Bubblegum Club

Tag: patriarchy

  • AFROPUNK returns to Constitution Hill

    AFROPUNK returns to Constitution Hill

    It is fitting that the first AFROPUNK Festival to be held in South Africa took place on the historically significant Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. The festival, inspired by the documentary ‘Afro-Punk’, which spotlighted black punks in America, was first held in 2005 in New York City’s Brooklyn. Originally aiming to help black people build a community among the white dominated punk subcultures, it has grown to include a wider audience and a broader range of music, yet still highlights alternative black artists.

    With this shift away from pure punk culture towards celebrating blackness in its many forms, the festival has grown. Events are being held in Atlanta, Paris, London, and Johannesburg, with a total of more than 90 000 attendees. Utilising their platform for entertainment as well as change, the mantra of AFROPUNK is: “No Sexism, No Racism, No Ableism, No Ageism, No Homophobia, No Fatphobia, No Transphobia and No Hatefulness”. A free space for black and other bodies that do not fit into the moulds presented by mainstream media.

    Judging by the expressions and attitudes of those who attended South Africa’s first instalment of the festival, it is clear that this approach is highly welcomed in the country. For many this is a cathartic experience, beyond just the amazing music that is on offer from local and international musicians.

    And it is this fact, that the festival both provides a high standard of music along with a safe environment to enjoy it in, that has led to its success. Returning to Constitution Hill, this year’s AFROPUNK line-up is no different, with a strong balance between forward-thinking local and international artists. From the likes of Los Angeles’ future R&B superstars, The Internet and Thundercat. To experimental electronic music from Flying Lotus, who is debuting his 3D show on the African continent for the first time, to the superb dance grooves from producer Kaytranada. The legendary hip hop group Public Enemy and the queen of New Orleans bounce, Big Freedia. The international acts are a highly diverse showcase of black creativity.

    Similarly, the local acts on the line-up have all carved out niches for themselves in South Africa’s competitive music industry. They have stood out as artist that not only make a difference, but sound different. Local hip hop in its many guises is represented by Mozambique’s Azagaia and Cape Town’s YoungstaCPT, and Dope Saint Jude. Each of which are incomparable with their unique take on the art of emceeing.

    Other acts on the line-up include Joburg’s performance duo FAKA with their sound that is familiarly South African, yet utterly futuristic. As well as the sex-positive performer Moonchild Sanelly with her leanings towards Gqom and alternative pop. Joburg’s Thandiswa brings her revolutionary fusion of modern and traditional African sounds, while Nomisupasta brings a unique take on locally inspired music. Rounding off the local acts is Soweto’s BCUC, AKA Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness, with their highly energetic and emotionally charged rhythms.

    Themed THE PEOPLE RESIST, this year’s AFROPUNK is a call to action against racism, patriarchy and any form of hate. With 20 000 people descending on Constitution Hill for the first instalment of AFROPUNK Johannesburg, this year’s event promises to be even better and bring people closer together. Aside from music, the festival also encompasses Bites & Beats, Activism Row and the SPINTHRIFT Market as well as the chance to earn tickets via the Earn a Ticket programme. In the build-up to the event, the Battle of the Bands Joburg competition is held that seeks to unearth new musical talent.

    To buy your ticket click here, and keep your eyes on AFROPUNK’s social pages to find out which other acts are announced and for more details about the event.

  • Future 76 // In dealing with the colonial wound

    Future 76 // In dealing with the colonial wound

    Coloniality describes the hidden process of erasure, devaluation, and disavowing of certain human beings, ways of thinking, ways of living, and of doing in the world – that is, coloniality as a process of inventing identifications – then for identification to be decolonial it needs to be articulated as “des-identification” and “re-identification, which means it is a process of delinking

    This statement by Walter Mignolo during a 2014 interview with Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández describes the pervasive nature of coloniality. Certain parallels can be drawn between the tragic events of June 16th, 1976 and the recent Fallist Movement. These historical moments have enacted  ruptures of resistance. Recognizing moments of erasure is crucial to redefining historical narratives and addressing systemic disparities of power. However, ‘the voice’ of youth is not merely a homogenized entity. Issues of representation require a nuanced and considered approach – allowing passage to spaces that have been previously inaccessible. Within the context of contemporary art in South Africa, opportunities for self-representation and exploration are often scarce.

    It is in response to this, that Bubblegum Club has created an annual micro-residency to cultivate the talent of young artists. A group of four womxn have been selected for this years programme – to participate in a series of workshops, close conversation and ultimately exhibit a new body of work at the end of June. The programme has been conceptually framed around decolonial options – to tentatively consider and critique this notion beyond the buzzword.

    Jemma Rose, a self-identified visual activist and Gemini, uses her camera to capture daily realities. She also uses it as a mutual point of contact –  a device to generate encounters with people. Photographic work is in part a family tradition, it has always had an element of familiarity to it, as both her father and grandfather have engaged with the medium.

    Through her work she often works with themes of queerness and queer identity as well as drawing attention to mental health issues. Jemma notes that there are some performative qualities to her photographic work and usually focuses on using her images to convey a message relevant to her experiences. She is interested in locating herself and her work within a larger context based on her personal subjectivities.

    “I initially thought of ‘decolonisation’ in relation to breaking things down. I’m starting to realize that it’s much more than that. There are so many things behind it that you have to unravel…masculinity, heteronormativity and sexism are also all part of it. You need to slowly start unraveling it so that you can see the bigger picture.”

    This sentiment echoed by Mignolo “Patriarchy and racism are two pillars of Eurocentric knowing, sensing, and believing. These pillars sustain a structure of knowledge.” (2014). Thus through untangling the history of colonization, racisim and the patriarchy must also be addressed.

