Tag: gender

Caster Semenya, “The Race To Be Myself”

After years of remaining silent and never truly sharing herself, Caster Semenya was ready to tell her story, and boy did she leave it all on the page. Few memoirs can be called more than autobiographical, however, Caster has managed to tell her story with humour, raw honesty, and an admirable sense of confidence that starts from the first sentence, “I am Mogkadi Caster Semenya. I am one of the greatest track and field athletes to ever run the 800-m distance.” I know of no other athlete who has shared their story so authentically, and honestly before.

Caster’s memoir encompasses her childhood in rural Limpopo, the first moments she knew she would be special at the age of 8, an athletic career that made her one of the most famous athletes of her generation, meeting her beloved wife, and the painful moments she suffered at the hands of the IAAF. “The Race to Be Myself” is conversational, and no rock is left unturned in this emotionally moving and enlightening book.

From an outside perspective, as someone who has only watched Caster run and talk in a few interviews over the years, it’s hard to think of her as someone who is larger than life. However, her personality comes off the page as she synthesizes her past and present, in colourful and often humorous language, ” Seme looked like one of those cartoon characters where the eyes would roll with dollar signs or his face turned into one of those casino slot machines…” (The Race To Be Myself, pg 108)

Writing her story right from the beginning, and including her days climbing trees, hunting with her male cousins, and growing up amongst her sisters puts into perspective where Caster’s confidence stems from. What may sometimes come across as arrogance in her interviews, is actually the product of growing up in an environment where Caster was never othered or treated any differently, her parents brought a girl into this world, and Caster’s unwavering belief in who she is never faltered even as the world told her otherwise, because the people that mattered most to her allowed her to boldly be just Caster.

The book is laugh-out-loud funny at times, especially as Caster describes how she has zero tolerance for bullies and how she often settled those disputes with her fists as a child. This is a belief that she has carried into adulthood, as she faces the IAAF and continues to fight for the human rights of other female athletes who have been the subject of gender testing. But as much as Caster’s light-hearted tone introduces humour to the story, it also breaks one’s heart as she recounts the times when her body and human rights were grossly violated. One of the most profound things about the book is that Caster never stops to pity herself, all that comes through every page is her determination, “I want to run. I want to win. That’s it.”

In just 306 pages, Caster manages to cover a lifetime in vivid detail. No name is left off the page, and no detail is considered too small, she remembers and writes about small moments of kindness as much as the moments of cruelty that she faced at the hands of her fellow athletes. Even as Caster rightfully names and shames some people, the moments that truly mark her as the resilient and powerful person that we know and love, are the quiet moments often away from the track. For example, how she came to create her signature cobra sign that we are so familiar with or the meet-cute with her wife Violet, all are the actual hallmarks of the book. Moments that we have only witnessed through the media, like her two-time Olympic wins, are given arresting detail in the book, so one not only sees Caster as one of the greatest living athletes of all time but also one of the most resilient and iconic women that have ever lived.

This is a book you inhale, simply because it is that gripping. Written in simple but clear language, Caster pours out her life and also takes the time to reflect on some of the moments that she lived through. There are many take-aways from the book, mostly, Caster’s absolute determination and discipline, and some the sheer cruelty and eugenics that still govern the athletics world. This is perhaps one of the most important memoirs to come out of South Africa, since President Nelson Mandela’s “Long Walk to Freedom”.

14 November 2023
Black Desire & Femme Rage: Goliath and Mohale’s Encounter at Goodman

This past Saturday, the Poetry Readings and Conversation brought together Gabrielle Goliath and Maneo Mohale in an event organised by the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. Founded in 1966 during a time of unthinkable violence and segregation, seldom has the institution presented us with such profoundly embodied explorations of Black desire, sensuality, and queerness in art. The happening was thanks in part to a collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class at the University of Johannesburg and its Global Blackness Summer School, whose theme this year is: For Wholeness. Black Being Well.

Selecting Maneo Mohale as the function’s facilitator was fitting. Not only did the poet and feminist writer have unstoppable chemistry with the guest of honour, but they were also incredibly qualified to take on such delicate subject matter. Mohale has contributed to various publications and served as a contributing editor at i-D Magazine. Their debut poetry collection, Everything is a Deathly Flower (2019), was shortlisted for the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize and long-listed twice for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Award.

The recipient of the 2019 Standard Bank Young Artist Award, Gabrielle Goliath’s work is featured in numerous public and private collections globally including Constellas Zurich, Tate Modern, and Iziko South African National Gallery. Her new body of work Beloved at Goodman Gallery, features drawings and prints. The exhibition, running from October 28 to November 24, 2023, features representations of radical Femme figures like Gabeba Baderoon, Caster Semenya, Sylvia Wynter, Yoko Ono, Sade, and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. While primarily recognised for her sound and performance art, the day was all about Goliath’s autographic practice.

Gabrielle Goliath and Maneo Mohale in conversation. Image captured by Thembeka Heidi Sincuba

Mohale began by inviting the audience to take three grounding breaths. They followed by sharing a poem, The Autobiography of Spring by queer Palestinian poet George Abraham, proceeding thereafter to introduce Goliath’s Beloved. Peering out the coffee table in front of the speakers, one could see Toni Morrison’s own Beloved (1970). This setting and sequence of events set a very specific tone for the day. From the get-go, it was clear that Goliath and Mohale were engaging at the intersection of Blackness, well-being, and creativity, with a soft emphasis on themes of sensuality, and queerness.

