Tsholofelo Seleke, Siyanda Marrengane and Refiloe Namise are the young, female artists who make up the collective anticlockwise INGWEMBE. The collective has an interest in “cultural objects”, including the wooden spoon (ingwembe). This is an object that is central to their creative and artistic practice, made clear from its presence in their collective name. When asked to unpack their name, the collective presented me with an explanation that resembles the format of a dictionary definition that combined the various associations attributed to the wooden spoon:
*ingwembe/lesokwane: a woman’s tool, a tool that instills discipline, a signifier of power- of an ‘invisible’ power, a symbol of inferiority, of domestication, mixing and re-mixing.
There is an immediate link between the word anticlockwise and ingwembe. Anticlockwise brings to mind the idea of movement, flow and direction. Combined with ingwembe, one is able to imagine the rhythmic movement made when using a wooden spoon for cooking. The prefix ‘anti’ makes those who encounter their work aware of the fact that they are working against the flow and rhythm of institutions, texts and spaces that deny the presence of people of colour, particularly women of colour. Their work is what they refer to as “coll[activism]”; a recognition of the importance of collaborative creation and activism. This is also a concise way to present the operation of their art practice.
“We are questioning the use of space- how a space is used, can be used, how it was previously used, imagined, how far it can be occupied, in various ways. This interest is often sparked by contexts, and how we read objects in different spaces. We explore these interrogations through sound, visual imagery, objects, texts and performance (performance-based installations/installation-based performance). Anything that can be experienced (seen, read, smelt, heard, felt, touched) can be a text. We enjoy the possibilities of being more…and see the importance of learning, teaching, sharing knowledges in ways that can be read differently.”
In this exploration they are also on the hunt for a language that exists outside of the art world, one which is more “public”. This language can be seen, heard, felt, smelt and spoken, and is more fluid. When asked how they would recognise this language, anticlockwise expressed that “You will know it when you see it” stating that “this language is continuously being recreated.”
Their first event Noma Yini: Round 1 was the closing of an event that was held at NGO (Nothing Gets Organised) in March 2016. The project was a collaboration with Eastside Projects (based in Birmingham) and facilitated by Gabi Ngcobo. It was based on the idea of a circuit, as well as the exchange and sourcing of materials around Nugget Square in Jeppestown. Participation took the form of a workshop and the making of portable chairs.
Having tasted the stress and excitement of creating an event, anticlockwise took on another – OK’salayo. It began as the celebration of a friend’s recent job, and then transformed into a full on party, with a ‘silent’ landlord offering them a space at a former panel beaters. There is a OK’salayo 2.0 in the making.
At the moment the collective is working on the idea of an experimental school called ama-fly-by-nights. “It is everywhere, yet nowhere, and it exists within us”. This school focuses on forms of knowledge production that are open and allows for narratives to be expressed in various languages (oral, visual, sonic, etc.)
Follow anticlockwise INGWEMBE on Instagram to keep up with their work.
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.”
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.
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.
Following on from the 5 day residency in Johannesburg at the end of April, Bubblegum Club along with the artists selected to be part of the Infinity Studio programme are in Hamburg for the final stage, their participation in the Live Art Festival #8: SUPERSPACES. Within this frame the work produced will see an expansion on their exploration of privatization, militarism and escapism in Johannesburg – the foundational concepts for the programme.
Creative Director of Bubblegum Club, Jamal Nxedlana had an interview with Caroline Spellenberg from Kampnagel to chat about our platform, CUSS and the Infinity Studio programme taking place in the space.
On your website you describe yourself as a “cultural intelligence agency” – what do you mean by that?
It means that research is at the heart of our practice. Cultural insight or intelligence informs everything we do, from the type of content we publish to our curatorial projects and the visuals we produce.
Bubblegum Club is commercial image campaigns & promotion, publishing & journalistic writing, artistic and curatorial work. What is the core interest connecting all these practices?
Although we do connect these practices it was never our main intention. It was more about creating a space, building a network and developing an operating model for ourselves and other cultural practitioners. And in order to do so we felt that centering our practice around digital publishing made the most sense, especially in Johannesburg where there aren’t many opportunities, particularly for explorative practices.
You are also almost the same group of people who works under the name CUSS as a curators collective. I saw a programme you did at the KW in Berlin in the frame of the 9th Berlin Biennial. After this we started to talk and we invited you to curate a programme at Kampnagel for the Live Art Festival #8. How did you develop the concept for “Infinity Studio”?
The idea has developed quite a lot from when we first started speaking. Initially we were interested in creating a space or studio for independent cultural producers. We imagined the space as a time capsule, organised and conceived in a way that would recreate the creative energy or mood that we felt and that was so stimulating for our practice between 2010 & 2012. In that moment we felt a sense of infinite possibilities, and that where the name Infinity Studio comes from.
Over time we identified a focus for the studio, which was to look at privatisation, militarisation and escapism in Johannesburg’s urban landscape. We organised a residency comprised of a 5 day immersive cultural tour. This allowed us to expose and immerse the invited artists to the spaces that we were looking at as the curatorial team. The programme we will present at Kampnagel in June will be based on the experiences from this residency.
