Tag: fees must fall

AFROPUNK as a cross-continental meeting point

Many Joburgers, like myself, know the exodus that the city experiences over the December holidays, with most people coming back just in time to unpack their bags before going back to work. For those who go on holiday, the coast is usually the first option. However, over the last holiday Johannesburg saw a slight shift in this migratory pattern that we make so many jokes about. The AFROPUNK festival saw South Africans from other cities choosing to travel to Johannesburg to spend the new year’s weekend rocking it out to local and international talent. In addition to this, a large number of international travelers came to the festival. This included fellow Africans as well as people from the Americas and Europe. From interviews with a few attendees, it became apparent that despite the main motivating factor for being in Johannesburg was the festival, it became a point of departure for other adventures in the city post AFROPUNK. The festival also brought people to Johannesburg because it was the first AFROPUNK held in Africa, which was particularly important for those from other African countries.

“AFROPUNK is more than the lineup. It is culture, inspiration, force. Be yourself. Be free in your own personality or outfit,” expressed Brazilian blogger Maga Moura. Her colourful braids and sparkling full body overthrow caught the eye of many at the festival. Maga shared that she wanted to be the one who is able to represent her Brazilian followers. She attended all of the AFROPUNK festivals that took place throughout 2017, and was most excited to be in Johannesburg as was her first time in the city. She also extended her stay in the city so that she could record spaces and people who have knowledge about South African history. Maga passionately expressed to me her desire to make her trip more than taking photographs at the festival, but also an opportunity to show her followers more aspects of South African culture and history from the vantage point that Johannesburg offers.

Miles Greenberg, who was also in South Africa for the first time, is Canadian born but now lives in France with his boyfriend. They were both in attendance, mainly due to Miles convincing his boyfriend that he needs to share this experience with him. Like most international attendees, Miles was in Johannesburg for the festival. “I have been looking for an excuse to come here for the longest time. For me it was a matter of just showing up. And for me this feels like an important time and an important place for this to be happening. It feels just and it feels on point,” Miles expressed. He also mentioned that his decision to be here was influenced by Nonku Phiri, who he met at a gig in Shanghai. This indicates an additional thread to this cross-continental pollination of people of colour at the festival.

Toby and Adrian Gardner from London also confessed that they were mainly in Johannesburg for the festival, and that this was also their first time in the city. With Toby being half Ghanaian, half Nigerian and Adrian being Jamaican, their outfits communicated the connections they were trying to make with being on the continent. Toby wore an outfit that reminded her of kente cloth, while Adrian wore a traditional Nigerian shirt that was given to him by his brother-in-law who is from Nigeria. “We are here to enjoy all the beautiful people. I feel it [the festival] will be way more laid back. Less about image and more about family and people being together,” they expressed.

Damola Owode, from South West Nigeria, although shy with his words, expressed that he was representing his Yoruba heritage through his outfit. His decision to be in Johannesburg was influenced by his friends wanting to attend and this being a place where he can openly share his traditional wear.

Of course the festival meant that people from various platforms would be sent on assignment to cover specific angles of the festival. This was the case for Shan Wallace and Lawrence Burney from Baltimore. Lawrence is a music journalist and spent time interviewing South African artists, and teamed up with Shan who is a photographer. This was also a special moment for Shan, as it allowed her to share images of her photographs with people in Johannesburg. “I use photography as a form of activism, and a way to share black peoples’ experience. It is also a way for us to connect,” she explains.

Mariah Matthews shared a similar attitude to Shan, in that she wanted to be able to connect. From New Jersey, she spent a few months at UCT as an exchange student. Her experience at AFROPUNK was a parting gift to herself as she would be leaving South Africa in January. “I always wanted to come to South Africa because of the spirit of resistance that so much of the youth has here. I needed some of that fire sparked inside of me and some of the knowledge from movements such as Fees Must Fall.” For her, being at AFROPUNK solidifies all she has learnt throughout her time in Cape Town.

Cynty, from the Caribbean, has also spent a few months in Cape Town at an internship that extends her studies in Tourism. She and a group of friends from different parts of the world came up to Johannesburg as a way to bring in the new year together because they are far away from their families.