The way they spoke to each other was gentle and generous. When asked about her practice, Goliath replied, “I want to first speak about this notion of mark-making as a means of being close…” Echoing the mood in the room, Mohale praised this tactile, material, and more physically engaged process. Goliath continued, “… that really refuses the sort of sanctioned genius of the male artist, who works from a removed distance. And I refuse that. The physicality of the way in which I work and work on the floor. I work really close to these drawings. I relinquish the control of the hand. It’s not about the precious fidelity of the mark … it’s about relinquishing to the miraculous, what comes of that moment.”

Of course, it would be difficult to speak of love and intimacy without mentioning their antitheses. Goliath characterised her past work Elegy (2015), as a lament-driven work that addresses fatal acts of violence against women while avoiding the perpetuation of trauma. She said, “I did not want to return to the scene of subjection, I did not want to repeat the violence.”

At the nexus of art and violence, Mohale skillfully identified space for Femme rage, saying “ … in the wake of so much violence enacted upon my own body, it was really important for me to think it and hook it up to Empire … Not just these giant spectacular eruptions of violence, but legacies of violence.” Drawing inspiration from Glen Coulthard’s concept of “righteous rage,” Mohale invited us to view rage as a tool for Black Femme resistance.

Mohale prompted Goliath to reflect on the implications of portraying Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in this show. For a while, the pair lingered there and we saw something of a rupture in the way the two saw rage, with Mohale remarking, “I enjoy how my understanding of rage differs from you.” Goliath went on, “ … for me, what is really interesting with Madikizela-Mandela’s portrait specifically, is I find it very vulnerable. … it’s magisterial, but there’s a resignation … when I look at her.”

One of the seemingly many roots of the strong intellectual chemistry between Goliath and Mohale was the impact of Christina Sharpe on both of their work. Goliath’s encounter with Sharpe’s Monstrous Intimacies (2010) brought her towards an understanding of violence as both spectacular and insidious. Goliath insists: “We may need to bear our rage, and allow it to be transformed into the possibility of something else.”

In an audience-pleasing turn, Mohale asked Goliath about her portrayal of artist Desire Marea. As Mohale notes, “Desire being an initiated Sangoma is also not a footnote. … so much of their spiritual power is ancestral, is linked to bloodlines. … I think the sense of the sublime is also something that I chase in my own work, but … I’m seeing the clear instances and connections that are happening now between … contemporary queer artists.”

The intimate intellectual interaction between Goliath and Mohale prompts a collective reconsideration of the role of rage in desire and queerness in African artistic practices. It also did the long and thankless work of taking up space in an almost impervious institution. As we looked around the room and saw reflections of ourselves, both in the flesh and on the walls, we allowed ourselves to yearn for, perhaps even celebrate the dynamic and precarious possibilities within Black queer existence. Even amid this briefly beautiful moment of perceived reprieve, we were reminded of the violence that surrounds us as Mohale closed the discussion with a steady citation of Gabeba Baderoon’s War Triptych (2004).

13 November 2023
Janiva Ellis’ visceral paintings comfort as well as unsettle

Transcending both reality and fantasy, Janiva Ellis creates vivid paintings with unconstrained composition where vibrant colours offer a hint of cheerfulness and comfort, while exploring pain and violence.

Ellis is a Los Angeles-based visual artist working primarily as a painter. She creates raw and intimate paintings of contorted, exaggerated, drooping and distorted human and human like forms.

Her representation of figures is not bound by any fixed formality —decapitated heads, floating heads, heads with multiple sets of eyes, internal organs erupting from the body —these depictions are surreal but also a little bit frightening.

“To me, my images aren’t any more violent than many everyday interactions. Any more anguished than they are obliged. The unrest in my work represents a release, a shared sardonic moment of tension and amusement.” – shares Ellis in an interview with Artsy.

Ellis is most known for her dark and absurdist paintings which integrate cartoons and bold colours. In 2017, she presented a series of paintings at New York’s 47 Canal Gallery (Lick Shot) seeking to explore her own experiences of pain – using playfulness as a form of reprieve. Curator Kevin McGarry described the show as “a series of glimpses into the divine comedy of existing in a world where pain is met with doubt; into dynamics that are blatant and never-ending, yet consistently denied their truth.”

Despite the seemingly humorous and playful approach, Ellis’ works acts as a critical framework for exploring deep psychological trauma and the very complex intersections between race and gender. Her work often has an unexpected effect of shock, much like how trauma itself works. “You’re in this pleasant situation, picking up a cabbage, but there’s still a fraught dialogue that happens, whether it be a memory or somethings a stranger says that can feel psychologically eviscerating” she explained in an interview with the New York Times, speaking in particular to one of her paintings; ‘Curb-Check Regular, Black Chick’ (2017). This work depicts a scene at a fruit and vegetable market with one of the character’s insides gushing outside of her body.