Coming from the curatorial perspective of a theatre some things strike me about the way you work: For one, you invite a lot of quite different artists to participate with individual contributions, maybe extending the idea of a “group exhibition” into live art? How did you choose the line-up of 13 artists for the “Infinity Studio”?
Yes, but from group exhibition to group work to live art. We looked for people with particular skill sets. For example, writers, vocalists, music producers, digital artists and fashion designers. People with skills that could be combined to produce components for a one group work. The other thing that was very important to us was the way people practice, for example, are they able to work in a group and practice across their area of interest or discipline?
Also, what strikes me is that you think a lot about the space, the framing and communication around the project. The ways of presenting the artists – which is part of the work as curators – becomes artistically itself. Can you describe your working methods for this?
Curation has always been an artistic practice for us and it’s no different with this project. Our role has been to create the platform and quite literally the stage on which the work is set and will play out.
The title of the Live Art Festival this year is SUPERSPACES and is presenting artistic and curatorial ways of creating specific set ups of space, art experiences and ‘users’. Can you connect the “Infinity Studio” to this?
I think it connects to this in the way we are approaching the relationship between the audience and the performers, as well as the relationship between the audiences space and the performers space (the stage). We will use curation to reorientate these relationships.
As content you choose to present insights into the urban cosmos of Johannesburg: your key words for this are “privatization, militarization & escapism”. Can you give us a little background on this?
It was really when we started thinking about the residency and what our plans were for it. We were thinking about the artists and the aspects of their work that we were interested in and how we could use the residency to focus in on those specific areas of their practices. As we identified spaces and mapped out activities for the residency or cultural tour, we started noticing themes and tropes which we distilled to “privatization, militarization & escapism”.
Your background is in visual arts and, I think, this is the first time you work in the context of a theatre institution, right? What differences between the two systems do you notice?
Yes it is. I haven’t noticed too much difference, especially because we are approaching this as we normally would. The only difference is the framework within which we had to work, that being the theater and the theater production. We had to slightly alter our thinking when it came to how we think about audience and how we programme the shows.
The Infinity Studio performances will be taking place from the 7th – 9th June. Check out the Facebook event for more details.
INFINITY STUDIO is produced by Kampnagel and Bubblegum Club, with the support of TURN – Fund of the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany as well as the Goethe Institute.
“The day of birth for every human being is the start of a lifelong battle to adapt himself to an ever-changing environment. He is usually victorious and adjusts himself without pain. However, in one case out of 20 he does not adjust himself. In U.S. hospitals, behind walls like [those] shown here, are currently 500 000 men, women and children whose minds have broken in the conflict of life.”
(Excerpt from LIFE Magazine’s 1939 article and photo essay, “Strangers to Reason: LIFE Inside a Psychiatric Hospital. The beginning of Saaiqa’s artist statement)
Saaiqa is a Durban-based visual artist, writer and storyteller expressing herself through film, photography, installation and mixed media works. Plunged into the world of artistic evocation from childhood, her creativity was fuelled by a desire to understand, learn and observe from the world.
From a young age, Saaiqa was involved in theatre and the dramatic arts which she took part in until the end of her high school career.
“It’s interesting in retrospect, acting and learning how to inhabit another character from such a young age; I think you start to get a handle on how human psychology, experience and conditioning is translated and manifested in how we as individuals exist in the world.”
Saaiqa’s fascination with the mind stems from a deep-seated interest in mental health. “I believe we all suffer from some form of neurosis; it’s just an inevitability. Even if you are not mentally ill we all have been marked by life in some way.”
She continues to open up by saying that members of her immediate family are afflicted by mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Her first-hand experience with this has shown her how difficult it is not only for the person afflicted by the illness but for the person’s loved ones to navigate the world living with this illness. She expresses that it is difficult to help someone in this position within a system that is broken and not very forgiving or understanding when it comes to mental health issues.
‘Neurosis’ – Rorschach
In unpacking her series Saaiqa explains that The Fourth Wall acts as a study of the psychological arena of the modern day human being. Through observation she has concluded that we are cognizant beings continuously attuning ourselves to an environment that is characterized by rapid change, causing both feelings of joy and of pain. Her aim with this body of work is to investigate this negation with life. This is achieved by witnessing the human condition as well as states of existentialism.
“I was motivated to explore a project like this because there is still a great amount of stigma, discrimination and a lack of education and discussion regarding mental illness and health in society. This often prevents people from seeking help and, particularly in under-resourced communities, this often leads to unfair criminal incarceration, homelessness, substance abuse and even suicide.”
Saaiqa continues to express that she feels that people have become more aware and are speaking about self-care but that she isn’t sure of the seriousness of people’s convictions. “I mean it can’t be this surface level thing; this romanticised tumblr type shit is not going to help people.”
‘The Tear’
She explains the link that she made between the theatre and the mind by stating that to her it feels like the perfect metaphor. She sees the mind as a space where performances manifest. “It’s this place where we literally stage our fantasies, suppress trauma, where we interpret reality, create and destroy identity – it is a performance in constant flux. The theatre of the mind is where one continually finds and loses oneself over and over again, through the course of life.”
