FREE
DECEMBER 2014
A PROJECT OF THE CAPE TOWN PARTNERSHIP Molo | Hello | Goeiedag
SNAP CHAT
You showed us your most cherished photos. PAGE 12
A PORTRAIT OF A CITY
Cape Town’s past in pictures. PAGES 6 & 7
SCREEN ICON The story of the Labia Theatre. PAGES 4 & 5
PICTURE IMPERFECT CITY How do we see the city?
PUBLIC ART
We map some of the city’s best graffiti. PAGE 9
PAGES 6 & 7
www.capetownpartnership.co.za
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MOLO DECEMBER 2014
EDITORIAL
Molo. Hello. Goeiedag.
We are a multipliCITY
Molo is a free community paper, focused on the people of Cape Town, and published by the Cape Town Partnership.
Cape Town Partnership CEO Bulelwa MakalimaNgewana on why pictures of Cape Town need to tell a lot more than a thousand words.
Created by: Ambre Nicolson, Brandon Roberts, Dave Buchanan, Dylan Culhane, Lisa Burnell, Ru du Toit, Skye Grove, Sam Bainbridge, Stephen Alfreds Designed by: Infestation T: 021 461 8601 www.infestation.co.za Published by: Cape Town Partnership 34 Bree Street T: 021 419 1881
SEND US YOUR STORIES If you or someone you know has an interesting story to tell, mail us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za (no press releases, please).
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Contact the creators of Molo:
@CTPartnership #Molo
Email: molo@capetownpartnership.co.za Tel: 021 419 1881 www.facebook.com/molocapetown Molo, Cape Town Partnership, 10th Floor, The Terraces, 34 Bree Street, 8001
W
hat is the most recognisable image of Cape Town? I’ll bet it’s the one that appears on all those postcards: the one with the silhouette of the mountain as a backdrop to blue sea and white, sandy beaches. I don’t think you can blame visitors for wanting to celebrate the beauty of Cape Town’s natural setting, but this stereotypical image really doesn’t do justice to the vibrant, turbulent place I call home. It doesn’t show Cape Town’s urban heart, or its informal settlements or the variety of its street life. In fact, it hardly ever shows any people at all. It doesn’t say much about our city’s complicated history or rich and multicultural heritage, and it certainly shows nothing of the huge inequalities – social, economic and spatial – that are the everyday reality of its citizens. It tells only one story. And, as Nigerian author Chimamande Ngozie Adichie explained in what is now a famous TEDx talk, there is a great danger in the single story. In her words: “The single story
creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete … The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasises how we are different, rather than how we are similar.” The problem with having any one single image of Cape Town is that it risks oversimplifying our view of our own city. Cape Town is not a picture-perfect city. It is a city facing enormous problems. But it is also a city of opportunity and creativity, home to people of remarkable resilience, hope and imagination. As one of the judges of the recent competition, sponsored by the Western Cape Government, that chose Jacques Coetzer’s piece “Open House Cape Town” as the artwork which is to grace the corner of Dorp and Long Streets, I was pleased to see the panel’s commitment to choosing a multifunctional work that can be used to activate this public space in a
ON THE COVER shorts
SCREEN SHOTS “Cape Town is a city of many faces – from sophisticated architecture, design and technology, to handmade arts and crafts on the street. Both extremes are part of the Cape Town experience. I started with photographs I took of the CBD and then cut these up and reassembled them to create a new reality - one that is familiar but fragmented. Then I cut up smaller pieces of colourful paper and cardboard and added them into the composition. These represent the informal economy in the city, which tends to be very colourful and vibrant. Together I think the combination creates a beautiful harmony. I like to think that the same is true in reality.” Dylan Culhane, illustrator and designer
The Criterion bioscope was opposite Jubilee Square and next door to the Rendezvous Café, along Simon’s Town Main Road. It was here that I learnt two early lessons. The first was a lesson in the popular deconstruction of the imperial (in this case Greco-Hollywood) epic. The second was a related lesson about the possibilities of upending apartheid hierarchies ... the Criterion’s regular matinee patrons (some of us very regular, watching the same film many times over) were segregated into a “European” and a “non- European” section. The upstairs balcony belonged to the ‘nons’. It was from there that a continuous, subversive, choral commentary emanated. It was an exhilarating, part-stereophonic, part-bipolar, disorderly experience. It was hard to tell what was more entertaining, the action on the silver screen, or the flow of interjections from up behind. Both tugged at the heart and imagination. Jeremy Cronin, from his essay “Creole Cape Town”, in the book A City Imagined
number of ways. Such an example points to the value of art in guarding against simplification. Film, photography, painting, or (particularly contentiously, of late) public art are useful for the ways they challenge how we see the city. In recognising Cape Town as being a “picture-imperfect” city, with all the complicated, beautiful, frustrating and astonishing things that entails, we are also refusing to give in to stereotypes about our fellow citizens and the danger of the single story. After all, looking and seeing are not always the same thing. Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana
Jacques Coetzer’s winning design: Open House Cape Town
SEND US YOUR PICTURES
Do you have an image of Cape Town worth sharing? Send your photos, postcards, drawings and cartoons to molo@capetown partnership.co.za, and we will publish the best of them online at www.capetownpartnership.co.za or in the next edition of Molo.
