Bubblegum Club

Tag: identity

  • Mimi Cherono Ng’ok // a longing for home

    Mimi Cherono Ng’ok // a longing for home

    Kenyan artist Mimi Cherono Ng’ok creates images containing grainy nostalgia. Presented to the viewer like fragments of a dream or memory, they draw you back to your own past, poking at your own glimpses of people and places that remind you of home.

    Describing her practice as a kind of “emotional cartography”, her work carefully balances feelings and experiences of liminal existence. As someone who travels often, this connects to her own experience – being in between places and states of being. Her work documents this feeling of never quite having her feet firmly planted on the ground, a feeling of always being afloat. This sense of anxiety or uprooted feeling that comes from being in flux is present in her images, with her lens taking on the role of a vehicle for memory and simultaneously acting as a device through which to enact the part of an onlooker of her depicted scenes.

    Cherono Ng’ok was born in Nairobi, but moved to Cape Town to study photography at UCT. It was here where she put together her first major bodies of work, and where she first began to unpack some of the themes that remain constant in her work. These include ideas of home, identity, and loss.

    Her images of nature with tropical scenery, displaying palm leaves on the ground and characters on the beach, speak to these themes. Her beautiful inclusion of warmer colours through red and orange hues in conjunction with the colder colours of the beach, imitates a desire for feeling grounded, while fallen leaves and water connect to fluidity and movement; never quite being settled. She becomes present in these images when the viewer is aware of her position as an observer with her lens, heightening a sense of isolation or distance. There it is, the longing for home.

  • Discwoman South African Tour: Technofeminism, UMFANG + SHYBOI

    Discwoman South African Tour: Technofeminism, UMFANG + SHYBOI

    Championing diversity in the electro music industry, the femme-focused Not Sorry Club awards special dedication to building a more inclusive rave community by bringing UMFANG and SHYBOI, two of Discwoman’s finest artists, to South African shores for events in both Cape Town and Joburg towards the end of September.

    Founded by Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson,Emma Burgess-Olson aka UMFANG, and Christine McCharen-Tran, Discwoman was initially conceptualized as a two-day festival in Brooklyn with an all-woman line-up back in 2014. The New York-based collective has since expanded into a booking agency and platform that showcases the wealth of female-identifying DJ talent on the rave and hybrid club music scene. They have gone on to produce and curate events in 15+ cities globally — packing heat with over 250 DJs and producers to-date.

    Discwoman co-founder UMFANG holds a monthly residency called Technofeminism at Bossa Nova Civic Club focusing on emerging talent. Her sets serve up a pulse-electrifying cocktail of icy techno and abstract rave through amorphous polyrhythmic productions, playing with people’s expectations of how a techno set can be defined. UMFANG’s is on a mission to evoke something inside of you in her most recent offering, Symbolic Use of Light, which boasts a sound that leans more on the harder side of techno and was released on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint.

    Known for causing sonic disruption from a creative position between Caribbean and American culture, multidisciplinary artist SHYBOI uses sound to interrogate ideas of identity, power, and history. She is a former member of the queer artist collective #KUNQ whose ethos is centred on the production of multidimensional work through sound, visual and performance art while expanding the discourse surrounding the subcultures and genres that have become diluted or obscured in the name of hybridity. In addition to this, SHYBOI has three Boiler Room sets under her ever-widening belt.

    As the collective’s ethos goes: “Amplify each other”, in consonance with Discwoman’s endeavour to highlight female and non-binary artists through their Technofeminism movement, workshops will be hosted in each city in collaboration with shesaid.so South Africa and will include interactive couch sessions as well as inclusive cognitive enlightenment.

    Keep your eyes on Not Sorry Club’s social pages for the local line-up announcement and more details on the event.