To create this body of work Saaiqa’s process was research heavy. She emphasises the importance of research to her practice regardless of how a project conceptually or visually manifests. She had come to the decision that to approach this subject matter she would use alternative visual approaches that include a variety of mediums such as scans, photomontages, Rorschach prints and an installation work.
“I observed space a lot; I also look at objects and still lives. I think that spaces and objects hold such power within narratives and can often be the centre of the most compelling images. It can also be important to consider, especially when certain ethical decisions need to be made when tackling complex visual stories.”
‘The Mad Scene’
While creating this body of work Saaiqa was volunteering at a psychiatric hospital working in art therapy within the hospital. She regards volunteering as something that was very important for her to do. Although her series does not reflect issues surrounding mental health in a literal way, her experience in volunteering helped her gain a deeper understanding of different people who exist within alternative states.
“And because this also hits so close to home it was both an opportunity for experiential learning and a way for me to give back/ improve the lives (even if in some small way) of these people who are all too often forgotten by society. I worked in quite an intense unit, where a lot of patients had severe cases. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, even for me. The combination of poverty, economic strife, social stigma, lack of education, the exacerbation of some situations created by religion and culture – all form an immense barrier and lead to disastrous outcomes for most individuals. I learnt a great deal about mental health and the state of healthcare in South Africa. I also learnt a lot about myself during this time as well as the lives of women, which was interesting. In that environment, you realise how fragile we all are and how we all undermine our own and each other’s mental health.”
Ilze Wolff is the co-founder of Wolff Architects, a practice she started with her partner Heinrich Wolff. They have a space in the Bo-Kaap where they produce designs for buildings and public spaces. Their space has a gallery that looks on to the street, which they use for hosting programs, discussions and exhibitions related to architecture, space and the city. Over the years their practice has placed increasing emphasis on ways to get the broader public to engage more directly with urgent questions relating to architecture.
“Architecture is about the embodied experience of situations and of space linked to an imagination.” This statement is from an interview Ilze did with Design Indaba for an article mentioning her nomination for the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture. When I asked Ilze to unpack this statement, she humourously pointed out that it was one of the many things she says that she does not always have a clear answer for. However, her explanation reveals her dedication to a nuanced understanding of the interaction between people and space, and the role of architecture in paying homage to this interaction. “I think that I was trying to say is that we all experience space in particular ways and the production of architecture is linked to your experience of a space and the articulation of crafting a new space from your own imagination. It is about the interplay between subjectivity and imagination. Architecture is thus one of those sublime contradictions in that, yes, we design for a public collective experience, yet all our speculations and experiments are seated in a very individualistic and intimate space: the imagination.”
The intersection between architecture, art and public culture is where Wolff Architects finds the most joy, as well as intellectual and creative stimulation. Taking on the point of view that the boundaries between these three disciplines are “inherently artificial”, Ilze expressed that imagining their work and creative production as transcending these borders has been productive. “Our training as architects brings specific readings and sensibilities to a project, which we cannot take for granted but research and engagement into art practices, socio-cultural debates and popular culture layers our approach beyond the technocratic responses that is the norm in our industry.”
Documentation and advocacy also plays an important part in how Wolff Architects injects new life and critical questions into the field of architecture. Conscious of the way space, architecture, infrastructure and landscape has been used for separation in South Africa, “We feel it is our obligation to use our discipline (architecture) against itself and produce work that advocates for social cohesion,” Ilze explains, “We document our situation and built environment in order to develop wisdoms on how to intervene sensitively and with new readings. Research and asking difficult and critical questions is important for us to establish a project’s ethical framework. Ethics also in terms of aesthetics and imagination.”
Ilze is also the co-founder of Open House Architecture, a research platform that embraces transdisciplinary knowledge production. Started in 2006, it began as a way to have thorough overviews of local architects’ portfolios through architectural tours, documentaries and monographs, some of which presented to the public for the first time. After a number of successful events, they realized that their audience was almost exclusively architects and other built environment professionals. With a desire to attract people outside of these spaces, Open House Architecture ventured into live art and public interventions, and in 2016 started a publication and interventionist platform called ‘pumflet: architecture and stuff‘, with artist Kemang Wa Lehulere. “With Wa Lehulere, we have co-produced two editions: Alabama and Gladiolus, both of which attempts to reinsert the destruction of Cape Town’s cinemas and black neighbourhoods, and their contemporary meanings back into the public imagination. We feel that it is important to research marginal architectural histories but it is even more important to cultivate a diverse audience and public culture around lost spaces, art and modern architecture.”
Wolff Architects’ most recent poroject, under the direction of Ilze, was working in the design for the African Mobilities exhibition titled ‘This is Not a Refugee Camp Exhibition’ taking place at Architekturmuseum TU Munchen in Munich until 18 August. The exhibition engages with migration, mobility and space in Africa. Reflecting on the design process for the show, Ilze expresses that, “We allowed ourselves to engage with serious play where we purposefully tried to distort the very rational German gallery by introducing slight distortions on familiar pure geometries. We included a range of environments for speculation and engagement: in the first room we echoed the artist’s in that room’s notion of mixing up digital futures/histories by including a VR room that is both futuristic and nostalgic in its design; in the second room the library offers a public space for viewers to relax and look out onto a garden and in the last room we created a sound carriage where you could experience the sonic landscape of rail travel offered by the artists on display.”
