Bubblegum Club

Tag: subculture

  • Converse One Star // For those who live by their own rules

    Converse One Star // For those who live by their own rules

    Converse fans are well aware that the Chuck Taylor All Star is the brand’s iconic silhouette. However, for those who appreciate the anti-hero, the Converse One Star encapsulates the spirit of those who operate against the rhythm, living fearlessly on the edge. Launched in 1974, and built for the basketball court, the sneakers were pulled from the market a year later. When brought back to the shelves in the 90s, the sneakers were associated with grunge and skater sentiments – becoming a statement for those communicating anti-fashion. The One Star has had waves of appearances and has evolved since its inception, with subculture quickly latching onto its ability to capture their aura of defiance. Those who wear the One Star embrace its history and understand that it speaks to their own journey – never asking for approval, and acting in their own way.

    In celebration of the One Star resurgence this and its latest look as part of Converse’s Spring 2018 collection, Converse shines the light on four South African creatives who choose to live by their own rules.

    Moonchild Sanelly – Musician

    What does Converse mean to you?

    Street culture.

    How did you have to fight for your place in the SA music industry?

    By not listening to anyone who had an opinion about what I believe in and staying true to myself. By not being pressured by material things and never-ending bills. Fear is not in my vocabulary. I am a fighter!

    How important is it to find an individual, authentic voice as a musician?

    Image is everything. Taking it seriously is a part of your brand responsibility.

    How do you continue to push boundaries as an artist?

    By being unapologetically myself because I am me! And there’s nothing like me.

    Seth Pimentel – illustrator

    How do you construct your illustrative practice to operate outside of the box?

    I wish I honestly knew. I guess things just happen. I’d go on the rant about being overwhelmed by the creative process and feeling what I create, to the point where I embody it. But that’s just a mundane answer. I don’t think I can do this question justice.

    What drives your unapologetic approach to image creation?

    I guess my own desire to remain myself in the chaos of everything. The older I’m getting the less ashamed I’m starting to feel about my proclivities.

    What are the ways that you have built a creative signature as an artist?

    I really don’t know. I guess this weird sense of consistency. It’s easy to get devoured by the relentless waves of other styles and approaches. But I guess sticking to yourself, finding inspiration from other artists, learning from them, and then creating from what you’ve learnt helps you find yourself. Damn, that was a cliche´ answer.

    Do you see yourself as an anti-hero?

    Yeah, well I never really belonged anywhere. Felt like this my whole life. Still do. I guess I kinda like to think that I epitomize the idea of a Pariah. One of my favourite musicians Aesop Rock has a line that goes “Stepped inside a club like a statue crying blood. Dance floor scattered, staff asked me why I’d come.” A good summary of what it was like as a teenager. Weird how things go now.

    Lorenzo Plaatjies – illustrator

    How do you defy the norm?

    I think I defy the norm through my work –  I’m an artist. But I don’t own an isle or a studio. I don’t use paper, unless I’m printing. Neither do I touch a pencil, to be honest. I work with what’s in my pocket on the go. I work on my phone. Creating paintings wherever I am: on a bus, on the sidewalk, with the homies, wherever. I don’t let norms and stereotypes define how I execute or create.

    How do you translate this attitude into you work?

    I translate it more into the way I work than my work itself. My work is about wonder and beauty, but I don’t let traditional methods or how the status quo do things limit me. I’m not afraid to do things differently.

    How do you feel Converse resonates with you and your practice?

    I think Converse and I resonate well. Converse is a brand I always felt pioneered new waves in creativity, and I’m here to do the same. A Converse One Star sneaker almost suits any fit – it’s adaptable, and I feel the same about myself.

    How do you push yourself to take your practice further?

    I always push myself because I feel nothing I create is ever enough and I hope it stays that way. I’m constantly chasing new goals and an almost frightening vision.

    Siya Ngena – Rapper and one half of Champagne69

    What drove you to step into the SA music scene?

    It really happened by chance. William and I were working on a mockumentary of Braamfontein culture and we started to work on the score and we later put that out and it garnered a lot more attention than we expected, and we took it seriously from then on.

    How does Converse fit into your personal style?

    The designs and colour vary from one to the other so it adds a distinct but simple flavour to every fit, even if it’s the same fit with a different shoe.

    How important is it for you that what you wear represents your attitude towards life and your music?

    To me it’s a necessity. I always try to find a balance between style and comfort. Music and fashion are parallels and I treat them as such. Right now though, I must add, I’m not even in my final form.

    What are the ways in which you are fearlessly constructing your own voice?

    I’m a big fan of anime and gaming culture, and that inspires my lyrics, aesthetics and overall energy. Some people even say I look like an anime character and I’ll carry that energy with me forever.