Annual Film Festivals in Cape Town 01 Cape Town International Film Festival
02 Wavescape 03 Shnit short film festival 04 The 48 Hour Film project 05 Encounters Documentary Film Festival
FILMS SHOT IN CAPE TOWN Safe House (2012), starring Denzel Washington Dark Tide (2012), starring Halle Berry Invictus (2009), starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman
06 Short and Sweet 07 Horrorfest 08 Cape Winelands Film Festival
09 Out in Africa Film Festival
Non-profit organisations supporting young artists in Cape Town: Children’s Art Centre www.childrensartcentre.co.za Frank Joubert Art Centre www.frankjoubertartcentre. co.za Big Fish Film School www.bigfish.org.za Youngblood www.youngblood-africa.com
FAST FACTS
R5-bn
The amount the film industry contributed to the local economy in 2012
12 000
The number of full-time jobs that the industry supports
1906
The year that the first local sports coverage appeared on screen in Cape Town, at the Tivoli Music Hall. The footage was of a cricket match between England and South Africa held at Newlands sports grounds.
IN SHORT
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COLUMN Chad Rossouw
Between the Table and the deep blue sea
M
y great-grandfather, Edward Cole, was a commercial painter: Coca-Cola Santas, logos, Weet-Bix tins, postcards. About 15 years ago, Iziko put on an exhibition charting the history of images of Table Mountain. My mother went to the show, and recognized an enlarged, unattributed reproduction of a postcard as Edward Cole’s. It was a painting of a young girl gathering lilies, with the mountain in the background. My mom started a correspondence with the curator, who said that she hadn’t been the first person making inquiries, and put my mom in touch with an old woman. This old lady was Edward Cole’s old assistant, and very probably his lover. She had what could only be called a shrine to Edward Cole in her flat, full of paintings and photographs. What struck me about this story – besides the intrigue of family mysteries – was that together the two of them figured out from the angle of the mountain that Cole’s postcard could only have been painted from Robben Island. This changes a simple image
of a romantic holiday town into something else. At the time the image was painted, Robben Island wasn’t a political prison; and yet there were still 400 years of history, as a penal colony and lazaretto, that were whitewashed by a girl picking lilies and a mountain. The mountain has such a gravitational pull on the city’s identity, such a strong brand, that sometimes in order to see the city, one has to get on top of it. Maupassant, the French writer, often ate at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, even though he thought the food was mediocre. It’s the only place in Paris, he used to say, where I don’t have to see it. Like the Eiffel Tower, the mountain is a builtin logo, gracing every horizon, and a magnet for a million photographers. Like a brand, which hides its bad labour practices behind a façade of shiny product, Table Mountain hides the city’s history by its implacable presence. From up top, however, one can see the CBD, twinkling prettily, but also the swathe of empty land that was District 6. One can see the splash of suburbs both north
Like a brand, which hides its bad labour practices behind a façade of shiny product, Table Mountain hides the city’s history by its implacable presence. and south, but also the hard, separating lines of the Flats and the townships. From above, we can see a city struggling with its legacy. But mostly, we stay at sea level; and as artists making images of this city, we have to deal with the mountain’s looming presence. In a recent work, “Richwood Avenue”, I shot a panoramic view from Richwood, looking over an abandoned field to the Caltex refinery. Crashed into this field was a CGI rocket ship. At the time, I was interested in reimagining spaces I had grown up in, using sci-fi elements in these quotidian,
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AL FRESCO FILMS Watch a flick outside this summer, at any one of the four venues of the Galileo Open Air Cinema. Venues include Kirstenbosch, V&A Waterfront, Hillcrest Quarry and Somerset West. View the schedule at www.galileo.co.za