Njeri from Nairobi expressed to me that her decision to be at the festival was based on the fact that this was the first AFROPUNK held on the continent. She has always been drawn to AFROPUNK because of “the music and the movement. The arts element as well as the movement being about Black empowerment.” This was also a moment for her to reflect on the different cultures in Kenya, and bring elements of them to South Africa through her outfit.

Mariette Immaculate is a designer from London. As someone who travels a lot, she shared with me that she documents culture and enjoys being able to represent these various place with the clothing that she wears. Being at AFROPUNK was an experience where she can thread together the places she has been and the new culture she experienced in Johannesburg.

11 January 2018
Title in Transgression – The Beloved Departed and Symbolic Death

Fragrant tendrils of smoke and echoes of musical melodies emit through an otherwise unmarked address. A corrugated iron door opens into an intimate space of symbolic death. Sliver flags catch glimmers of the florescent lights upon arrival. A space of mourning marked by corner-bound shrines – memorializing moments of a collective life. Freshly plucked roses adorn the metaphorical grave. Commemorating a moment, as Title in Transgression is laid to rest in this funeral procession.

The collective initially was born out of a frustration and desire to engage with the political moment, articulated in the form of Fees Must Fall. The month-long micro-residency at project space, NGO (Nothing Gets Organised), allowed the young artists to engage with omnipresent issues outside of the confines of the institution. During this time Boitumelo Motau, Dineo Diphofa, Malebona Maphutse, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Nyasha Nyandoro, Robyn Kater and Kyle Song were able to explore notions of access and the ‘role of the artist’ in moments of protest.

The thoughts and processes located in this space of production, were poignantly represented by the printed slogans lining the walls:

Teacher don’t teach me nonsense

Who polices the police

Aluta continua

The silk-screened printed white t-shirts donning bold font and bolder sentiments illustrated the immense sense of urgency felt and acted upon by the artists. In a myriad of ways, the creative process and mechanisms of exchange were used as strategies to think through the contextual crisis. The two-fold system of working with and simultaneously against socially symbolic conventions – as a form of critique – was present in the funeral service.

The congregation was nestled in make-shift pews of pine fold-up chairs while sounds of plucking percussion echoed in the background. The highly esteemed ‘pastor’ Motau was slightly late to the service. However, upon arrival, donning a paisley-esque bathrobe and bright orange sunglasses, he addressed those gathered with evangelical fervor. Motau expounded in poetic verse – speaking to the “metaphysical transformations” that this day of death brought with it. “Let your tears heal”, as he suggested to “stop looking up and starting looking within” as a means to deal with “this painful reality”.

A proclamation – “[this] death is attributed to white supremacy” – was in some ways the crux of the sermon. An unapologetic calling-out of the over-arching system – imbedded in institutional spaces and beyond. “[This is] also our death”. The levels of profundity were layered and nuanced. After the service, multiple prayers, a witness of character and the rounds of a collection plate clinging with silver, a buffet of sustenance was served. The moment of mourning, for the loss of the collective, shifted during After Tears as celebratory clinks of Black Label bottles marked the birth of a new potential.

5 December 2016
Artists in solidarity with Fees Must Fall

The Fees Must Fall movement has become one of the most prominent movements of our time, with students calling for free, quality, decolonized education. Their efforts to have this demand taken seriously as a benefit to all in society has been met with the militarization of campuses and has seen students confronted by violence and arrests from police. However, students refuse to be intimidated by these state-sanctioned oppressive tactics put in place to try and dowse their fire. A group of artists in admiration of students’ dedication and in support of their call for free, quality, decolonized education have pulled resources to organize a fundraiser on Saturday 22 October in solidarity with Fees Must Fall. “As a group, our statement is that we’ve come together with #FMF, and students whose intellectual and cultural capital is not met with the means to continue giving, living and producing what our future needs and what their futures deserve,” explains Lindokuhle Nkosi.