Ellis participated in The 2018 New Museum Triennial – an exhibition dedicated to providing an important platform for a new generation of artist shaping the global discourse in contemporary art. This year’s participants included; Cian Dayrit (b. 1989, Manila, Philippines), Haroon Gunn-Salie (b. 1989, Cape Town, South Africa) and Chemu Ng’ok (b. 1989, Nairobi, Kenya) among others. The theme; ‘Songs of Sabotage’ sought to investigate “how individuals and collectives around the world might effectively address the connection of images and culture to the forces that structure our society”. Ellis’ satirical paintings – which seems weightless yet fraught with immerse heaviness – offer a degree of political engagement and continue to build a dialogue around issues of trauma and violence.

Ellis’ work carries a beautiful strangeness and offers us strategies of release through giving form and a new language to pain – disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed.

6 August 2018
WYAA // Providing Platforms for the Emergence of Young Artists

Cantilevered concrete extends into a crisply lit tower foregrounding the bright cerulean winter sky. Tire treads mark the intersection of an arterial road, the pulse connecting the suburbs of Johannesburg to the heart of the city. Adjacent, a narrow side street reverberates the sounds of lorries and delivery vans. The bustling sidewalk is grounded by rectangular forms – interjected by an iron grate ashtray. Indigenous foliage peppers a raised platform of slate stones. This is the corner occupied by The Point of Order.

The Point of Order operates as a mixed-use project space managed under the exhibitions programme of the Division of Visual Arts at the Wits School of Arts. This year nine students were selected to participate in the Wits Young Artist Award – a prestigious event that aims to provide an exhibition platform for emerging artists. Notions of inherited legacy, gender, sexuality and mapping space were explored throughout the show.

Allyssa Herman is interested in the way knowledge is produced around the kitchen table and domestic space. A kitsch ceramic canine inherited from her grandmother is central to the work A Shrine for my Bitch. “A shrine for my bitch, it’s just that. A shrine for my bitch. My bitch is an embodiment of me, an embodiment of the woman who have passed, who’s ideals live in me…This bitch has been sitting in my grandmother’s home watching me all my life, she deserves a shrine, she deserves to be praised. My bitch is both dead and alive. She is that bitch. We are that bitch. Bow down bitches!” The shrine, arranged with an abundance of fake flowers, family portraits, candles and doilies pay homage to Allyssa’s matriarchal lineage – the veil between life and death.

Artworks by Lebogang Mabusela

“I hate doilies. There is something very suspicious about the cleaning, masking, covering, and the needing to impress that comes with being a woman. The passing down of these doilies happens in those moments when mama’ tells me gore ngwanyana o kama moriri; ngwanyana ga a tlhabe mashata; ngwanyana o dula so, ga a tlaralle” says runner-up Lebogang Mabusela. Lebogang’s response to these crocheted signifiers of femininity and ‘black womanhood’ is to reimagine them through a series of monotype prints. “Doilies are used to conceal flawed and plain surfaces in a more decorative way. They are about dignity, integrity and keeping a seductive, elegant and glamorous home even when things are just falling apart slightly, because Abantu bazothini?” Her work tenderly addresses the transference of societal projections on paper.

Cheriese Dilrajh also engages the domestic sphere in her work. “A space can feel foreign to you even if it is your home. It can make you question your existence.” Her installation of suspended sarees adorned with paper plants and a video projection of “alien plants of the Internet” challenges tradition and the notion of inherited culture. “People can be thought of as plants. There are indigenous and alien, each determined which is which by the space it is allowed to flourish and survive in. Plants are interesting to me as they sometimes appear to embody human characteristics. My grandmother would also often transfer plants from her house to our garden.” Her interests extend into decolonising the self – “postcolonial is not only a theory, it is lived and embodied. It is everywhere, and identity becomes distorted and confusing, informing our growth.”

Installation piece by Cheriese Dilrajh

Dominique Watson‘s haunting bed installation is a response to a project created by the SADF during apartheid at the time of the Border Wars. Conscripts classified as homosexual or ‘deviant’ were sent to Ward 22 of the Military Hospital in Voortrekkerhoogte. In this ward they were subject to the ‘conversion’ procedures of electroshock therapy and chemical castration. Dominique discovered documentation of these atrocities in GALA‘s archive – including accounts from patients as well as their families. She describes this, “history as a haunting” whereby the medical gaze approached the queer body as one riddled with disease. The red bedsheet bound around the military-style cot has been stained with institutional ink – signifying the oppressive nature of the establishment.

For his provocative work, Oratile Konopi collaborated with Hip-hop artist Gyre. Oratile’s piece is a visual response to the musician’s single entitled Eat My Ass. “We went about creating an artwork with its own narrative. The narrative of a dinner date in which you would get to know someone, going through two courses but the desert not being eaten rather alluding to the idea that something else is being ‘eaten’.” Oratile explores notions of masculinities central to the identity of black men in his artistic practice – often employing music as a device to create a point of accessibility. The installation offers an opportunity for the audience to engage with the works in a tangible form – adding to what would otherwise be limited to digital interface. Oratile and Gyre use this platform to, “speak on the issues related to gender and sexualities present in the music sonically and extending it visually. We chose the LP format because it speaks to a different moment in time. Complicating the idea that multiple sexualities are something only present in the contemporary moment and did not exist in the past.”