Another exciting addition to the notches in Ilze’s belt is the publishing of her book ‘Unstitching Rex Trueform: the story of an African factory‘. The book is about a factory that has haunted Ilze ever since she became aware of the connection between architecture and the politics of space. “I write about the way modern architecture in Cape Town is representative of the ways in which labour, capital and the city worked together to construct race, genders and identities in the mid 1930s and 40s.” Ilze mentioned that at she is currently working on an experimental theatre piece based on the research for the book, which will be presented at The Centre for the Less Good Idea later this year.
Candid intimacy. Grit. Snapshots of personal memories. Longing. These are the descriptions that come to mind when looking at the photographic repertoire of Meghan Daniels.
Meghan Daniels is a Capetonian photographer whose work falls largely under the wing of documentary photography. Regarding her camera as an extension of herself, Meghan does not view what she photographs as subject matter, but instead a compilation of experiences taking the tangible shape of a photograph. “Basically, I guess I don’t care too much for photography but rather a sense of what I interpret, to be honest,” she expresses in an interview with DEAD TOWN zine.
Meghan’s photographic practice began as a visual diary of sorts as she is drawn to capturing those closest to her – herself, friends, family, as well as memory inducing spaces. She articulates further that her visual diary acts as a way of capturing her feelings which touch on themes related to sexuality, gender issues, relationships, intimacy, love, pain, mental health and recovery. She sees photography as a mirror of herself and the world around her. “When people ask what I do, it’s difficult to say I’m a ‘photographer’ and that I ‘photograph’.”
Photography has acted as a medium to facilitate processing the more difficult aspects of life for her. In her personal projects, Meghan captures moments as they unfold with the passing of time. In documentary projects her approach is grounded in research, participatory research methods which including the person/persons the project are centred around, as well as self-reflexivity which plays an integral function. Her commercial practice foregrounds certain visual signifiers that are a trademark of her eye, namely honesty, vulnerability, intimacy and grittiness.
Meghan works as a photographer and cinematographer in a professional capacity. Her go-to camera arsenals are her Contax point and shoot as well as her medium format Mamiya. She is never devoid of inspiration. She finds it in the work of fellow South African creatives, areas seen while driving and the small details in life such as broken, flickering light bulbs just to name a few. But as is the case with most artists, feelings of melancholy also lend inspiration – trauma, heartbreak and so forth. Meghan often uses her practice to heal her own pain.
Images of honesty and true emotion. Real people and real events. Meghan Daniels’ practice tugs on the heartstrings as her candid style is one that projects authenticity and the real nature in which she photographs those close to her makes one feel as though you know them or can identify with the feeling they convey.
Nico Athene, artist-cum-former-stripper-cum-filmmaker is reminding us that the glass ceiling is far from broken. She represents a new generation of ‘disrupter’ – as a queer figure, a female figure, a sexed figure, a bodied figure – notions of space, form, gender, sex, objecthood and the abject are foregrounded. The bed, a space of intimacy, rest, solitude – becomes Get In My Bed – and Athene ‘publics’ the private. The contemporary female artist always endeavours, always competes. So, we allow ourselves to relish in our discomfort, as we snuggle into the duvet. I was lucky enough to ask Athene a few questions regarding her practice, and how the binaries of consent/transact/covert/overt begin to muddle in this work.
Image courtesy of Nico Athene
It seems a large part of your work engages with the notion of transactional and consensual sex. In many ways conflating the world of art with the sex industry disrupts the boundaries of both and makes us consider as the viewer what is transactional and what is consensual. Inviting fellow artists into your bed is an interesting disruption of this. Can you maybe elaborate on your decision to create this collision?
Sex work is often very consciously performative, and in this way, it is an aesthetic practice. If we don’t recognise it as such it’s because of economic and patriarchal class norms working as a form of censorship, deciding what is or isn’t ‘aesthetic’ and therefore legitimate practice/bodies/work in contrast to the taboo/illegitimate. These norms also enforce economies of access.
With regards to the ‘transactional’ vs. ‘consensual’ the idea that these two things are necessarily separate is a myth that works to police female and queer bodies and their labour/worth and draws on the previous point to suggest that those who do it are not ’empowered’ or ‘conscious’.
As femmes we all do sex work every day in forms that are less obvious, and often less conscious, to those who do it for a living. It is my experience that in inhabiting this body I am required to do gendered labour and performance in the service of male egos (ie. sex work) just to be treated ‘fairly’ or get anything done, across all the industries I have worked in. The irony of course is, that despite my performance or under performance I will STILL hit a glass ceiling. Keeping everyday sex work invisible serves to maintain this status quo, keeps us performing for free in service of the hetero-patriarchy. Transacting for sex work challenges those who feel entitled to our bodies and sexuality, especially to those who think they should be getting this labour for free. Making it visible means we can know the extent of our embodied and symbolic work and charge for it properly.
