Bubblegum Club

Tag: Julie Nxadi

  • In Light of What We Write // A multisensory literary experience

    In Light of What We Write // A multisensory literary experience

    Hosted at YoungBloodAfrica‘s Beatiful Life Building, one of Cape Town’s cultural and artist hubs, the literary event In Light of What We Write pushed the parameters of how engagement with literature can be framed and presented. With a clear understanding of who they were creating this event for – “urban 18-35 year old audience and arts professionals” – the event organisers were able to execute the idea by making it accessible both in terms of form and content.

    Poet, writer and arts project manager Linda Kaoma along with poet and co-founder of literary collective Neu! Reekie! Michael Pedersen, in partnership with British Council Connect ZA, co-curated the event. It was a showcase for “unique, experimental and experiential content” with the aim of illustrating the “accessibility of literature.”

    I interviewed Linda to find out more about the event and their aim for accessibility.

    You curated this project with Michael Pederson. Could you please share more about the two of you?

    Michael and I have a long history of being associated with projects that are disrupting the literary scene in one way or the other. He is the co-founder of Neu! Reekie!; a collective that dismantles the structures and snobberies dividing high and low art, amongst an endless list of endeavors. I’ve travelled the continent recording and archiving poets, as well as managing and curating events such as the Badilisha Poetry Pop Up Shop. So, when it came to working on this event we had a lot of synergy, and any differences in opinion were easily solved. Michael only arriving a few days before the event was less challenging than I anticipated, we had a series of Skype calls, wrote endless emails to each other and relied heavily on Facebook Messenger to have quick check-ins.

    You chose writers and poets who are quite well-known in the SA and UK literary space. How did you decide who will be a part of this project?

    The objective was to present the event through and incorporating multidisciplinary art form and multi-media. The first thing we did was sort out artists who were multi-disciplined, such as Lidudumalingani,  who is both a writer and photographer. We also wanted to include people whose writing was explorative and cross-genre, like SindiswaBusuku-Mathese. Her book “Loud and Yellow Laughter” includes poetry, prose, diary entries, photographs, and I found this combination made her work accessible and easy to decipher and digest. We included Hollie McNish because not only is she a brilliant poet, she has a ton of video content that we could use as part of the event. Each artist we chose fit the scope and rhythm of ‘In Light of What We Write’.

    The event was described as a “showcase unique, experimental and experiential content to illustrate the accessibility of literature”. Could you please unpack this for our readers?

    We wanted to present literary work in ways that are somewhat rare in the literary scene, and we wanted a sensory-engaging and emotionally-challenging experience for the 18-35-year-old audience. We included a video featuring a poetic interview between Koleka Putuma and I; Koleka answered my question with only excerpts from her poems and from other people’s work. Kayus Bankole used his body in a dance piece in moving poetic ways. Genna Gardini’s poem “Nipple Hair” made us laugh hysterically, whereas my poem “#blackgirldepressed” was melancholic for some. We experimented with lights during some performance, we had musicians, we included Braille for some of the exhibited work, and we asked our audiences to participate at the #whatyouwrite station. We really pushed ourselves as far out the literary box as time and budget allowed us to for‘In Light of What We Write’.

    The event was made up of an exhibition and performances. What was included in the exhibition?

    The exhibition consisted of a variety of work. Lidudumalingani showcased his photography alongside excerpts from one of his short stories. I worked with a graphic designer and visual artist who visually interpreted my poems. Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese exhibited some work from her collection that was accompanied by Braille. John Bryden from Eyes of Other exhibited some of his photography. The exhibition also featured a variety of video instillations.

    The other writers and performers who were part of the event included Allison-Claire Hoskins and Julie Nxadi from South Africa, and Hollie McNish from the UK.

  • In Bloom // Not just another white cube exhibition

    In Bloom is Ja.’s first exhibition held at the KZNSA Gallery. The exhibition features 11 South African artists but what differentiates it from the traditional exhibition is that each featured artist’s work received a personalized backdrop. I spoke to the curators for the exhibition, Niamh Walsh-Vorster, Youlendree Appasamy and Dave Mann to find out more about the featured artists, their curatorial strategy for the exhibition as well as the work on display

    The team tells me that the exhibition came about after their launch of their free studio and workshop space within The Green Camp Gallery. After this launch, they joked about doing an exhibition that became a serious goal for them and was met with the generous sharing of space and resources provided by the KZNSA gallery. They continue to tell me that they decided to pursue the idea to have their first exhibition, as they wanted to move from an URL space to an irl space.