  • Sabelo Mlangeni’s ‘Umlindelo wamaKholwa’ // exploring faith and friendship

    Sabelo Mlangeni’s ‘Umlindelo wamaKholwa’ // exploring faith and friendship

    The exhibition Umlindelo wamaKholwa features the work of multiple prize-winning and internationally exhibited Johannesburg-based photographer Sabelo Mlangeni. The exhibition is a collaboration between Mlangeni and Dr Joel Cabrita, a historian based at the University of Cambridge, and is accompanied by a 128 page catalogue. Having shown at Cambridge, the exhibition is at WAM, curated by Kabelo Malatsie. I interviewed Mlangeni to find out more about his collaboration with Cabrita and the images selected for the show.

    Could you please share more about the cover for the catalogue and the symbol that appears on it?

    For a long time I’ve been interested in the other world that we access through the visions of healers, prophetesses and prophets. Some years ago a vision came to me through them about a great ancestral spirit that had something like a ‘gift’ for me. But whenever the spirit was ready to give it to me, it found me not in the right ‘place’. So the symbol on the cover of the catalogue is that gift. We also find this symbol in the entrance to the exhibition space at WAM, presented as part of iLadi (a Zionist altar cloth). This iLadi was erected as my own personal response to this vision.

    The title of the exhibition and your own spiritual awakening are tied together. The people and the spaces you photograph are also well known to you. Please unpack the importance of the insider perspective you present, particularly for subject matter that has often been explored and represented by people from the outside?

    Many of my bodies of work are produced through long periods of spending time with people. For example, in my work Country Girls as well as Men Only I built up really close relationships of trust, for example, living in the all-mens’ hostel of George Goch for stretches of time. And when makingCountry Girls I spent a lot of time in the town of Ermelo where many of the pictures were taken. When I would visit Ermelo for the weekend I would stay with the same people I was taking photographs of.  And with UmlindelowamaKholwa, it was a very similar process. This body of work presents the intimacy that comes through a long process of building up trust with people. And an example of this kind of intimate moment is seen in photographs like Nhlapho, Mama Thebu, Mama Ndlovu, SweetmamaKwamabundu, Fernie (2009).

    Some of the photographs appear to be candid shots, while others capture posed moments. Please unpack your decisions around these choices while photographing, and how you combined these in the image selection for the show?

    There are many images where you get a direct and close access to the face of the person I’m photographing. And these are important in giving people a strong sense of identity, and they are the moment when the people I’m photographing engage with me directly. But there are other moment when people forget that the photographer is there, and that you’re part of them, moving among them. These are the moments when the photographer becomes invisible, you’re no longer this guy with the camera. They know that you’re there, but they’re not worried about the camera.

    Viewers become aware of the camera through effects that blot out faces, etc. Why do you think it was important for you to include such images? And how do they connect to the overall vision for the show?

    Many of these images weren’t deliberate, they happened by accident. I was processing in the darkroom and sometimes at the end of the process, you find you have that kind of image where the heads or faces aren’t visible like In Time. A Morning After Umlindelo and UmlindelowamaKholwa. Initially I overlooked these images, and didn’t include them in the body of work. But over time as I thought and questioned the meaning of this body of work, I felt that these photographs fitted into my whole way of thinking about the work. So the importance of them is that I didn’t choose them in an instant. And then at a later time I brought them in because I felt they spoke to these personal questions that I have, thinking around identity and loss of identity in the church.

    How did you and Joel Cabrita come to find out about each other’s work? And how did the idea for this collaboration come to be?

    In fact, Joel found out about me first, she’d known my work for a while (particularly my series Country Girls) and asked if we could meet. Her work focuses on the history of Zionism in South Africa and she was interested in collaborating with a photographer working on the same topic, but from their own different perspective. We had a coffee in Joburg and chatted, and she found out that I was also myself a Zionist, which she found very interesting, and also that I was from Driefontein, which was a very important place in the early history of Zionism in South Africa. She then sent me an article of some of her research on Zionism, which I found very important and interesting, and made me think about how a collaboration could emerge. When we grow up in Christian families, as I did, often we don’t question things. Going into the history of our church is something we hardly do. So the history that I knew of the Zion church didn’t go that deep, and I really found it important to hear more about this from Joel.