Individual artists have combined their talents and efforts for the event, each organizing and mobilizing in their own capacity. The event will include DJ sets by blkjksoundsystem, Nomakhephu Nkrumah, Souldiablo, StraitJacketTailor and Greiispaces. Poets Nova and Makhafula Vilakazi will also be performing along with a live painting by Breeze Yoko. Lindokuhle explains that these artists are, “hoping to reach anyone who gives a damn, who wants to be on the right side of history, who is tired of ahistorical elitism. Or someone who wants to dance”. The event is being hosted from midday in Maboneng and those who want to attend the event are asked to bring food parcels, water, first aid kits, and any other kind of support students may need.

The artists involved believe that our elders have become too comfortable and are concerned with protecting their wallets, when they should be leading and supporting students. In this gap, this alliance of artists are hoping to get the message to students that they are not alone and that they have tangible support, beyond a hashtag and retweets.

21 October 2016
Fear of The Youth Ep4 – high school students weigh in on Fees Must Fall

Fear of The Youth is a new web series about the interests and concerns of Johannesburg youth. The series is produced by filmmaking crew, Germ Heals. In episode 4 Germ Heals speak to high school students about the Fees Must Fall movement, their concerns regarding tertiary education and their thoughts on governments interventions in the space.

13 October 2016
The People versus the Rainbow Nation; In conversation with Lebogang Rasethaba

Motlatsi Khosi (MK): “The People versus the Rainbow Nation” is a striking title that draws one deeply to this trailer. It suggests, to those who recognize its South African meaning, that all is not right for citizens. This title speaks to the growing disillusionment sweeping this country. From service delivery protests, to striking municipal workers and the latest, student protest movements. What role do you see this documentary playing in this growing movement facing the nation?

Lebogang Rasethaba (LR): I think the film, and also if you think about the primary function of the medium, reflects the times. So maybe it won’t add anything to the movement in terms of energy or whatever, like I don’t believe people watch a film and then go protest fees structures, but it will give some insight into what it means, or rather what it feels like to be a young person navigating the aligning vectors of power in society. That’s really what the film is about, it shows how all the current socio-political climate affects the young people in the film differently.

3. The trailer is tremendously captivating. It features words of anger and frustration from those not happy with the country Mandela left behind. Yet it also features images of young people, those presumably studying towards their degree, talking about politics and the state of the nation. What is it that you are hoping viewers, both local and international to take away from your documentary? What is it that you want them to learn about the issues being faced by students and their movements in South Africa?

Here’s the thing, this film isn’t some champion for the voiceless… I think what’s really dope about the current narrative amongst young people in SA right now is that there is a lot of authorship, a lot of the things you will hear in the film people all the world over have probably heard before. Young people are very clear, vocal and very articulate about their positions. So audiences aren’t going to learn anything because we know what racism is, we know what sexism is. We know what classism is, we know all this but they might gain some perspective because its always more impactful when the dialogue isn’t happening in the acrimonious comments section. Maybe the film presents those voices into a cohesive narrative in a filmic way that hasn’t been done before, maybe.

MK: South Africans are no strangers to the global structures and economic forces and are no strangers to international cultural trends. MTV is apart of this growing international influence that has even formed its own branch within our shores as MTV Base. How was this relationship formed between you and this media powerhouse and what role have they played in the direction of this production.

LR: One of the producers at MTV called me up and they told me that they wanted to give a young filmmaker a platform to voice his views on what’s happening in South Africa right now. They were really cool to work with because they didn’t interfere with the process or demand anything really, once we agreed that the film should interrogate the rainbow nation I never heard from them again. They kinda let me do what I wanted to. When I showed them the first cut they were like, I paraphrase, “fuck this is kinda different from what we imagined, its intense…we need to re-think and re-align our strategy”….you get what I’m saying here right? They had to retrospectively change their campaigns and strategies and whatever so they could align with the film. Imagine!

“The People versus the Rainbow nation” airs today at 21h15 on DSTV channel 130. You can also watch the film tonight at a viewing party at Chalkboard Cafe in Maboneng.

21 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
Until Until: Curating Complexity in Jo’burg Nightlife

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.

Follow them @untiluntil_za

13 April 2016