Installation piece by Dominique Watson

Framing- white- female- emerging artist- my eyes- camera- images- physical collage- print- in my mind- digital- photoshop- film strips- chance- abstract- representational- titles- When You Swipe Your ABSA Card- overlapping- labour- different people’s labours- my labour- making sense of my surroundings. Sarah-Jayde Hunkin locates herself within the city. Her processed-based work is centred around the transference of images and collaging experience. Frustrated with the lack of female representation in linocut printmaking, Sarah-Jayde is interested in the perception of ‘aggressive’ mark-making. Her print combines techniques of visualising negative space as well as delicate and fine marks.

Kira De Cavalho‘s MAPPING SPACES articulates locations topographically. The combination of paint and chalk is used to mark a fabric surface. The suspended map spans. “between my childhood homes (Mulbarton, Rosettenville and Kensington). The graphic threaded floor plans overlay the map and symbolise personal dynamics within my living spaces. These dynamics and associated traumas are expressed through different coloured cotton thread and linear layout.”

‘MAPPING SPACES’ by Kira De Cavalho

Nishay Phenkoo‘s Matrimonium study after The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even engages with its implicit Duchampian reference and the union of personified forms. “The deep enveloping gaze of the easels consumed within each other offers insight to the complexities of the marriage, its off-white veil of dust elegantly poised atop the head of its recipient awaiting a hopeful life of bliss and happiness.” Hymn Die Irae by Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner reverberates through the space while, “The recipients deeply intoxicated by the other lost in a subliminal bondage under the warm pink light imbued with parallelisms to the hand of god.”

This year’s winner, Kundai Moyo, explores issues of consent within the photographic practice. “I became curious about scale and the illusion of intimacy and that often lends itself to things that are small enough to fit in the palm of our hands, the psychological effects of this attachment and whether or not presenting something on such a small scale diminishes some of the problematic notions attached to it.” Her sculptural works entitled, Photo Albums: Vol. I & II are two tiny velvet-covered hand-bound books each containing a photographic series captured in Mozambique last year. Many of the images feature the human subject going about the doldrums of daily life. After producing the series, Kundai contemplated the moral dilemma of exploiting the image of strangers and the inequal power dynamic inherent in photography. She decided to, “construct a mechanism that would allow for viewers to peer into the lives of these strangers in a way that did not leave them exposed to the essentialist scrutiny that often comes with the unanimous viewing by a large audience.” Her photo albums attempt to create a tender moment of intimacy in the interactive piece.

The exhibition runs until the 7th of August.

‘Photo Albums: Vol. I & II’ by Kundai Moyo

Artwork by Oratile Konopi and Gyre

Artwork by Sarah-Jayde Hunkin

3 August 2018
A Womxn’s Dis-ease // reframing ‘disease’ and unpicking the frameworks of cis-heteropatriarchy

Walking into the side entrance of The Point of Order (TPO) I am greeted by varying colours of fabric cutoffs stitched together. Camouflaged between these, are the words ‘DREAMS THAT MY BOdY’ – an impactful introduction to the Masters exhibition by Chloë Hugo-Hamman titled A Womxn’s Dis-ease.

Walking between her works that are installed on either side of the exhibition space, I move excitedly to where she has set up camp on the other end of TPO. Sitting on a beanbag, surrounded by textiles of all colours and textures, Chloë greets me, a small stitching project in hand. “That looks like so much fun,” I comment. “Yes. It’s like a kind of meditation,” she replies. This opening fittingly welcomes my first question about fabric as her medium of choice.

“I am very interested in textile. I love colour and texture,” Chloë explains. Soft, cosy fabrics appeal to Chloë’s eye, with these present throughout all the work that make up the show. Her specific hand stitching technique allows for her to work with the irregularity of the fabric, creating volumes that play on the textures of the reused fabrics. Her stitching, when viewed closely, also resembles veins, making a connection to the importance of depathologising bodies and ways of navigating the world. Letters are cut out of old t-shirts, and these are used to make up the words accompanying the visual pleasure of shades of red, pink, purple, yellow and blue that have been threaded together. This brings to the fore the interrogation of language within this exhibition.

“I made the words first. I was thinking about which words I want[ed] to incorporate into this exhibition.” Once these were created, Chloë was able to decide which words would be placed together, forming juxtapositions and dynamisms, and asking viewers to think about the tension that these groupings of words hold.

‘cHrONic SUPPOrT CaRe’ is once such grouping. This speaks to the lack of support and care in the world for what it means to have a chronic illness, and the need for that care and support structure.

“Chronic means that you will have it all your life, and unless you can afford the care – and even if you can afford it – it’s not really available in the way you need it. What I mean is that even if you have the means to access medical care, that care is prescribed by a largely Western medical framework, which is very much about responding only to the display of specific symptoms. If you don’t display the symptom, you won’t get diagnosed. And then there is the whole thing of language, because if you can’t articulate what your experience is using specific words, then you also can’t get diagnosed. But a Western medical diagnosis is also generally lacking, in that it is very seldom holistic in its approach to understanding the physical and psychic body. Then, as a womxn, it impacts further because of the patriarchal structure of [Western] medicine. A lot of the time you are dealing with doctors who are men, and their experience of the world is different to yours as a womxn. Their experience of violence and pain (and of how these can be projected and/or enacted onto a womxn’s body) is different, and often, as a womxn, you aren’t really heard or taken seriously. Your agency is compromised or negated. I am not implying that men do not experience mental illness or systemic violence, nor am I implying a stable categorisation or binary of gender as man and woman. Rather, I am pointing to the violence and therefore the pain implicit in a womxn’s patriarchal gendering. Which is also why I, like many other feminists, choose the convention of writing womxn with an ‘x’ as a strategy of disentangling ‘woman’ or ‘women’ from the subject-position of ‘man’ or ‘men’, and to consciously destabilise all rigid, violent and exclusionary gender categoristions.”