    How has Kabelo Malatsie’s curatorial input added to the original presentation of the show which was seen in Cambridge?

    I feel that there wasn’t really an ‘original’ presentation of the show in Cambridge and a ‘second’ one in Joburg, but rather that there have been two very different expressions of this body of work in two different places. Any show exhibited in a new space will be a very different exhibition. In Cambridge, the space where we showed the work was much smaller and it was in the context of a museum filled with ethnographic objects from around the world, including South Africa. So I felt there was this strong need for my images to really take up space and assert themselves. I didn’t want the images to die in that space. I wanted them to have a strong presence. And even at that stage, Kabelo was someone I spoke to a lot about the work. She was one of the first people to see this work when I started engaging with this topic, and really she has been involved in the process from the beginning. In fact, our long-term working relationship goes beyond this project, and beyond this body of work. Our discussions over a long period of time have impacted my ideas.

    Why did you feel the need to rename the exhibition when bringing it to WAM?

    The title of this exhibition is something that I’ve thought about and questioned over a long period of time. Initially it was going to be called ‘Born Again’, and then ‘Amakholwa’, and then ‘Kholwa’ (which it was in Cambridge), and finally ‘UmlindelowamaKholwa’, as it is in WAM. Bringing this work home to South Africa I felt I needed to emphasize the importance of landscape in the South African countryside (something which many of the images portray). And when I think about land, then I also think about the process of waiting for land, and the way in which many South Africans are still waiting for the land to return to them. So ukulinda, or umlindelo, are very important ideas here. And umlindelo, or the night vigil, is one of the most important moments for Zionist communities. During this process of waiting together throughout the night and praying together we find that new relationships and new families are created. It’s a time when community is forged through the experience of waiting together.

    Why do you think that WAM offers the best space for this project to be presented?

    It really fits because the work has moved from a university museum in Cambridge (The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) to a university museum in Johannesburg, at WAM. I find universities to be spaces of critical thinking and questioning, so it felt right to have this kind of work exhibited here. And Joel is an academic and works at a university, so it was quite natural for us to build contacts and get to know people here.

    The exhibition will be at WAM until 28 October 2018.

  • WYAA // Providing Platforms for the Emergence of Young Artists

    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
  • Examining Byron Fredericks’ dynamic and relevant paintings

    Examining Byron Fredericks’ dynamic and relevant paintings

    Earlier this year Byron Fredericks presented his second solo exhibition; ‘Dala what you must’, at 666 Broadway in Brooklyn, New York. Dala is a relatively new South African slang word meaning “to do” or “do”— more appropriately applied as “you do you”.

    Based on the title, the show takes on two meanings; the call for one to take action deriving from a decision, mood or attitude and simultaneously references the idea of directness, as in “don’t beat around the bush”.

    Byron Fredericks is a Cape Town-born visual artist who earned his BFA from The Pratt Institute in New York, where he is currently based. His practice sees him using colour and mark-making to investigate ideas around identity and socio-political issues. Drawing on his own experiences as a “coloured” man growing up in South Africa he interweaves the Cape Coloured dialect into his work.

    Fredericks’ work pushes past the traditional borders of painting — actively ripping apart the partition between painting and drawing while inserting text to drive the point home. The works take on the character of hushed activism; activism that is subdued and requires engagement and questioning from the viewer.

    The surface of Fredericks’ work does not instantaneously reflect the complexity that lies beneath it. His work moves away from the literal, figurative style as a representation of the political. Flat planes of colour, very simple text and their inter-relationships are favoured over expressive and formalist approaches. He reveals his thoughts by engaging with materials and exploring their properties, and yet remains unbound by these materials. For an international audience, his work is an intriguing gateway through which to engage with political and socio-political narratives within a South African context. Titles such as ‘Gesuip‘, ‘Gympie‘, ‘Jika Zuma‘ and ‘Aikona, Buti‘ can be more effortlessly understood by a South African audience.