suburban settings. Far in the background of the image stands Table Mountain. It was an aspirational symbol for me when I was growing up, for something more urban and glamorous. In the photograph, the mountain counteracted the total lack of promise of a crashed spaceship. I’m reminded of a work, “Flats II” (2010) by the emerging photographer Ashley Walters, from his Uitsig series. Uitsig is a complex series of photos, examining the spatial and social dynamics of the Coloured townships of Cape Town. “Flats II” is an image of a block of flats, bleak and grey, behind a derelict field. In the background, framed by wispy sunset clouds, stands Table Mountain. However, this view of the mountain is radically different from mine. The shift in view from the West Coast suburbs to the Cape Flats is a shift in meaning. My great-grandfather’s view of Table Mountain from Robben Island is the view of an arriving ship, of a colonial, for whom the mountain’s embrace was a safe harbour, a new start, and land to be taken. This is the classic view
of the mountain, offering promise, and the view that is still sold to tourists and property developers. My own image of the mountain retains this colonial origin; but, I like to think, offers something more self-reflective, something of a hint of a failed and doomed project. In Walters’ photograph, however, the mountain is a divisive boulder. It is the view of forced removals and relocation. It may still be beautiful, clothed in tasteful pink clouds; but its presence is ominous. Chad Rossouw is an artist, writer and educator based in Cape Town. Most of his work is viewable at chadrossouw.com
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1. Galileo, V&A Waterfront
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2. Short & Sweet host pop-up cinema at various locations in Cape Town – such as in Camps Bay 3. Encounters at the Labia Theatre 4. Wavescape Film Festival on Clifton 4th
The film industry is a major contributor to jobs and revenue in the city. But that is not the only reason that it is important. The film industry is essential as a way to showcase our talent, both locally and globally. Denis Lillie, CEO of the Cape Film Commission
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MOLO DECEMBER 2014
The Story of the Labia Theatre For the last 25 years the Labia Theatre has been bringing the best of independent cinema to Cape Town. We spoke to owner Ludi Kraus to find out how the Labia came to be a local institution. Text by Ambre Nicolson, images by Lisa Burnell
Setting the scene: Windhoek, in the 1960s Growing up in Windhoek, in what was then the occupied territory of South West Africa, Ludi Kraus learned a lot about film. “As a child, I remember, one day – out of the blue – my dad decided to open a cinema,” Ludi recalls. “He didn’t know anything about the business; or about film, for that matter, besides taking me to see things like Tom Thumb on a Saturday. But he hired our nextdoor neighbour as the architect, and he had a friend who was a builder, and had built a hotel; and he said, ‘Well, if he can build a hotel, he can build a cinema, right?’ “Next he ordered five hundred blue seats from Europe, which took months to arrive; and finally, one Sunday, he visited a restaurant with my mother, and saw a very tall, good-looking head waiter from the Netherlands – and hired him on the spot, as the cinema manager.” According to Ludi, it was at this point that his father realised he needed to find something to put on the screen. “We learned the hard way, but we learned; and I got involved at an early age, during school holidays, helping to manage the place.” Even at such a young age, Ludi showed an interest in cinema as an art form. “I remember suggesting
to my dad that we show some foreign-language films, to which he replied: ‘Okay, but we need to have at least one really bad film a month too!’ In the end we were showing at least four really fine films a month; and I like to think we ended up educating our audience, and raising the bar in terms of what was available to be seen in a cinema in Windhoek at that time.”