The way we consider and delineate publics and privates is highly moralised, along very normative gendered notions that work to police bodily autonomy, ownership and pleasure, especially if it is femme/queer. The body of a Sex Worker inherently disrupts this. It is a punctum to the bigger debate, a debate that includes the conditions through which we consider art/artwork/art audience vs everyone else.
Of course the residency in my bed was also a symbolic transaction – of my intimacy/spectacle/proximity/idea in exchange for the cultural capital of the artists present. It was a way of drawing attention to the aesthetic potential of the embodied labour that is put on me by society, that I hyperbolise, and as an early intervention, a way of canonising myself out of the taboo and into the role of ‘artist’. A reversal in agency of the ‘artist-muse’ dialectic.
Most recently you showed at Kalashnikovv. How was this experience different from when the residency was at home in Cape Town, and how does the gallery space differ in terms of how this work was read?
It was of course very different for many reasons, each space has its own set of established semiotics to do with transactionality and the body, the artist and art object, so it was an important evolution of the public/private queering. What made the greatest impact on me were the oversights related to being in the gallery space – as a body, holding this position and occupying this space – I became aware of cracks which have a lot to do with the intersections of how these spaces are run and for whom and whose comfort–and whose embodied and psychological safety and enjoyment. The fact that the bathrooms were in another building with no light or security or soap, for example. Or that some people felt they could just walk into the space and photograph me without my consent. I was also violently sexually harassed on leaving the space by someone who had been at the installation. These were not things I had necessarily considered either, even being in this body, before being in the space, so it was a learning curve.
Have you had hostile reactions to your work?
I’m not sure what that means. I have had threatening engagements around it. Like the harassment outside the gallery. And I have had male artists take advantage of it or try moralise it under the guise of care. One of them was in my bed as part of the residency. He is very well known and makes a lot of money off his work, photographing strangers without their consent – strangers who will never see the money that he makes off their images. I’m not sure if this is wrong, just worth noting. The agreement for him spending time in my bed and photographing me was that I would own the photographs. I was after all the instigator, conceptualiser and director of the ‘work’. He said up front that he was interested in the project because he was interested in photographing me in this role, and that he wanted to fuck me. I said he could do the former, but that I would not promise the latter, just that he could spend a night in my bed and we’d see what happened. I didn’t fuck him, although he tried the next morning while I was half asleep – its own trauma of course – and then persisted during breakfast when I had to also listen to him go on and on about how my project would be stronger if I had sex with all the participants and that he didn’t get the problem because it was ‘just a fuck’. In the end he sent me a single photograph, and when I asked who would sign it, he said we were no longer going with the idea that I was the artist.
He didn’t respond when I emailed him to clarify the agreement, although I did hear through the grapevine that he was still bemoaning the fact that I didn’t fuck him. I’m not sure if it was a hostile reaction, more an expansion or illumination of the work and the dynamics and positions that it challenges. I am interested in how typical art models and the laws that support them view and maintain certain subjectivities and give or take away agency by determining how and what we view as the ‘art object’ vs the ‘body of the artist’, or just ‘the artist’. And of course, this reflects entirely on ownership and access and economy. Another, very famous TED talker and MOMA exhibitor who befriended me in the USA, kept suggesting I try make art from my ‘centre’ rather than my ‘edges’. This of course after he used me as an ear to all his kinky proclivities. When I asked if he’d be a referee for an application for an award of which he was an alumnus, he refused because he thought the project, which was about reconciliation through the body, was from my ‘edges’, and suggested I make work about my family instead.
Instagram seems to be a major platform on which you reconsider body politics, and the female form. How important do you think platforms like this are for the contemporary women artist? Especially considering it has become almost a site of activism – I am thinking of the Free the Nipple campaign for example.
I don’t aim to use Instagram as activism, although it allows a certain kind of activism as a platform outside of the institution to show work and generate publics. Having not gone to art school, this function of Instagram is particularly useful to me. Of course, working outside the institution is disruptive of a certain power, and Instagram’s censorship policies work to enforce other kinds of power.
On the topic of activism, do you consider yourself an activist?
My primary interest is in what it means to engage in aesthetic practice and the experience of living through/as/with this body. I am interested in how the body and embodied labour IS an aesthetic in its own right, and the terms through which we do and don’t recognise it as such, and what they say about ourselves and society. These terms/experiences are obviously very political, as much as they are intensely personal.
There has been quite a history of performance artists occupying the gallery space – last year Dawn Kasper took up residency in the Giardini at the Venice Biennale for 6 months, famously, Maria Abromovich spent hours in MOMA for her work The Artist is Present, Tilda Swinton slept in a glass box in MOMA. How do you think your work is different or similar to theirs? Why do you think this is a predominantly female artist phenomenon? Do you see your work as a particularly ‘feminist’ activation?