    Fredericks covers large areas of the canvas with paint and sometimes uses none at all; as with Tall Rich White Dudes (2017) and Die Voice (2018). His paintings are dynamic and versatile, with a wide range of textures and densities. Densities in this sense refer to his layering technique that establishes both a foreground and background to his work. He attributes this to his “loose painting and aggressive mark-making technique composed with texture in mind”. Fredericks is carving out a new visual language for himself. “It’s funny you say that because it’s been my way of proactively figuring out my visual language, which will be even more refined in this new series I’m working on,” he adds.

    Through his work, Fredericks is leaving marks and moments of himself everywhere. This positions his own story relative to colour. The surface is buttery and smooth and blends onto the canvas — pinks, blues, blacks and whites are embraced equally. His work succeeds in achieving aesthetic value while arousing our curiosities and challenging our perceptions. What seems fundamentally uncomplicated at first glance, becomes extremely multifaceted.

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

    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.

  • Delphine Diallo’s ‘Women of New York’ – empowering women

    Delphine Diallo’s ‘Women of New York’ – empowering women

    Delphine Diallo, currently based in Brooklyn, New York, is a French Senegalese photographer and visual artist. Completing her studies at the Académie Charpentier School of Visual Art in Paris she worked in the music industry as a graphic designer, special effect motion artist and video editor before moving to New York to explore her own practice.

    Combining her artistry with activism Delphine momentums various possibilities for the empowerment of women, cultural minorities and youth forward. The mediums in which she practices include both analogue and digital photography, illustration and collage, virtual reality and 3D printing.

    Her arresting imagery acts to challenge societal norms and champion women with mythological, anthropological, sexuality, identity and race explorations.

    Delphine’s project Women of New York makes use of classic portraiture to create visibility. For this project, she photographed women and girls of New York which was compiled into a book format and featured 111 females (a symbol of oneness).

    For this project, the artist used the method of blind casting via Instagram posts and having her assistant handle the model calls in order to rule out discrimination and limiting women and girls who want to participate from forming a part of the project.

    “I feel like if I select women, then I’m discriminating against other women who want to participate. I’m not going to do that. So, my assistant handles the model calls I post on Instagram, and 30 women might reply, and because they’ve expressed interest, they are part of this project.

    I want to give each woman who has felt defeated, unprotected, ignored or degraded, a new light to shine on her brilliance and beauty. And, for the women who have always felt empowered, despite society dismissing her in the workplace, educational institutions, media outlets, and even in her home, I want Women of New York to illuminate her strength in ways she may never have imagined.” she expressed in an interview with 99u.

    Delphine’s images are strong and show these women and girls in a confident, powerful light. Her project has created visibility and a face that speaks to what it means to be a female in New York today. Her work holds power in that it celebrates beauty and is a clear indication that womanhood cannot be seen as an embodiment of one way of being.

  • The starry-eyed fashion depictions of photographer Annie Lai

    The starry-eyed fashion depictions of photographer Annie Lai

    Soft romantic lighting. Colours saturated. Models often captured as if in deep contemplation. Images that display as a fictitious 70s idealism. Near shadow-less representations. A warm arresting memory made clear.

    Annie Lai is a London based photographer best known for her romantically styled editorials for independent, cult magazines such as Teeth, OE and Sicky. Having grown up in a small costal town in China, Annie decided to move to London to study fashion photography at the London Collage of Fashion.

    Annie’s photography has developed to show a clear signature. Whether she photographs her models on location (both inside and outside) or in studio, one is able to identify her creative input in an image effortlessly. An element that makes up her style is the use of very natural and soft lighting choices – when employing coloured filters or gels she uses it as a highlight to merely kiss her model’s features. Another element is models sharing similar features that aid in building this signature style as well as fashion that remains within the same style through various bodies of work. The last elements that builds the foundation of her style are that of shooting frequently from high or low angles as well as abidance by the rule of thirds.

    Annie’s work presents as clean, untampered with and natural romantic fashion depictions that climb straight into your heart.

    As her practice and lived experience in London has grown she has become a cultural traveller effortlessly navigating between the contexts and cultures that form her identity. While Annie currently resides in London and travels to China she has found where her heart lies – behind her lens.