Cut to Cape Town in 1979 After his stint of compulsory military service, Ludi became a law student at UCT. “At the time we used to have amazing screenings of films on campus. I remember watching Charlie Chaplin films in the art department. But I also used to sneak away from class and go to the local cinema, for what at the time was called the “housewives’ show”, because it was screened at about 11am on a weekday. Those films were anything but boring, though – because that’s when they
I was showing stuff … that you literally couldn’t see anywhere else.
FEATURE
used to show all the unusual foreign-language films that I loved.” In 1979, after completing his articles in Windhoek, Ludi moved to Cape Town permanently, to practise law. But even back then, it wasn’t long before he was importing films that were otherwise unavailable to show to local audiences. “I really missed all of the film stuff when I came to live here permanently. At the time, Cape Town had a great film festival – I remember seeing about 30 films in those ten days each year – but it wasn’t enough; and so I started to bring in films from overseas to show here. Really good films. You have to remember, there was no Cinema Nouveau at that time, so I was showing stuff like Pixote and Woman in Flames, that you literally couldn’t see anywhere else.” Ludi would hire out venues such as the Baxter or Artscape theatres for week-long showings, mostly of art-house films. “I was like a travelling roadshow for amazing films. At the time you couldn’t see this stuff anywhere, so we used to easily fill the 650-seat Baxter for ten showings of a single film.” The first film Ludi showed was The Grass is Singing, a Swedish adaption of a Doris Lessing novel in which a bored (white) farmer’s wife enters into a relationship with a (black) farm labourer – with some pretty dire consequences. As Ludi wryly puts it: “I called it ‘black on white, in colour’! It was a very relevant film in the days of apartheid, although I’m not sure the censors saw it that way.”
Scouting a location “So I had the films,” Ludi continues, “but I didn’t have a home for them.” That was until he found out, in 1988, that the Labia Theatre was for sale. The building had been constructed in the 1930s as the ballroom for the neighbouring Italian Embassy, and named for a prominent Italian family. Later, in 1949, it opened as a centre for the performing arts. It took two years of negotiation, but finally – in 1989 – the Labia Theatre belonged to Ludi. He converted the theatre to a cinema, but left much of the wood panelling (and the original box office) untouched. “I went from being an attorney to a theatre owner, and that’s what my wife, Ann, and I have been doing ever since,” he says.
Deleted scenes As the owner of the Labia, Ludi would travel to the Cannes Film Festival every year to look for films to bring back to South Africa. “I was very serious about it. I would sometimes see 60 films in a week; people used to tease me that I was the person who switched the lights on in the morning, and then switched them off again at night. I also had to watch a lot of the films twice: once to see the film, and once to see how I would get it past the censors back home.” In those days Ludi would often struggle to get films passed by the South African censorship board. “I would have huge fights with the censors, but I managed to gain their trust eventually. In
the case of the Labia, we got an exemption on the grounds that it was a small, discerning audience, and we didn’t have children viewing the films. I told the censors, ‘It’s not like my audience is going to be shocked to see a naked lady!’” He remembers trying all sorts of tricks to get films passed that might otherwise have been banned or cut. “If there was a particularly risqué scene that con-
I would sometimes see 60 films in a week; people used to tease me that I was the person who switched the lights on in the morning and then switched them off again at night. tained sex or violence, I always made sure that when the censors viewed the film, it was at exactly that moment that I’d send someone in with tea and sandwiches – under strict instructions to be very slow, make lots of noise, and repeatedly ask how much sugar and milk everyone wanted.” Ludi remembers that in many cases the censors themselves – often liberal individuals – were nonetheless shackled by the very strict laws of the day. “It did get very silly,” he remembers. “I remember once, I wanted to bring in a very light German comedy; but unfortunately, the opening credits were played over a scene of a
woman in the bath. I remember being worried that we would have to cut it, and then nobody would know the name of the film.”