    Boipelo Khunou is currently in her final year of Fine Arts at Wits. “It’s been an interesting journey trying to find out what this so-called-fine-art-world is – what it means to be making art and making work.” This process can often be dissolusioning, especially once you realise how the elements of capital and nepotism are entertwined in the system.

    As a multi-diciplinary artist, Boipelo focuses her practice on photography, print and digital media. Thematically she works through ideas of personal power. “I use to reflect about the things that I experience. Experience is one of the most important parts of my work.” Through her work she investigates the kinds of spaces it is possible to find and claim power. She describes how oftentimes it’s within the walls of the institution that power is forcibly relinquished and autonomy is lost.

    “I didn’t know anything about decolonization until Fees Must Fall.” During the movement, the concept gained an immense amount of traction. Pedigogical systems and western epistemology within the university and beyond were challenged. “After the protests, so many people I know went through this weird depression because they realized that institutions have so much power, but what does that mean for people who want to dedicate their lives to decolonial practices?.”

    “The interesting thing is to actually see how you can put decolonization into practice. You can do all the readings, go to the talks, go to all these places that advocate for it, but what does it mean to practice it every day? I think that it is a very complex thing, it’s something that challenges me. You realise that there are so many aspects of your being and how you operate in life that you need to figure out how to prevent institutions and conditioned ideas to creep back into your life – it’s a constant battle.”

    Natalie Paneng is a 21-year-old artist and student. Her background in set design gives her a unique application of her use of space. Her work is often located virtually as she explores what it means to engage with the internet as a black womxn. The mode in which she does this is often through the use of alter egos. Hello Nice is a character she created on youtube and utilizes the ‘vape wave’ aesthetic.

    Recently Natalie created a zine called Internet Babies, it chronicals the profiles of five girls: TrendyToffy @107_, Black Linux otherwise known as the Mother of Malware, Silverlining CPU, Fuchsia Raspberry Pi and Coco Techno Butter. It explores their relationship to digital space and how they’re the “fiber of the internet.”

    She decribes how, “trying to find myself is like the decolonization of myself. Learning how to push those boundries and be more radical as well as owning the need for decolonization and acknowledging that it’s going to have to start with me.”

    Tash Brown is a young painter who approaches the concept of White Suburbia as well as investigating her place and participation within that space. While working through the lens of decolonization she describes how “white suburbia becomes a distortion of reality”, one which is also often still racially segregated. Her distorted paintings are often a grotesque depiction of the suburbs.

    As a white artist, she is critical of her own voice. Noting that, “it’s a time and a space in South Africa where black artists should be prioritized. So I guess I’ve struggled to find myself relevance in the art world, but through the critique of my own cultural issues and the problematics is a way that I can approach it, without having my voice crowding out other voices.”

    Credits:

    Photography & Styling: Jamal Nxedlana

    Makeup: Orli Meiri

    Photography and styling assistant: Lebogang Ramfate
  • Cherrie Bomb // exhibiting the effects of the male on the female

    Cherrie Bomb // exhibiting the effects of the male on the female

    This is not an attempt to fight the man.

    Nor is it an attempt to latch onto social campaigns like #MenAreTrash and #MeToo.

    Cherrie Bomb is a collection of lived experiences that express what it feels like to be a womxn in a patriarchal society.

    Curated by Nthabiseng Lethoko for Umuzi’s First Thursdays, Cherrie Bomb aims to interrogate and shed light on the norms of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. For a female audience, the exhibition is supposed to be representative and voice the daily subjugation of the female body. For the male audience, the exhibition is meant to be the mirror that prompts self-examination. Ultimately, the exhibition aims to demystify the severe effects that male dominance has over womxn.

    The pieces featured in the exhibition are all by womxn.

    ‘Safe Space’ by Botshelo Mondi & Motshewa Khaiyane

    Botshelo Mondi and Motshew Khaiyane explored the creation of safe spaces. The threat of patriarchy is an accepted norm in every public and private environment and the female body in particular is affected as a result. Essentially, this body of work titled, Safe Space, seeks to express the problems or politics of space as well as the subtlety and pervasive nature of patriarchy. The work comes from visualising patriarchy as a physical mass that occupies and intrudes in a way that marginalises and overlooks its victims.

    In Boitumelo Mazibuko’s Lobola photographs, she captures how this traditional ceremony places value on her, value that she did not consent to, which ultimately makes her a possession. Even though the beauty of the ceremony is acknowledged through its celebration of the women joining her partner’s family, the  treatment of her as an asset can lead to her demise.

    ‘Lobola’ by Boitumelo Mazibuko

    Basetsana Maluleka and Nompumelelo Mdluli interrogate the accountability that womxn are supposed to have for men’s actions and expectations in The Constant.

    Tshepiso Mabula examines how the male gaze has made the female figure subservient and an unimportant item placed on the periphery through her work titled The Gaze. This work aims to shift this portrayal and show women as defiant figures that reject patriarchal standards by defiling the female figure.

    ‘The Gaze’ by Tshepiso Mabula

    Lastly, Thakirah Allie’s Hey Sexy is a multimedia series documenting the everyday phenomena of street harassment and catcalling. Since 2016, the project has developed and infested from sharing the artist’s own experiences of it, to that of other young girls and womxn in and around the public spaces of Cape Town.

    Regardless of gender, we are accustomed to the expectations and consequences of patriarchy. Toxic masculinity, a distressing by-product of the system, has daily repercussions for anything and anyone unlike it. The necessity of this exhibition is undeniable and the conversations it intends to spark will be vital to reimagining our society.

    Cherrie Bomb’s first exhibition took place in Cape Town and will soon be in Johannesburg during another Umuzi’s First Thursdays.

    ‘The Constant’ by Basetsana Maluleka & Nompumelelo Mdluli