  • Artist Modupeola Fadugba on chance, human agency and conquering fears

    Artist Modupeola Fadugba on chance, human agency and conquering fears

    Modupeola Fadugba, born in Togo and now based in Nigeria, is an artist who made a 180 degree turn from her studies in engineering, economics and education. However, these have not left been left behind, with elements of economics and education sprinkled on the conceptual foundations of certain artworks. Fadugba focuses on identity, women’s empowerment and social justice within the sociopolitical milieu of Nigeria. Paint, drawing, burnt paper and installations are the mediums through which she creates her socially engaging work.

    Her 2016-2017 series Synchronized Swimmers takes its point of departure from an intimate and innocent memory she had as a child growing up in Lome. This memory was her fear of the sea, its vastness was too daunting and confusing to comprehend. The pools she was exposed to when she moved to the US for a while were less frightening, but her fear of the water remained until faced with compulsory lap-swimming classes at boarding school in England, aged eleven. Her first long drawn lap left her with a sense of accomplishment, and made her realize the water could be conquered. 20 years later in Nigeria she found herself facing another water-related fear, diving. With encouragement from her brother she leapt into the water from the diving board. While these may seem silly, they acted as forms of encouragement for her art, having decided to delve into the art world full time. Fadugba’s ‘pool’ works fall into two series of painting, Tagged (2015-2016) and Synchronized Swimmers (ongoing). Tagged sees a group of young women moving under and over the water in pursuit of a red ball. Synchronized Swimmers on the other hand sees young women clustering their bodies and hands together to lift one another into the sky. The red ball still makes an appearance, but the figures do not pay attention to it. Fadugba’s combination of acrylic, oil and burnt paper give the paintings a mysterious and confusing atmosphere, and yet the figures make the work visually appealing.

    ‘Synchronized Swimmers’

    A second collection of work titled Heads or Tails (2014-2017) sees Fadugba unpack the Latin motto that appears on the American dollar bill – Annuit cœptis.In her artists statement she explains that “the US Mint translates Annuit cœptis as ‘He [God] has favoured our undertakings,’ and the United States’ official motto—’In God We Trust’—emblazoned across the centre of the bill leaves no doubt as to God’s supreme presence. Yet the original Latin could be more accurately translated as ‘our undertakings have been favoured’; there is no direct mention of God, no certainty as to who is bestowing the favour.” With this interpretation Fadugba questions the certainty of who does the watching over, and who receives the favour. Heads or Tails looks at the themes of chance and value and how they determine the course of people’s lives. The series consists of paper painted coins of various sizes, with the faces of Black women appearing on them. These paintings appear on burnt paper. The coins and combined with the title point to the idea of the coin toss, a recurring theme in Fadugba’s work, signaling her preoccupation with luck and human agency.

    Her artist statements and explanations of her work channel the creative writing spirits of Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with their poetic and relatable nature.

    To check out more of Fadugba’s work visit her website.

    ‘Heads or Tails’
    ‘Heads or Tails’
    ‘Synchronized Swimmers’
  • MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A – a documentary about the story behind the star

    MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A – a documentary about the story behind the star

    The documentary MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A was collated from footage taken by Maya Arulpragasm and her closet friends over the past 22 years, documenting her life from an immigrant in London to international stardom. Working with her former art school friend Steve Loveridge to produce the documentary, it gives raw insight into the struggles and joys that culminate into the persona we know as M.I.A. It offers a door into Maya’s thinking about topics related to politics, art, identity and the relationship between these.

    Having fled from the Sri Lankan civil war, Maya travelled first to India and finally settled in the UK with her family, specifically a housing estate in southwest London. This journey, her experiences as an immigrant and refugee living in London make up an important part of how she constructed her identity, as well as influenced her approach to music and performance.

    Viewers will also see how pop and hip hop music filtered into her life, offering a sense of feeling grounded while growing up.