Following this train of thought is the idea of establishing alternative communities of care or “new forms of sociality”, a point Chloë takes from Ann Cvetkovich (2012), who is a seminal referent in her Masters. This asks the question, how can we create spaces and methods of care that are genuine, and provide a sense of safety, relief and understanding?

Continuing with the interrogation of language and the Western patriarchal biomedical framework for wellness and disease, is the work, ‘Sponsored by’. Taken from old t-shirts produced for corporate funded charitable activities, clusters of the words ‘sponsorship’ and ‘sponsored by’ are stitched together. In our discussion, Chloë comments on how most of these t-shirts were pointing to sponsorship for events related to breast cancer, with pale pink being the colour that is used to visually represent this. She points out the irony of these t-shirts, as the companies that sponsor these events sometimes have products or engage in practices that are carcinogenic. “And that was interesting for me in how it brings together a lot of my interests: big pharma, Western medical-industrial complex, symptom, labels, gender and feminism. Breast cancer is symptomatic for womxn, but it’s also so symptomatic of this capitalist system we live in. And also the fact that these t-shirts just have to be this baby pink! …it’s a kind of pink-washing!”

As briefly mentioned earlier, deconstructing processes of labelling in the way in which language is embedded within patriarchal structures of power presents strongly in the show. In the exhibition’s title the word ‘disease’ is re-framed as ‘dis-ease’. This is an empowering reworking of the English language, and draws attention away from the idea of the individual as the problem. It instead makes a larger commentary on the way in which the world operates. “It is less about ‘I am diseased’, more of ‘I have a dis-ease in the world’. The world that we live in is very fucked up, and you are meant to be or look or act a certain way; and if you aren’t that way you feel a dis-ease.” This ‘dis-ease’ can manifest in various ways, and Chloë’s focus is around mental illness.

A Womxn’s Dis-ease stitches fabric together to unpick neoliberal, white supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cis-heteropatriarchy.

To keep up with Chloë’s practice follow her on Instagram.

20 July 2018
Serpentwithfeet – Standing Tall

The most immediately noticeable thing about upcoming musician Serpentwithfeet aka Josiah Wise is his striking visual image. In his press photos, he rocks a massive septum piercing, an occasionally multi-coloured beard and face tattoos which announce SUICIDE and HEAVEN around the centerpiece of a pentagram. This brash image may remind you of a Soundcloud rapper, but in truth his angelic, classically trained voice makes him more like Nina Simone than Lil Pump.

Raised in a religious household in Baltimore, Wise was immersed in both gospel and classical music growing up, and originally aspired to be an opera singer. The challenges and intense personal experiences of a life as a young, gay black man pushed him to an exploratory sound which merges the sweetest pop and the harshest noise. On the 2016 EP blisters and his new album soil, he uses music to explore the tensions, productive or irreconcilable, between earthy sexuality and spiritual yearning, love, lust and belief. These elements spark an exciting blaze which is being noticed throughout the music world. blisters includes production by Bjork-collaborator and film composer The Haxan Cloak, while soil saw him working with the divergent likes of cloud rap legend Clams Casino and Adele co-writer Paul Epworth.

The importation of sacred musical tropes into carnal themes is brilliantly outlaid in his choice of nom de plume. In the Christian tradition, the snake is a low, bestial figure which corrupts humanity with sin and self-consciousness. In contrast, the image of a walking snake counters that knowledge of desire and sex is the path to true liberation, to at last proudly striding upright in the sun. His work reminds me of a famous quote by the great writer James Baldwin who undertook similar explorations of race, gender and religion – “If the concept of God has any use, it is to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God can’t do that, it’s time we got rid of him”. In an era of violent orthodoxy and fundamentalist hypocrisy, Serpentwithfeet is a call to listen to the inner voices which call to us to free both ourselves and each other.

16 July 2018
Sam Vernon’s very suggestive, emblematic images and abstract scenes confront personal and historical memories

A human body lies covered in what appears to be thick, solid pieces of cutout paper. The body is fully covered; barring from the knee down. The image has all the components that engender a sense of familiarity. However, something is off. One of the legs is twisted and both are lifted —suggesting that the body underneath is still breathing. This photograph (Laid, 2011) by artist Sam Vernon seems to say something significant and fateful about the body (particularly the black body) and its presence in the world.…it breathes intrigue into our imagination.

Vernon is a multi and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the connection between memory, personal narrative and identity. “Through site-specific, staged installations and urgent performances my goals are towards the production of Gothic visual art in which Black narratives are included in the expanse of the genre,” Vernon states in an interview with African Digital Art.