    Expressing that there is no overarching concept for the exhibition the team explains that the works featured celebrate a variety of art forms such as poetry, short stories, paintings, illustrations, films, photography, and graffiti. Having read the artists’ statements, however, I feel like there is a definite link to artists creating work that speak about topics such as sexism, identity as well as mental health.

    ‘Fantasma’ by Hannah Shone

    This is illustrated for example when looking at the artist’s statement by Nosipho Nxele where she explains her work ‘Shared Greatness’ as follows, “The greatest threat to women and by extension humanity is the growth and acceptance of male chauvinistic, illiberal and brutal culture of hawkishness. This system then requires that women raise up their voices to empower themselves and those without any voice to fight against society’s systems that belittle women. Meaning we are greater together than apart. My inspiration [for the piece] was drawn from the great saying of Pakistani activist for female education, Malala Yousafzai: ‘I raise up my voice – not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot succeed when half of us are held back’. The illustration embodies the spirit and passion of Mahala.” This statement speaks not only of sexism but feminine identity as well as solidarity among women.

    The team tell me that the title of the exhibition ‘In Bloom’ was chosen as the artists’ work in the exhibition represents an exploration and engagement with one’s identity. “Coming into bloom is a difficult act but the bloom itself is a beautiful thing. Even though some of the work unpacks uncomfortable themes it’s through the experiences of young artists who are finding imaginative ways of expression.” The title is also a reflection of the opening during spring, a time that flowers are in bloom.

    Artists for the exhibition were selected by medium and geographic region as an attempt to showcase work that was as far reaching as possible by means of concept and geographical location of the artists.

    ‘Blazers’ by Shalom Mushwana

    When asked about the curatorial strategy that was followed for this exhibition they explain that the exhibition features both written and visual work and expresses that finding a way to situate literature within a conventionally visual space was a fun challenge for them. They continue to explain that written works were incorporated in the form of postcards, small zines, a poem draped down a stairway entrance of the Mezzanine and film-based work created by the guest visual editor, Mandisa Buthelezi.

    Focussing on various points of entry and layouts for visual works they experimented with placement for the works that fell under this category. With the help of graffiti artist, Kev Sevin backdrops were painted for each artist’s work allowing them to come into their own as distinct clusters the team expresses. This strategy alone lends a different element to the ‘In Bloom’ exhibition and aids in tying the work rather seamlessly.

    The team express their hopes for ‘In Bloom’ as follows, “We hope that it contributes to the careers of the artists involved, as well as inspires more artists to create new work. And also, to show that it’s possible to pull off an exhibition on a shoestring budget that’s successful and engaging without the usual white cube nonsense.”

    ‘In Bloom’ opened on the 26 September ran up until the 15 October in the Mezzanine space at the KZNSA gallery in Durban. Featured artists included Robyn Perros, Hannah Shone, Nosipho Nxele, Shalom Mushwana, Dani O’Neill, Andy Mkosi, Maya Surya Pillay, Werner Goss-Ross, Kev Sevin and Julie Nxadi with a visual adaptation of ‘This is Not a Sad Story’.

    ‘Rat Dog’ and ‘Existential Zebra’ by Werner Goss-Ross

  • Julie Nxadi // Stories as sonic and visual interruptions

    “My relationship with writing is in its infancy compared to my relationship with storytelling,” explains Julie Nxadi. She has always taken the value of a story seriously, whether it be communicated via music, film, photographs, performance art, or politics. For her writing is simply one medium with which to tell stories. “It’s a medium that I have been fiddling with for a while, but it has never been the medium itself that is important to me, it is the story that is being told,” Julie continues. I interviewed Julie to find out how she has nurtured her writing and her creative process when writing her short story ‘Love Back’.

    How do you like to describe your writing style?

    Audio-visual. I hear and see things before I write them down. The stories often come as sonic and visual interruptions. I hear a sound over and over again or I see something, a girl, a bench, a bucket of water and I have to wander after it in the form of a story. Sometimes it is easy to vomit out, other times it takes a lot of patience from me (and thus my supervisor). But I think that when people do read what I have written it gets stored in their memories as sound and sight more so than words. I try to make sure that I stay as true as possible to those audio-visual interruptions from whence the stories come .