I don’t know much about art, I didn’t study it, is my brief and sassy answer. No but really, I’m not sure if it is useful for me to compare my work to other performance artists just because they also use performance or their body. I’m not sure if I think of myself as a performance artist anyway, more an installation artist. I think that there is something to say, however, for the fact that we who do this are trying to escape the violence of language, including for example, the idea that there is a distinct ‘female’ locale. So queers and femmes are probably more driven to forms like this as opposed to cishet males – perhaps because of the language of inherent binaries and the dissociation from the reality of what it means to exist as a body. Explaining your work and experience through language (like I am doing here) perpetuates this violence and detracts from the protest of the action or the discomfort of the situation. It suggests that such things can be organised into accepted and knowable categories where there are subjects and objects, i.e. on patriarchal terms. Or that bodies and their experiences can be ‘known’ through abstractions and ‘reason’ and according to the linearities of language. It is doing the work ‘for’ people who are trying to oppress you by requiring that you explain yourself/and your body, to them, in ways that make them comfortable. Of course, it is a catch 22 as we’ve developed a world where we communicate primarily through language (esp. since the internet), but still it is working on their terms.
What is the importance of your work in a South African context?
I don’t know, I just know that it is important to me, in this body, trying to survive by making sense of my experience outside of accepted or known or comfortable categories, and to make the discomfort of the known ones visible.
And finally, where is your artistic practice leading you in the next few months?
I am interested in the abject – the stuff outside of categories or language or western notions of linear logic. It is part of my fascination with the reality of what it means to be a body. I think that’s why female bodies threaten male societies – we shed more visibly, we bleed, we birth. And yet all these strangely canonised notions of ‘sexuality’ are built on the abject – hair, nails, eye lashes – things we find disgusting when they are removed from what we perceive as ‘us’ or the object of desire. Yet we are creatures of abject – taking in and expelling food and air and shit and sexual fluids – we are a constant negotiation of the outside and inside worlds. We are permeable inspite of our discomfort with the idea that we are not concrete. So, I am working on this, and showing it, in various contexts. I have made a series of ‘paintings’ which try to disrupt this artistic language too. The majority of western art is notoriously disembodied and cerebral in its attempt to concretise and solidify and make value through permanence – through embodying something outside the realities of our mortality. My paintings are a performance in their own right I guess. I like a painting you can suck and set on fire. I will be showing them and doing a performance as part of group show at Gallery One 11 opening next first Thursday, 3rd of May. Some more exciting things in the near future here and overseas. Not quite confirmed so I’ll keep them quiet for now. You can find out more through my site and Instagram – will try keep them updated!
Image courtesy of Nico Athene
Nico is a body of colliding personas and intimate intricacies: of political and personal, immediate and distant, academic and under-qualified. Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, she has two degrees under her formal identity, neither directly related to art. She worked for a number of years in the creative film industry before giving up her ‘real name’ to become a stripper in a Cape Town club. She blames patriarchy and glass ceilings, ‘I figured that if I was going to be sucking cock for cash, I may as well be doing it for proper pay.’ Actually, it’s because she always wanted to be a dancer. It was here that she was born – a stripper/whore whose only mandate is to use artists and their institutions to up her cultural capital: a hyperbolised comment on demonised female stereotypes, sexuality and transactionality that constantly flits between the surreal and mundane.
“I think it’s high time we start to address that dance, movement and embodied politics all form part of re-imagining and re-defining where, how and why bodies can occupy space.”
This quote is from an interview with co-founder of ANY BODY ZINE (ABZ), Nicola van Straaten. She, along with Kopano Maroga and Julia de Rosenwerth, started the online and print publication with the desire to bring more cultural and social attention to artistic work that is rooted in the body, “but also a desire to expand ideas around what kind of bodies are dancing bodies.” The intention is to emphasize that every body is a potential site for “creative self-actualization” and “open understandings of dance”.
Having met during their time at the then UCT School of Dance, Nicola proposed the idea of the publication to Kopano and Julia. Since then they have released 10 issues, all dealing with varied aspects of dance, choreography, movement, and bodies through written contributions and interviews with people from different aspects of their industry. Every issue has a central theme that offers guidance to contributors, and a direction for the curation of each issue. Kopnano explains that the themes are based on their interests at different moments, making each issue a reflection a way of thinking at a particular moment in time. Volume 2, comprised of four issues so far, is focused on verbs that relate to dance and movement – Marching, Falling, Jumping and Hanging. Nicola explains that they chose verbs because they were interested in the intersection between language and movement, action and motion.
Previous issues from Volume 1 have included conversations about semantics, emotions, body politics and taboo subjects, offering a wide variety of entry points for conversations. The issue titled “Space/Place” tackles the semantic and political differences invoked in the use of “space” versus “place”, and connects to the act of curation and place making. The issue, “Rhythm” looks at sound and music makers within their community, and includes features on the Phillipi Music Project, a computer engineered rhythm making program by Mohato Lekena and performer and musician Coila-Leah Enderstein who features a lot in their issues, and who Kopano describes as a “kind of ad hoc, fourth member of ABZ”. The issue, “Sex”, arose from an interest in interrogating perceptions of the naked body in performance, specifically how it is always read through sexual references even when the intention of a performance has nothing to do with this. Other issues have explored topics such as race, colour, subjectivity, objectivity, the personal and the political.
