites sight and sound.

    View the full film below.

  • The New Kids on the Block

    The New Kids on the Block

    The 21st century self-portrait by SA young artists

    It is more than likely they are on the My Friend Ned database, have been at every hip party thrown in Jeppestown in the past 6 months, have produced a zine, and embrace that Norm-core 90s kid aesthetic (even thought they were still in nappies when spiral chockers, and Fila platforms hit the scene).

    What defines this new aesthetic? There seems to be a move towards mixed media artistry, and a return to the body as a site of art. I would argue that these artists are exploring the intersection between photography, film, fashion, the body, music, and the role of technology in their daily lives. This transition back to the body as site could potentially be because Gen Z (born between 1995 and 2012) feel alienated by the elitist gallery spaces – the white cube perhaps cannot contain the lived reality of the tech-savvy teen and young adult.

    These young artists are beginning to dismantle the ‘inaccessibility’ of art – taking it to the streets, to the ‘gram, and to your local watering hole.

    Psychedelic filters, hip kicks, ironic selfies, no capital letters and techy-glitch collages. If you’ve stalked/follow these cooler than school young artists on Instagram this is an aesthetic you probably recognise. So, then you may ask, “what makes them artists?” and not just teens on Instagram, sharing their life.

    It is the curated lifestyle, the carefully considered profile, the meticulous representation of self – that in many ways is the 21st century self-portrait. The three-square format of Instagram begins to become a canvas, a space to develop a narrative of aesthetic. The ‘story’ feature becomes a space where young artists delve into video art and perform their profile.

    There is a possibility many of these artists would read this and think, “No, Rosa you don’t get it at all.”  And maybe I don’t, since I just missed the cusp – born in 1994.

    But what’s not to love about young people taking over the streets, redefining art, and using the platform of Instagram to express themselves and to subtly invoke the importance of the queer.femme.intersectional youth of tomorrow.

    Who to follow RN:

    Shanti Cullis @nyaope

    Francesco Mbele @franadilla

    Kayla Armstrong @kaylas_arm

    Zem @mezvn

    Mangaliso Ngcobo @blueshorts_

    Jemma Rose @jemtherose

    Anne-Marie Kalumbu @theotherisyou

    Tali Lehr Sachs @talo.walo

    @caleb.nkosi

    @crunchysweater

    Grace Winkler @grace.spinach

    Milla Eloise @sexteenmagazine

    Dune Tilley @dunetilley

    Riley Grant @rilet.pg

    Luca Williams @lucaxwilliams

    Didi @temporarynewname

    Lunga @lunga_ntila

    Natalie Paneng @nataliepaneng_

     

     

  • Azania Forest and her artistic expression

    Azania Forest and her artistic expression

    Azania was the alternative name proposed for post-apartheid South Africa. During the racial segregation and discrimination of the era, the name Azania manifested the idea of a people that were emancipated to move the rhythms of freedom, belonging and becoming. Clinging onto the essence of this name, Lesego Seoketsa has made it her own.

    Azania, Azania Forest, is the fashion savvy explorer that is a vessel for Lesego’s creative expression. Azania Forest was born in 2012. Uncertain of everything she undertook a hiatus which allowed her to centralise her vision, and in 2015 Azania started her blog where she shared her creative experiences and expressions. In 2016, Azania announced that she would be launching a magazine in February the following year. The hype was an ego-booster and a debilitating reminder of her deadline. Now in 2018, Azania magazine has not launched and is being reimagined.

    Azania expresses herself through photography, fashion design, styling and writing.  Her exploration and understanding of the experiences of Black Womxn have fuelled the subject of her work, especially her photography. Capturing captivating personal portraits became a crucial part of creative expression and in the time she was meant to be focusing on her magazine, she was consumed by the complexity of photography.