Vernon goes beyond the confines of a single medium by combining drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptural components— transmuting their form from two dimensional to three dimensional works which become elastic and nonconforming. Her means of expression are constantly evolving as she continuously moves from illustrations, digital, performance and back.

Vernon’s digital prints, drawings and collages are typically black and white, perhaps an indication of an enhanced awareness of the past. The work is not always easy to process, and yet it remains vivid and clear. Through Vernon’s works, we travel through time towards the vast depth of her experiences. She describes an understanding of the past as a necessary means towards a better understanding of the self in the creation of the future.

Despite having a visual language that is difficult to pin down —with elements of abstraction, patterns and human-like figures —Vernon’s voice remains strong. This voice is further amplified by the specificity in the symbolism used to confront her subjects. “The active ‘ghosting‘ of an image, copying and multiplying the original, subtlety exploits the notion of a pure identification of black and white and signifies the essentialism of symbolic meaning and all its associations.”

Through her practice Vernon deconstructs and redefines narratives that inform memories and collective history through the lens of race and gender. Through her most recent show Rage Wave with G44: Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto, Vernon presented an ambitious exhibition bringing together images, photocopies, drawings and prints to reflect on post-coloniality, racial, sexual and historic memory. She has also presented works at Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Seattle Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn, among many others.

Vernon’s work, with all its layers of complexity, remain a critical part of moving the conversation on black narratives forward. Her works have a sense of timelessness, where the past and the present seem to merge….perhaps because notions and conceptions of race and gender underpinning the work also have a sense of timelessness. Even as time passes, the trauma of the violent past continues to haunt.

13 July 2018
Reflecting on queer experiences through movement and imagery

UK photographer Angela Dennis teamed up with dancer and choreographer Llewelyn Mnguni, the result of which is a series of images that aim to visually represent their lived understandings of gender and sexuality as a spectrum. Zoo Lake was their chosen location, attracted to the vibrant colours that were brought to the basketball courts near the lake by local artists.

Their collaboration became a moment of exchange and a moment of solidarity, sharing more than just the sound of the shutter and angelic poses. Angela and Llewelyn shared with one another their experiences as queer people of colour, coming from different sides of the world. This intimacy comes across in Llewelyn’s openness in the images, and Angela’s treatment of each image.

For Angela, photography offers an avenue for identity exploration, focusing particularly on the “black body, black aesthetics and queer identities – that of my own and those I encounter.” She does this by presenting the every day, the intimate, individual self-care practices, style, social groups and home life. “My general approach has been an attempt to subvert beauty standards in the west that favour whiteness by producing work that celebrates and beautifies black people, as well as work that looks for visual signifiers of common cultural practices,” Angela adds.

Angela’s interest in Johannesburg sparked from attending AFROPUNK in the city in December. Curious about the possibilities the festival offers for black transnational exchange, Angela met a number of creatives, including Llewelyn while staying in Johannesburg, and was keen to accelerate the momentum of creative engagement.

As a dancer and choreographer working for Dance Factory, Llewelyn uses this medium as a way to share the untold stories of the LGBTI+ community, “because I find that in dance there is a lack of representation for the stories and lives of this community.”

Reflecting on the series, Llewelyn states that, “As a black queer artist I think it is imperative to capture moments of one’s existence in the social climate we find ourselves in. Self representation, self love and pride are what these photos should inspire and evoke. It is also important to me to continue to document our lives as this inspires generations to come.”

This process was not simply about Angela taking photographs of Llewelyn, but a partnership of making images, a kind of co-creation that mixed together their exploration of identity.

Continuing Llewelyn’s train of thought, Angela concluded by offering this reflection, “Being queer I am part of a community that resides in a liminal space on the margins of society, something Llewellyn and I can identify with. Our work here, in its various mediums seems to generally be about understanding the communal spaces we reside in and forging new connections. Blackness itself encompasses a multitude of experiences, politics and cultural production globally. And as we continue to rise and take up space, it is imperative that we keep fostering this learning and understanding, so that as authors we create ourselves from a position of strength. I think this translates in the images through the grace and strength of Llewelyn’s free movement, he literally uses his body to take up public space. The bold colours in the court flooring become abstract flashes of colour and light, nodding to the ‘colour’ of queerness. Transnational exchange means strengthened collective power and an infinite network of peers to learn from, to lift up and celebrate.”

19 June 2018
Dancer and Choreographer Jeremy Nedd shapes multidisciplinary performative pieces

Choreographer and classically trained dancer Jeremy Nedd lives and practices in Brooklyn, NY. Studying dance from a very young age (8 years old), Jeremy gradually stepped into creating original choreographed pieces after many years of performing the choreography of others.

As a dancer he studied in New York and relied on his own intuition to train himself in choreography. “Choreography for me was always just a continuation or fulfilling of my ideas as a dancer, so I didn’t think to go to program.” In 2016 Jeremy left a position he kept in a theater and began a Masters in ‘Expanded Theater’ at the Hochschule der Künste Bern.

With ‘Expanded Theater’ Jeremy created a stage for himself to experiment. This experimentation is put into action by what Jeremy describes as composing images per-formatively through music, art and dramatic theatre techniques.

In discussion with the multi form artist he unpacks his work and approach to creating.

What is Communal Solo about and can you please unpack the title? How was this work approached and who are the people that are participating in this performance?