    Who/what inspires your writing? What are some of your favourite genres?

    I don’t believe in genre. A good story is tragic, funny, romantic, uncomfortable, good, bad, everything, and nothing at all. Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, K. Sello Duiker, and Bessie Head are writers who made me understand the politics of storytelling. The politics of being honest in one’s writing.

    Following on from this, how to these writers and genres feed into how you think about your own work?

    Well, they help me to be patient and calm about my storytelling. But also, they help me to be brave. Telling a story that nobody asked to hear is a pretty scary process. Telling it your own way is terrifying as well. There is this strange balance one has to strike whereby you are not precious about your work, but at the same time you need to be able to stand up for it. I write black as fuck stories. I don’t need white characters in my stories for my characters to read as nuanced and deserving of anybody’s attention, Toni Morrison taught me that. I write in English and my characters speak isiXhosa, so their dialogue is in isiXhosa and that comes with no apologies and shame, just like my English narration comes with no apologies or shame because I am a product of THIS South Africa and I would rather hold that conflict than hide it, Bessie Head and Duiker taught me that. So you have to be brave, you have to be able to just say “yeah, this is important” and all these writers that I have mentioned have given me the strength to say “look, I’ve done the research, I’ve crunched the proverbial numbers and I can say that this is important.”

    Share where the story of ‘Love Back’ came from? How did you develop this short piece?

    Well, like I said the stories often come as sonic or visual interruptions. ‘Love Back’ was no different. I kept seeing this little girl in a white dress stomping her way home. Eventually I had to ask myself where she was coming from and where she was going. I realised that this little girl was just dealing with something that’s all too common, heartbreak. The incident itself was not important on its own, rather what became as important to me was the banality of abstract violence in our communities and how we are (from a very young age) expected to instinctively know our own unimportance. The refrain “if you are not bleeding you are not hurt” is really just a chant we say on our slow march to social death, because what are we asking when we suggest that “there are worse things” to a child whose heart is aching? Are we not asking that this child know what is worse, either via imagination or experience? Are we not insisting that their only currency is their flesh? In this story you have a little girl who has to find where her broken heart fits in the hierarchy of problems that her family might be facing, and she has to bury her broken heart there on that rung where it fits (the privileged fantasy of the objective reader would be that she might one day return to the site where she buried her heart and attempt to heal, but we know that that is not a reality for an overwhelming majority of people). So, in the meantime, we watch uLoli decide on childhood. That is a very grown up thing to do at 9 years old; to decide on childhood. To bury. To suppress. To create distance and time between oneself and what horror they may have experienced moments ago. But at the same time, who is better equipped than someone who is eloquent in the language of imagination? A child. Who is better equipped than one who can make the rain stop with a single glance, one who still has a sibling like relationship with the elements? As magical as all of that is, it is also incredibly unfair. I mean, we often forget that there is labour involved in making magic. And that is something that I try to discuss with my writing; just how much we ask of the most vulnerable amongst us and within us.

    ‘Love Back’ takes the form of a poem in the way that it is laid out. Would you like to share something about the decision to do this?

    The form has more to do with pacing and spacing than anything else. Michael Ondaatjie was suggested to me by my supervisor as a means of inspiration for this and he did exactly that. It’s amazing how a word appearing somewhere you may not have expected it to has the ability to slow one’s reading down or speed it up. But there is also something about the spacing of the phrases that helps one to imagine the village and uLoli’s own feelings walking through it; clustered at times and isolated at others.

    In the story you personify the wind which is quite interesting. Could you please share more about this?

    It is less an act of personifying the elements and more an honest depiction of how my own family and a lot of families I know speak about the elements; as living. When one translates that relationship to English it may strike as curious, but perhaps that is just a reflection on the English language and the particular cultural tones it possesses which render nature and the elements as little more than backdrops that showcase the lives of human beings. I have never understood things that way, I was never taught to. I was taught to listen. I was taught that the rain can cry with you and cleanse you. My only real job now is to remember to listen in the face of English.

    What are you working on at the moment that you would like to share with our readers?

    I am currently working on a collection of short stories as part of my Master’s thesis. Should I be lucky enough to find a publisher, it will make its way out into the world.