    Even though it began with the simple need to “just take pictures”, her photo series are deeply inspired. Azania’s series Woman with the Brown Eyes was inspired by Kees van Dongen’s Woman with Blue Eyes and aimed to counter and challenge European beauty standards. “A black girl with chubby cheeks and a wide nose and short hair is also a subject to be celebrated.”

    The muse for her series We Will Rise was the brilliant queer communist painter, Frida Khalo. This series celebrated the persistence of Khalo’s spirit and Azania’s journey of self-celebration and self-empowerment.

    Lastly, Mbona Lisa borrows its name and framing from Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. This series spoke to the qualms about land in South Africa and how womxn need to reclaim their bodies from societal constraints for it is their personal land.

    Both Woman with the Brown Eyes and We Will Rise were exhibited in a traditional art gallery space and with the constant production of artistic expressions, Azania has been often referred to as an artist. Without any formal training in the fine arts, Azania is still battling with the acceptance of this label. However, from the belief that as a human being created in the likeness of a Creator that creatively expresses, Azania is an artist.

    Like a forest, Azania is a dense unpredictable space that manifests without manipulation and houses beautiful, mysterious and sometimes dangerous creations. A forest is where Azania moves towards her highest calling. To this young black curious creator, the climax is internal and with divine intervention she believes her celebratory creative expressions will continue to presents themselves as love and freedom.

  • Cheb Moha – The Stylist, Designer and Photographer pushing a new vision for Middle Eastern Identity

    Cheb Moha – The Stylist, Designer and Photographer pushing a new vision for Middle Eastern Identity

    Middle Eastern identity seen like never before. An exploration of youth and fashion. Candid intimacy and beautiful styling is brought to the fore.

    Cheb Moha is a young stylist, designer and photographer living on and off in the Emirati metropolis. Born in Iraq, he moved to Canada at the age of 12. Having left Canada in 2014 to wander between Kuwait, Oman, Dubai and other parts of the gulf, he has been producing work surrounding his acute understanding of Middle Eastern experiences of social class, misrepresentation and refuge.

    His style has secured him projects with brands such as Vans and The Hundreds. However, his aim is to create work that will support the region. It was a goal for Cheb to move back to the Middle East as he felt strongly about rediscovering his roots.

    Currently in Dubai, he works on his personal photography, styling and art direction projects as well as brand consultation. The diverse creative has had his fingers in various creative expressions from designing ensembles for musicians to styling commercials.

    The models for his work are often his friends. They regard the work that they create together as their form of reality-infused expression and believe that it assists in defining an authentic picture of Middle Eastern identity. “That traditional ideology about what Arabs should do, what we should wear, and how we should act — it’s all changing. It’s a good time for creatives who want to express themselves, because it’s still new,” he expresses in an interview with The Fader.

    Cheb states that there has been complete misrepresentation of the area for the last 30 years. He has also emphasised that people from the region have not been producing creative work as they have moved out of their countries due to conflict. However, people are returning to their homelands and in the creative sector he shares, there is a lot of love and support for one another’s practices. They push each other to excel as they see themselves solely responsible for the representation of the area and their cultures. His primary focus lies in presenting what he finds beautiful about his country and his people and not to show that which has been made to be controversial or exoticized.

    Cheb and his friends are helping grow a more well-rounded understanding and perspective of what it means to be a young person in the Middle East today and are breaking down commonly held stereotypes of what people believe Arab people should dress like and be like. Sparking a revolution with intimate images made from the heart.

  • Rare & Sudden Podcast- Doing It For The Culture

    Rare & Sudden Podcast- Doing It For The Culture

    The podcast format was only invented in the early 2000’s, but we have already entered the medium’s golden age. They are cheap to produce and unlike traditional radio you can access content whenever you want. Titles like the true crime podcast Serial and the political satire show Chapo Trap House have become cultural phenomena, with epic story arcs and rabid fan bases. Even Obama has got into the podcast world, appearing on Marc Maron’sWTF in 2015.