“There are so few opportunities for people to share their creative work that isn’t easily consumable or sellable, which I think is why folks are always really keen to contribute,” Kopano explains while reflecting on how they ask people in their community to contribute to the publication. The publication is also a platform to bolster the profile of practitioners who are a large part of the growth and development of dance and movement and related practices in Southern Africa. They have conducted interviews with dancer and choreographer Rudi Smit, strange and intellectual performance artist Gavin Krastin and filmmaker Jenna Bass just to mention a few.
Julia, Kopano and Nicola each contribute in different and important ways to the project. “Julia’s incredible choreographic eye for detail (and the fact that she basically taught herself web design) make her the boss of the website. Kopano’s amazing relational qualities and ability to hold spaces have resulted in him doing a lot of the liasioning with our contributors, stockists and general public, lately he’s also been directing the kind of ‘business’ development of the zine. And my passion for books and print mean I head up the layout and printing aspect of the work. We all edit together, make decisions together, essentially ‘lead’ the project together,” Nicola explains.
Connected to the online and print publication is the third wing of ABZ, the performative platforms. ANY BODY ZINE has collaborated with NEW DANCE LAB, to create the ANY BODY DANCE LAB – a 6 week dance and performance residency for Cape Town-based artists. Teaming up with Theatre Arts Admin Collective and the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, the residency comprises of a series of dance, composition, writing and performance workshops that culminate in a series of public performances by the 10 participants on the residency. The content from the writing workshops will be compiled to form a publication produced by ANY BODY ZINE. “We wanted to include a writing component to the ANY BODY DANCE LAB and thought that it would be very special if we curated a publication to contextualise and archive the project, but that also provides a platform for the residents to publish some of their work. As ANY BODY ZINE, we are also interested in the processes of content creation and saw this as a good opportunity to explore that question further,” Julia explains. What connects all three aspects of their work is the desire to make space for and to support independent artists.
Julia also informed me that after a fantastic Thundafund Campaign [Thundafund is a crowdfunding platform in South Africa], they were able to print their 2016 and 2017 content which will be available at the Book Lounge in Cape Town on Roeland street and Bibliophilia in Woodstock. ANY BODY ZINE will also be available for purchase at the Association for Visual Arts (35 Church street, Cape Town) during their Comics Focus zine and comics festival taking place from the 21st of June to the 19th of July.
Reflecting on their intentions for the publication, Nicola expressed that they hope it will allow people to think about their bodies differently and perhaps see dance as a more accessible medium. The publication presents itself as an archive of South African performance and movement practices, showcasing an image of the contemporary history of dance and beginning the documentation of SA’s dance lineage. The platform also offers validation for those already deeply involved in the industry and the possibility for opportunities for emerging artists.
Check out their website to find out more about their upcoming projects.
“In our current neoliberal context, dance really doesn’t get as much support as fine art or even film, because it isn’t necessarily a ‘sellable’ product. But that’s also why it’s such a powerful tool, because dance is an experience and has the potential to be internally transformative in that way.” – Nicola van Straaten
2016’s Vol 1 content (Photo by Nicola van Straaten)
When you are tucked comfortably into Johannesburg’s Northern suburbs, the word of inner city enclaves that accommodate you and your neighbours is enthralling. So you make that journey – it’s towering buildings, that one bridge and with every red light, you cautiously gaze at the dense bustle of unfamiliarity. With one turn, the stark difference of your destination will assure you know that you have arrived. Almost every other person will have a takeaway coffee cup in hand and you will be left to figure out of all the cafes on every corner, which actually serves the best flat white. There will probably be an art gallery or two, maybe even three. Black boys will be skateboarding between cars trying to find a parking spot and you will wonder why they can’t use the empty bicycle lanes instead. The weekend market that you most likely came all this way for sells craft beer, artisans baked goods, cold meats, and overpriced international and local cuisine. Once that gets old, there will be a steak house or a concept store stocking local apparel or a pop up juice or gin bar that you can drop by. As you pose for a photo with the street art, you admire the luxury apartments and hired security guards and imagine a life here. Your visit will probably end in a dimly lit bar with an even darker dance floor. When you arise the day after, you will be certain of the lackluster of suburbia so you decorate your Instagram page with this colourful experience and encourage more of your friends to join next weekend.
Surely, it’s not far fetched to imagine that visits to enclaves in Johannesburg’s inner city are something like that for the people that those spaces have been designed for?
Familiar with suburban life myself, the city was marketed in a way that confused my understanding of gentrification and rendered it simplistic. To be clear, gentrification is basically when people of a higher income or status relocate to or invest in a low income (and typically “urban”) neighbourhood. The aim is to capitalise on the low property values and in doing so the property value is inflated. This results in the original occupants of the neighbourhood being displaced because they cannot afford to live there anymore.