It was quite the journey to get it to the point that it is now, at least a years worth of work, if not more. In the very early stages of the work I was very caught up on the idea that theater was considered a communal experience. This ritual that we as a spectating pubic go and watch, while a someone performs.

I always wondered where in this constellation was the communal connection. Was it shared between the members of the public… or was it between the public and the performer(s)? Somehow I felt there was a disconnect, so I wanted to see if there was another way to achieve a sense of community in the theatre space.

After many attempts at creating, majority participatory based, communal acts in the theater, I found the most natural way for me to access a feeling of community was looking to how actual community is built around issues that deeply concern me. So in the end Communal Solo was inspired by experiences of mourning, celebration and protest, and how these collective experiences or communal gatherings correlate and coalesce in connection to a specific narrative – the recurrent violence in the form of Police brutality against the African-American community in the United States. This work made significant developments in this direction with Deborah Hollman.

‘An Homage’ photographed by Ayka Lux and Erwan Schmidt

Can you tell me more about your creative process?

I suppose this is where I could come back to the message in my work, Even though I come from a classical ballet education and history of performing contemporary ballets professionally my practice has had a focus on utilizing movement modes that are not based in codified dance techniques or not associated with the institution size theater idea of trained dance.

I find the constant themes that have informed my work revolve around; utilizing online resources, the process of dissection, demystification and re-contextualization and confronting definitions of validity and contemporaneity specifically in western spaces for art and theater. I am hoping to introduce new ideas of ‘virtuosity’ and where these perceptions land on ideas and narratives around race, gender and economic status (mine own as black male in particular). And in doing so attempting to inject validity into certain narratives and aesthetics.

‘An Homage’

What is the significance of space to your practice?

Space is integral, my girlfriend is an Architect. Through her I’ve really accessed a whole other understanding of the idea of “a body in space”. Especially considering how in a lot of contemporary practices the idea of space, be it physical or virtual is a very present topic.

How does the moving human form relate to space in your work?

As I mentioned before, now that I’m actively incorporating other disciplines in my practice, sculpture and installation for example, these operate very differently when presented in different contexts. Museum, Theater or Public Space/ Site Specific are all very different contexts and influence an audience reception to a work in different ways.

At present Jeremy is developing his next project exploring Sad Boy Rap. The project which is due to premiere at the end of this month is being created in collaboration with Maximilian Hanisch and Laurel Knüsel. The piece titled, ‘Sad Boy Culture’ will be premiering at the Festival Belluard Bollwerk International in Fribourg, Switzerland.

In August the performer will be in Johannesburg for a few months working on a new project with the Pantsula’s of Impilo Mapantsula.

‘An Homage’

‘re(mains)’

‘re(mains)’

6 June 2018
Photographer and Journalist Rahima Gambo’s ‘Education is Forbidden’ makes a social commentary on the post-colonial education system in north-eastern Nigeria

Rahima Gambo studied Development at the University of Manchester and thereafter completed a Masters in Gender and Social Policy at the London School of Economics. This was followed with her Masters in Journalism at Columbia Graduate School in 2014. Her interdisciplinary practice looks at Nigerian identity, gender, socio-political issues and history. Her series Education Is Forbidden makes use of photography, illustration, text and film to articulate a troubling narrative that remains without end.

With her photo essay, Education is Forbidden, the photographer and journalist challenges the Boko Haram insurrection, the condition of the post-colonial education system in north-eastern Nigeria as well as the status of women in society. Showcased as a part of the curated projects at ART X Lagos art fair, it has been in development since 2015.

The project has been built on and grown due to support given by the International Women’s Media Foundation, propelled forward by “a curiosity to understand what it means to be a student on the front lines.” Rahima, who is from the region and currently residing in Abuja, travelled to schools and universities in various states to meet activists, pupils and teachers. This acted as an entry point for her documentation of the lasting trauma and infrastructural deterioration, beginning decades before and is currently destabilised by conflict.

To create this body of work Rahima’s approach was to show girls from a stylised, prolific point of view. Employing traditional portraiture techniques, the photographer aimed to focus on points of familiarity and visual signifiers that remind her audience of how carefree school days should be. These signifiers include a girl blowing a bubble with chewing gum and other girls calmly look into her lens. The works take a frontal approach created collaboratively with the girls that she photographed.

Rahima tells these girls’ stories as their youth is poisoned by these events of trauma. It is important to note that she does not intend to label them by these circumstances or define them as victims. “The project is not based on trauma because you can find that in any condition, no matter how comfortable…” she expresses in an interview with Nataal. Her series has the twofold effect of being both a visual documentation and captured moments of collective memory. Her work is then a visual narrative speaking of the cruelties of conflict and its effect on the educational framework of the region.

29 May 2018
STASH CREW’s latest EP is the electronic soundtrack for a gender fluid future

The future is gender fluid. Probably. I mean, if there is a future. With the current climate, who knows how much longer we’ll inhabit this planet for? What I do know is that more people these days are starting to open up to the idea that sexuality is a spectrum and so is gender, which bodes well for a less binary future. STASH CREW’s GENDERFLUIDZ, as you can probably tell by the title, is a jacked up electronic soundtrack for that future.