    Perhaps the true appeal of a podcast is in its intimacy, like you are listening to the wit and surreal absurdity of close friends. That is certainly the case with South Africa’s Rare &Sudden – aka “The Culture’s Favourite Podcast”. The show is a hilariously candid look at hip hop and street wear culture, with the verbal darts being fired by hosts Rolo Rozay and Hake$y, self-described hustlers with the magic gift of talking endlessly inspired silliness and sarcasm. The show’s intentions are signaled with its Soundcloud banner, a contemporary version of the gaudy album covers endemic to rap at the turn of the century. Rolo Rozay and Hake$y are shown in a DJ Khaled-worthy mansion surrounded by flamingos, Siberian tigers, a lion and for good measure, floating sports cars.

    The tongue-in-cheek attitude towards hip hop braggadocio is central to the podcast, with the host’s making outrageous boasts and dropping ludicrous slang while taking time to remind their audience to add kale and wheatgrass to their lives! It plays on the format of US rap news like Sway in The Morning and Everyday Struggle, while retaining an authentically local voice. And while shit talking is central, the show is also deeply informative, offering insightful opinions on the latest trends in music and fashion. Rare & Sudden is addictive because it warmly pokes fun at a culture the host’s are deeply invested in.

  • The Fantastic Agency – Cape Town’s New Model and Talent Agency is all about self-love, support and heterogeneous casting

    The Fantastic Agency – Cape Town’s New Model and Talent Agency is all about self-love, support and heterogeneous casting

    The Fantastic Agency first opened its doors in January of this year, baring Capetonians originality and a neoteric array of faces on its tantalizing roster. Fantastic is the brainchild of the prominent casting director and stylist, Fani Segerman. Taking on a variety of positions within the advertising and fashion industries over the past ten years, she identified a gap for a new agency. Her focus with this new venture was, and still is, to find and represent the undiscovered talent hidden within the city of Cape Town. Scouting faces from the Instagram accounts and the streets, Fani aspires to develop models and talent into industry jewels. “I focus on discovering and developing fresh talent, and through my talent selection try to make a shift in the industry that is still very traditional or backwards when it comes to representation.”Reflecting on her journey Fani states, “I was a stylist for many years, doing TV ads, stills campaigns and editorials. I would often source the models for these jobs and started to really enjoy that side of it. I joined an agency at 17 and in my twenties I started working there, learning different sides of the business.”

    Fani attributes the trajectory of her career largely to the influence of Candice Hatting who trained her as a casting director. Having worked for both of Candice’s businesses for a number of years, Fani had picked up a great deal of experience that equipped her with the industry know how to start her own agency. “I kind of lost my love for fashion along the way and gained a passion for people, studying psychology in my spare time and falling in love with the world of casting and talent representation.”

    Although Fani is no longer as invested in fashion as she had been before, she is “dipping” her toes back into styling and collaborating with photographers to create images for Fantastic.

    The agency seeks to grow its talent and model representation in order to progress together with the advertising, modelling and fashion industries in South Africa and abroad. The vision for the agency is outlined by its founder on the website as follows: “We represent the full package- the people you stalk online, the muses, the ambassadors, the visionaries who bring life to brands. Fantastic aims to represent a broad and diverse range of talent.”Fani expresses, “In an industry based largely on image and appearance, I am trying to shift the focus to better represent the people who are often overlooked or excluded. I hope to push the importance of self-love, by supporting and building up my models so that this industry is a source of happiness and excitement  for them and not one of anxiety and frustration. I really believe that representation  in the modelling world is so vital and I hope that can translate through the work I am doing at Fantastic.”

    With self-love, support and heterogeneous casting as the pillars of the agency, Fantastic is well on its way to breaking away from established industry norms, and achieving its objective to make the space one of enrichment and excitement.