Moreover, this re-development of particular enclaves is culture led. Even though buy-to-leave investors seek to hollow out the neighbourhood through gentrification, there are certain landmarks that are salvageable and add to the authenticity of the space. However, through the curation of the space, the culture and character of the neighbourhood is altered. Everything that made that neighbourhood culturally unique is demolished. Consider it a social cleansing. Despite the occupants that have been economically excluded from the space, original visitors that frequented the space will slowly disappear because the social fabric has been gentrified.
The space now culturally barren uses art as a substitute for culture. Hence the street art and influx of galleries. According to academic art historian, Stephen Pritchard, this “complex deception” is referred to as “Artwashing”. Artwashing is basically art in the service of gentrification, which ultimately destroys the social capital of a space.
The establishment of galleries has become frightening because soon after, the gentrification begins. Think the corner of Bolton road and Jan Smuts, a block parallel to an art gallery, which now houses overpriced international cuisine and a sneaker store. Think Keyes avenue – affordable flats were replaced by a mile of eclectic restaurants, a noteworthy bar, sneaker stores, and luxury boutiques to neighbour the art galleries.
In gentrified enclaves around the world, the prevalence of artwashing has seen the rise to protests by artists themselves. Considering the mainstream rhetoric of the financial status of an artist, how can their work be used to manifest into the spatial expression of economic inequality? Personally, I have not witnessed Johannesburg’s interrogation of arts use in the reconstruction of a space and its culture. One thing that is for sure is that it is happening as the authentic culture of various spaces is being compromised in the name of capitalism.
Toyin Ojih Odutola explores the sociopolitical constructs of skin colour through her multimedia drawings. This central focus comes from her personal journey of having to move from her home in Nigeria to the conservative state in the US, Alabama.
“I’m doing black on black on black, trying to make it as layered as possible in the deepness of the blackness to bring it out. I noticed the pen became this incredible tool. The black ballpoint [pen] ink on blackboard would become copper tone and I was like ‘wow, this isn’t even black at all!’ The black board was like this balancing platform for the ink to become something else. I instantly recognized this notion, of how we think something is a certain way and in reality it is something else…” Ojih Odutola says in an interview about the show, My Country Has No Name (2013) in the International Review of African American Art.
A Subtle Address, 2013
Most of the figures she draws are coloured with black ink, but not all of them referencing being African or of African American descent. This is an extension of her question, “What is black?”. Her images require the viewer to interrogate the framework they consciously or unconsciously use to interpret skin colour and its connotations.
For her first solo exhibition in New York titled To Wander Determined, Ojih Odutola presents an interconnected series of fictional portraits telling the lives of two Nigerian aristocratic families. These portraits consider the fluid nature of identity through the use of charcoal, pastel and pencil. She engages themes related to space, class and colour with the figures portrayed in luxury homes. However, the angles of lines used to construct these homes on canvas do not always align, making the backgrounds appear slightly distorted. The distortion invokes a sense of discomfort in the viewer, and it is up to the viewer to figure out the meaning of that discomfort.
On the 28th March, the Nothing Gets Organised group is opening a new project space in the Johannesburg CBD. NGO – NOTHING GETS ORGANISED will highlight a wide program of visual arts against the unassuming background of a converted commercial property wedged in next to car repair shops. The event spotlights a diverse range of multimedia work from South Africa and beyond. Included with the NGO collective, are the Brazilian artists Cinthia Marcelle and Tiago Mata Machado, along with Pratchaya Phinthong, Nyakallo Maleke, Caner Aslan, Lerato Shadi and Donna Kukama (with Nadia Myburgh). The opening night also highlights a special performance of Donna Kukama’s work ‘To be announced’.
The Nothing Gets Organised project was founded by an original core of Johannesburg based curators and visual practioners. Dineo Seshee Bopape, Gabi Ngcobo and Sinethemba Twalo have all previously experimented with using unexpected spaces in the city as a platform for showing contemporary art. This has involved taking art out of the white cube and gallery space, and into unexpected, sociologically potent settings. Gabi Ngcobo was previously the curator of the now defunct Centre for Historical Reenactments, which specialised in striking and original interventions into Johannesburg’s historically traumatised psyche. For instance, PASS-AGES was staged at the site of a former Pass Office in Alfred Street, a space which had been used for the Apartheid state’s surveillance and control of black people’s basic freedom of movement.
The NGO project takes these interventions in a new direction, by focusing on creative a progressive aesthetic for the challenges of the present. NGO’s mission statement is an interest ‘ in un/conventional processes of self-organising – those that do not imply structure, tangibility, context or form. It is a space for (NON)SENSE where (NON)SENSE can profoundly gesticulate towards, dislodge, embrace, disavow, or exist as nothingness!’.
In recent times, Johannesburg has seen a lot of an attempts at the corporate regeneration of the inner city. But behind the rhetoric of upliftment, the reality has been the creation of securitised, exclusive spaces which often reinforce segregation and inequality. By contrast, NGO have taken it upon themselves to open creative spaces at a grassroots level. Over the last months, their Facebook page has shown their busy work on getting the venue ready, and the sheer joy of building a unique creative space in an often imposing and alienating city.
NGO, 127 Albert street, 28 Nuggett Square, 2001, Johannesburg, South Africa