  • Multimedia artist Ruth Angel Edwards on tracing and revealing the “sub” in culture.

    Multimedia artist Ruth Angel Edwards on tracing and revealing the “sub” in culture.

    Ruth Angel Edwards is a multimedia artist whose work explores the communication of ideology through pop culture, drawing from mainstream and subcultural youth movements both past and present. Within these, she looks at the ways audio and visual content are used to manipulate an audience and to disseminate information. This is especially apparent in her exhibition High Life/Petrification shown at the À CÔTÉ DU 69, which marked the end of her residency in Los Angeles, CA. In this exhibition, social detritus collected from the location reveals a mythologised Venice Beach as a “ritual site of pilgrimage, a space where diverse subcultural histories continue to make it a mecca for fans of alternative histories as well as touristic voyeurs.”

    Feminism, gender, collectivity and commodification are recurring themes. In particular, this brings to mind Edwards’ exhibition Enema Salvatore, held in Turin at the end of another art residency, showing new work at the Almanac Inn. The work questions the binary structures of western culture, the duality of good and bad. A cycle of ingestion, consumption, digestion, purification – and then finally – release, all explored through and within her own female body, whilst drawing external parallels to the “wellness/feel good” food industry. Hedonism, spectacle and rebellion are deconstructed and re-formed to create communicative and insightful immersive works.

    Edwards has been expanding on these themes in her most recent exhibition Wheel of the Year! EFFLUENT PROFUNDAL ZONE! commissioned by the Bonington Gallery as the first exhibition of 2018. An immersive installation invited the viewer to consider the inescapable cycles of waste and decay, a by-product of all our consumption, personal or material. Drawing clever parallels between overlapping ecologies – “from the futile pursuit of personal purification and ‘clean living’ to the increasingly rapid turnover of cultural content in the media and popular consciousness, to the wider perspective of the waste which is polluting our oceans, and threatening our very existence”– Edward’s makes the observation that the only difference is that of differing scale, and utilises art’s ability to evoke empathy and re-orient our often very narrow-minded subjectivities.

    Using video, audio, sculpture, performance and printed media, subcultures and social debris are historicised, tracing their trajectories and examining the wider socio-economic environments which give rise to them. Edwards traces the complex symbiotic relationship between the underground and the mainstream, while exposing their failures and flaws as well as any under-celebrated histories and latent positive potential. Edwards continues to explore personal cycles of consumption and waste, natural functions that are transformed and inescapably politicised as they connect with global capitalist economies.

    Ruth Angel Edwards studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and currently lives and works in London. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally at Arcadia Missa Auto Italia South East, Tate Modern (London), FACT, Royal Standard (Liverpool), Human Resources, (Los Angeles) and MEYOHAS Gallery, (New York).

    Be sure to check out her website to see more of her work.

  • Sula Africa: The fostering of a fashion community

    Tshepo Pitso, aka Don Dada, is part of a street culture that has evolved into a movement and a fashion community. Izikhothane are the kings and queens of South African brands, bright colours and flamboyant fashion combinations. Don Dada informs us that they have attempted to erase the fragmentation and rivalry between izikhotane crews by creating one – Material Culture. He expressed that this has been significant because it has burgeoned a collective sense of pride and connection between izikhozane from different parts of the country.

    Plugging into the politics of representation, Don Dada expressed that sharing the videos he created on YouTube was crucial as it ensured that izikhozane culture had a place on the internet. This allowed insider documentation of the people and style that is recognizably izikhozane. “We can’t have lost memories,” Don Dada states. This aids in the preservation of izikhozane identity, which Don Dada states is an important motivator for continuing to find ways to share and connect izikhozane from across the country. This self-made exposure has also attracted local and international media. Don Dada sees this as a way to inform people of the culture’s core and to avoid misunderstandings about what they stand for. It also allows for people to recognize that there is a uniquely South African fashion style, that is growing through self-referencing.

    The event, Sula Africa, is a coming together of izikhozane. However Don Dada explains that all people interested in fashion are invited. “We are inspired by fashion…We meet as Africans in fashion. That’s why we say Sula Africa”

    In closing, Don Dada reflects on his aims as a participant,  promoter and preserver of the subculture. “We don’t want to change the style. We are trying to keep it the way it was. We want to keep the identity the same. I don’t want someone who was a skhothane a long time ago, when he sees the current skhothane, and say ‘No this is not skhothane’. He must see that we are still izikhothane. We are still brave and we are not scared.”

    Credits:

    Featuring – Don Dada

    Camera – Jamal Nxedlana 

    Motion Design – Lex Trickett 

    Sound – Griffit Vigo

    Editing – Themba Konela