    Credits:

    Photography: Hana Sho
    Styling: Fani Segerman
                 Nathaniel Edwards
                 Farai Engelbrecht

     

  • Transdisciplinary conversations on the realities of urbanness // Dr Njoki Ngumi to take part in the African Mobilities’ Johannesburg Exchange

    Transdisciplinary conversations on the realities of urbanness // Dr Njoki Ngumi to take part in the African Mobilities’ Johannesburg Exchange

    Dr Njoki Ngumi wears many hats in roles that stretch across various fields. As a result the word she uses to describe herself is “maker”, emphasising that her work transcends genre and medium. Her background in healthcare has helped her to cultivate her curiosity and care for small details, and this has continued to be useful to her in the arts space.

    As a storyteller, she is currently obsessed with what can be obtained through collaboration and collective effort. “It’s been played to its tired cliché end on SO many mediocre TV programs, but truly? Groups of unlikely people achieving unlikely things is the whole entire wave. Nothing gimmicky – just mapping how people build bridges to each other and love and fight and love again, as they set large fires and take many names. I did an odd little thread once on Twitter that was about an elite cadre of femme/fem assassins, and a surprising number of people really loved it, and it was about just that – odd, fierce, unexpected togethernesses.”

    Her storytelling style is in constant evolution. She loves drama, distance and spectacle, but is also wary of how this can sometimes privilege the story over allowing audiences to engage. On the other hand, she also enjoys more intimate weavings that require the audience’s participation in some way, resulting in a new energy or story at the end. Through this reflection, Njoki tries to find the balance in her storytelling to invite audiences into the worlds she creates or mirrors.

    Another one of Njoki ‘s endeavors is her position as Head of Learning and Development at HEVA, an East African fund that invests in the transformative social and economic potential of the creative economy within the region. The development of HEVA Capital and HEVA Forum address the questions of how creative enterprises can get access to credit and how an enabling, progressive environment can be created for these businesses to grow. Within these two spaces, Njoki identifies knowledge gaps and interesting possibilities, and figures out ways in which creative enterprises can access them.

    Working across disciplines is an important part of how Njoki frames her practice. Therefore, co-founding the Nest Collective was a no-brainer. She did  this in collaboration with 11 other  members, namely Olivia Ambani, Hope Bii, Jim Chuchu, Sunny Dolat, George Gachara, Njeri Gitungo, Kendi Kamwambia, Noel Kasyoka, Akati Khasiani, Mars and Wakiuru Njuguna. As a collective they are “a making, building multidisciplinary arts squad based in Nairobi that drops cultural bombs and then wears overalls to sort through the debris.” The collective was formed in reaction to the fact that mainstream spaces did not have room for audiences who were craving an engagement with work that is risky, quirky and odd. Since its inception in 2012 the collective has made films, visual art, music, work in fashion and write books. Each member of the collective has their area of expertise, but together they have built a think tank and creative melting pot for themselves. Through their collective they explore modern identities, re-imagine their pasts and remix their futures. Connected to this is how they unpack what it means to be young, contemporary and urban, as well as the possibilities of casting away existing scripts and design new outcomes.

    Njoki has been invited to be one of the hosts for the Johannesburg Exchange under African Mobilities. This has an organic connection to the other projects and roles that she takes on. “AM [African Mobilities] is about transdisciplinary conversations, negotiating the vagaries and glories of urbanness and challenging realities with communities and collaboration, and this is already a huge part of the Nest’s – and my own – practice.” Her work fits so seamlessly into the agenda for the Johannesburg Exchange, and African Mobilities as a whole, that Njoki will be doing a public performance reading at the Exchange.

    Reflecting on the importance of African Mobilities and the Exchanges they have hosted in multiple cities, Njoki stated that, “One of the most magic things about it is its determination to break knowledge and data out of ivory towers and bring it out directly to the people. We’re at a time now when knowledge sharing is possible in new and unprecedented ways because of the internet, but in many ways guides and people to open out and explore and explain new things in new ways are still so essential. That’s what AM is building, together with prioritizing multiple African perspectives.”

    The Johannesburg Exchange is taking place from 22-24 February at Wits University and African Flavour Books in Braamfontein.