Bubblegum Club

Tag: Koleka Putuma

  • 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.

  • Nick Mulgrew on writing, publishing and unearthing literary gems

    Buckle up, we’re getting meta about writing here – this is an article where a writer writes about writing and the reality of being a writer, taking time to reflect on the state of the writing industry within South Africa. In an attempt to engage the issues that young writers, wanting to start their own publishing companies or wanting to self-publish, face, we turned to an individual who has been navigating the terrain for some time now.

    Nick Mulgrew is a writer, and due to feeling that “the publishing industry was failing both writers and readers” he began to initiate projects and form publishing avenues for others like himself. For, “how can I flourish if the publishing industry and our country’s reading culture aren’t?” These projects include Prufrock Magazine, where Nick is now the fiction editor and designer; uHlanga, an award-winning poetry press, where Nick is founder and publisher, and publishing the bestselling collection, ‘Collective Amnesia‘ by Koleka Putuma.

    The result of these endeavours has been to help unearth writers and launch their careers at Prufrock; writers such as Simone Haysom and Lidudumalingani, some of whose first literary work appeared in the magazine. uHlanga has managed to bring poetry into the mainstream again, bringing poetry into places where poetry usually hasn’t been considered of much importance. Koleka’s book, which was named one of City Press’s Books of the Year, was one of the main catalysts for that.

    In terms of managing both a business and a career as a writer, Nick offered some very practical advice, saying, “The secret is being productive, not busy. I divide my working day in two, roughly. In the morning, I work on one project, then I go to gym or have lunch or run my errands or whatever, and in the afternoon and evening I work on another.”

    An already accomplished author, Nick’s own writing has to do with “deconstructing and looking at South Africa’s dysfunctional society, especially in the ways it is riven by racism, sexism, homophobia and so on. That’s not to say my work is always serious in tone. ‘Stations‘ is a book that deals primarily with the everyday ways in which people make negative impacts on their lives and the lives of other people; ‘The First Law of Sadness‘ has to do with larger events: catastrophes, spectacle, grand moments. Some people might say those descriptions sound boring, which they are in contrast to the subjects I write about – like pornography, making biltong out of roadkill, tattoo removal – but those are the underlying mechanics that give life to the entertainment and the emotion.”

    Nick’s passion and commitment to his craft were immediately picked up through our correspondence. He sharpens his craft through practice. I quote: “If you want to get good at rapping, you rap. If you want to get good at painting, you paint. Writing is no different: I hone my writing by writing. I don’t take cues from other writers, but I’m always influenced by my reading.”

    Ending off, Nick had some words of wisdom for local emerging writers; “I wouldn’t say that they should just read, because what you read matters just as much as whether you read. You should read as much local writing as possible, because it’s impossible to make an impact on your literary community if you’re not listening to what artists around you are producing and engaging with.”