Right off the bat, we’re greeted with a booty popping opener called Pop (Dat) which I can only describe as Smack My Bitch up in a washing machine of bass. It’s a fun opener that gives you a solid idea of what you’re in for over the next 7 songs. You’re in for is a queer as fuck retro-futuristic rap-rave jol. Think Die Antwoord, but with less cultural appropriation and more lyrics about women eating pussy.

“The realities of living as a queer person in South Africa are brutal. We are inspired by the transformative and inclusive possibilities of queer culture and how we can counteract the challenges and violence that queer people face on a daily basis,” STASH CREW explain in their press release, “We want more queer positive, sex positive people celebrating themselves and their wants and desires – and dancing every damn day”.

GENDERFLUIDZ will definitely get you dancing, and it truly is 2 queer kids from Jozi celebrating themselves, with touches from Umlilo, HLASKO and Schall Regall. Whyt Lyon, Phayafly have a close working relationship with Umlilo. In 2017 they toured Brazil and Germany with Umlilo as part of their ‘Queer Intergalatic Alliance’ collaborative project, and Umlilo also features on their bonus song and video for GENDERFLUIDZ, Mad as Hell.

Photography by Corrina Mehl

28 May 2018
Multimedia artist Rehema Chachage on rituals of survival and subversion

Multimedia artist from Dar es Salaam, Rehema Chachage uses video and sculptural installations as her chosen mediums to communicate her own experiences, and those of other women, casting a light on rituals of survival and subversion.

After her father passed away she began to interrogate ideas around inheritance in Tanzanian societies, seeing the most valuable inheritance from her father was his intellectual work. Her father, a University of Dar es Salaam sociology professor worked briefly in South Africa and had some struggles which he expressed an extended essay. This resonated with her while she was studying towards her fine art degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at UCT. She felt like a stranger, an outsider while living in Cape Town. Her earlier work channeled these feelings of social alienation, allowing her to critically analyse themes related to identity and (up)rootedness.

The work she has produced since graduating looks at rituals as valuable tools for reading into social norms and tensions, closely examining those that speak to women’s identities, gender relations and subversion.

‘Mshanga’

A powerful series of works was born out of her time spent in Gorée island in Senegal where she came across a text that explained how pregnant slaves were punished. “They were given 29 lashes but before they were whipped the slave owners would dig a hole for them to rest their pregnant bellies in. So whilst they were delivering their punishment, they were also protecting future slave power. This stood out for me. The 29 lashes is not really a ritual but I see it as an adapted ritual, because it was an everyday reality for these woman,” Chachage explained in an interview with Urban Africans. This, along with the experiences of her mother and grandmother, inspired the idea to explore 29 ways women can use different females rituals rooted in Africa to survive and subvert power in patriarchal societies.

Mshanga produced in 2012 is an example of this work. Delving into the nuances in gender, generation and poverty, it tells the story of her great grandmother Orupa Mchikirwa. As a woman who had to look after many children and grandchildren, she would often sacrifice her own food, leaving her feeling hungry. To avoid being consumed by her hunger she would tightly wrap a cloth called ‘Mshanga’ around her, squeezing her stomach.

“…the stomach, for our bodies, is the centre of equilibrium, and normally loosens up when we are hungry. So, in order to retain strength (when hungry), it helps to have it tightly and securely tied. Traditionally, in Tanzania, women tie ‘Mshanga’ (as ritual) around their tummies when they are bereaved. And, historically, in some traditional African societies, the rite of passage from boyhood to manhood, involves a ritual that simulates warfare. Boys enter into the forest through a gate, expected to return through the same gate as men carrying with them ‘the secrets of the forest’ in which one of them is sacrificed. In the meantime, every woman with a son in the forest has to tie a ‘Mshanga’ around their bellies, hoping her son ‘returns’. If their sons return home safe, they will have a celebration with singing and cheering whereby the ‘Mshanga’ is untied. If the forest ‘swallows’ her son, the ‘Mshanga’ continues to prop the mother’s tummy as it helps the forest maintain the silence.”

This explanation of her work from her website connects the series to her exploration of rituals for survival and subversion used by women. It also highlights the significance of the mshanga being the cloth used by her great grandmother, carrying with it a heaviness as a sign of suffering.

Chachage’s work PART III: NANKONDO (2017) created in collaboration with her mother, who provides textual responses to her visuals, speaks to her interest in intergenerational conversations, as well as looking at sexuality and gender. “In this work, we explore African spirituality, following a story of my great grandmother, Nankondo, whose mother disappeared a long time ago, and she is believed to have been captured and taken into slavery. The religious fanatics in her village believed that she is to blame for her own capture, her being a woman of ‘low morals’ due to the fact that she used to sell beer to men until late hours,” Chachage explains in her artist statement. The work existed as an installation, a shrine created for Nankondo, made up of a video taken during a prayer session, as well as a projection of a letter written by Chachage’s mother on to a bath filled with water, surrounded by candles. “The work as a whole tries to make sense of the self-loath and spiritual abyss as displayed by modern day religion.”

Chachage’s choice to explore 29 different rituals performed by women is a subversion of its reference, speaking to the resilience that women embody, making their stories prominent narratives in history (herstory).

Check out Chachage’s website as well as her Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to keep up with her work.

16 May 2018