    The documentary presents multiple paces and tones. Moments of pause combined with heightened moments of discomfort, sensitivity, vulnerability and bliss. The viewer is invited into a time capsule to experience the building up of M.I.A as a musician and public figure. However, the most prominent aspects of the documentary share the intimate and delicate details of Maya’s discovery of her personal identity and heritage from her point of view, and the point of view of those closest to her.

    “M.I.A. can read sometimes as a project…but actually when you really step back from it, like the film does, I think there is a logic to it, and a sort of consistency in her vision, all the way through, from a long time before she became a musician, just a quest to represent and nail down her identity, and own the positives and negatives about who she was.” – Steve Loveridge.

    The film will be shown as part of the 20th Encounters South African International Documentary Festival taking place from 31 May – 10 June 2018 in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

  • Multimedia artist Rehema Chachage on rituals of survival and subversion

    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.

  • Puppy – Demons of the New School

    Puppy – Demons of the New School

    The critical consensus on guitar rock in thelate-90s is that sensitive indie bands were overshadowed by bombastic nu-metal. Music writers love the idea that the slack jawed masses were too busy headbanging to appreciate sophisticated slackers like Built to Spill or Elliot Smith.

    But since 2013, the infectious British rock group Puppy has gleefully subverted this narrative by bridging these supposedly disparate influences. Will Michael (bass/vocals), Billy Howard (drums) and Jock Norton (singer/guitarist) combine the heavy riffs of classic Deftones and Korn with the indie pop of Grandaddy and Teenage Fanclub. This inspired concept forms the basis for their two EP’s Vol I (2015) and Vol II (2016). Puppy’s increasingly heavy work fuses a metal sense of menace with melodious verve and Jock’s strikingly high and clear vocals.

    Billy and Jock have been in the rock trenches together since they were school kids in North London. Via email, Billy discussed the harrowing story of being sent home from school for wearing the f-bomb strewn lyrics of Soulfly’s ‘Jumpdafuckup’ on a t-shirt. He even told me that he was wearing some vintage Deftones gear while replying to my questions. We also discussed  the ultimate fictional representation of a 1990s metal head, the hapless AJ Soprano- “There was a golden age in The Sopranos when AJ’s a young, angsty spotty skater and pretty much everything he says or wears is amazing. I’m pretty sure he has a burgundy Slipknot windbreaker with a barcode on the back. I always wanted one but could never find it. AJ Soprano is, for better or for worse, a definite inspiration on the band!”

    The band is itself quickly making a name for their image with Billy, an accomplished visual artist, directing a string of winningly odd music videos. Keeping things in-house means the videos “are a really important part of our identity and aesthetic, rather than just a means of promoting a specific song”. My personal favorite is the horror themed ‘Beast’, which does a great update on the old metal music video tropes of hooded cultists and evil fog.

    Their most ambitious work to date is ‘Demons‘. “It’s a song about confronting your problems and trying to embrace them somehow. We wanted to work around the aesthetics of various cults, pseudo-sciences and quasi-religions that literally try and sell you an answer to your problems in the pursuit of happiness or whatever”. Further inspiration was found in cultural precedents like Leonard Cohen’s time in a Buddhist monastery and “Beck’s veiled explorations of his own Scientology”.

    Hilariously, they circulated the story that they had joined the totally made up Grand Order of Ascension and Transcendence in a bid to become more successful.

    “In the build up to the video’s release we started making cultish memes and sharing them along with abstract, nonsensical bits of text about our new found faith and love for the Ascended Master! In hindsight though we maybe went a little overboard with it. We got a lot of worried messages from family and friends asking if we were ok. I think some people thought we’d gone fully Children of God. Whilst maybe it wasn’t the cleverest career move, it was definitely fun”.

    Puppy is currently finishing up their debut album for release later this year. Things are poised to get even bigger for them as “last year we signed with Spinefarm Records, which was super exciting for us as they look after some of our favourite bands, like Ghost BC, Electric Wizard and weirdly enough, Korn”. And like their influences, Puppy have the theatricality and songwriting to become cult heroes in their own right.