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BOX OFFICE STARs
Roll credits Over the years, the Labia Theatre has developed a small but devoted fan base who attend the cinema religiously – both for the old-world cinema experience, and because they trust Ludi as a curator of worthwhile films. Still, it hasn’t been easy. Echoing the experiences of independent cinema owners around the world, Ludi explains: “Keeping the Labia afloat has been a struggle, especially after Cinema Nouveau opened in the 1990s. They were stiff competition. Nowadays, of course, all the technology has changed too. This has been both a blessing and a curse. It’s opened up the availability of film from all regions; but the need to go digital has been a huge financial burden.” Earlier this year, the Labia converted three of its four screens from traditional projection screens to digital, at a cost of over R2-million. Shortly thereafter, friends and supporters started a crowdsourced funding campaign through local funding platform Thundafund. The ‘Digital Gold’ campaign, as it was named, was almost instantly successful, raising R60 000 in its first day and half a million rand in total. Says Ludi, “The campaign was not only a financial success but it also showed people’s loyalty to the Labia. Now that we have converted to digital it has opened up a whole new world. Ever since then it’s been raining movies around here. The success of the Labia has also really been a group effort by the dedicated staff we have here. Some of them have been working at the Labia for more than 30 years.” Asked if he would do anything differently, given the chance, Ludi replies: “My one regret is that in the more than 45 years that I’ve been doing this, I haven’t been able to get the public really interested in experimental films. I still don’t think our local audiences really like to seek out the new and the different.” Prove Ludi wrong by visiting the Labia Theatre on Orange Street, or find out what’s showing on any of the Labia’s four screens at www.thelabia.co.za.
When Ludi bought the Labia in 1989 he kept many of the original features, including the original wood panelling in the interior and the box office. A sign commemorates the original opening of the Labia in 1949 by Princess Labia.
Riedwaan Fridie
former projectionist “I have worked for the Labia for more than 30 years. My love of movies started as a child at the old Avalon Cinema in District Six, even though I didn’t get to really watch films. My schoolfriend’s father was the manager at the Avalon. One day we went past the cinema and I asked if we could see the projection room. I was fascinated to see how they loaded the film and the noise it made as it whirred past. That’s when I fell in love with everything about movies. I kept coming back, and eventually, after my friend’s father gave his blessing, I started to learn from the projectionist how to load the film on the reels and splice pieces of film together. I have listened to the sounds of film ever since.”
Clair Idesis
“I have worked at the Labia for 21 years, Sunday to Sunday. I love my boss to bits, that’s why I have stayed so long. The audience has changed tremendously over the years. There are a lot of different ages now, with a lot of young people.”
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MOLO DECEMBER 2014
1500s and before
1600s
Chart of Table Bay drawn by Johannes Vingboons circa 1665
San rock painting near Eland’s Bay
Southern Africa’s earliest inhabitants are the nomadic San people who later mix with the Khoikhoi to form the Khoisan. The pastoral Khoisan are largely driven from their land by successive waves of immigration, first from the Bantu-speaking immigrants arriving from the north and later by European settlers in the 17th century. Their story remains in the art they left behind on the rock walls of caves all over Southern Africa.
1700s
Cape Town is “discovered” by Europeans several times, from Portuguese sailors seeking fresh water in 1510 to the commanders of two English fleets who claim Table Bay (and, in their words, the “adjoining continent”) for the English in 1620. Their claim is never pursued; and in 1652 an officer of the Dutch VOC, Jan van Riebeek, arrives to build a refreshment station for passing ships. For the next 20 years the so-called refreshment station requires imports of food from Europe to survive.
Khoi women dancing, drawing circa 1713
In 1713 a smallpox plague decimates the population of the Cape. It kills 20% of white settlers but almost 100% of the local Khoikhoi. Throughout the latter half of the 17th century and the early 1700s the slave trade at the Cape has been increasing. In 1754 the settler population of 5 500 people is outnumbered by a slave population of almost 7000 people taken from South East Asia, Madagascar, Mozambique and West Africa.
CAPE T
Adderley Street
through the decades
1800s
A view towards the sea from Adderley Street in 1873
c1925 Trams outside Cape Town Station
IN PICT
How has Cape Town been depicted vis showing how the inhabitants of our ci photographed Cape Town o
Compiled by Skye G
City snapshots
FROM THE SURREAL T
1950s
LEFT: A postc 1905 showing tramway goin Bay towards K
The annual Christmas lights display
RIGHT: The Pu Rain protest o in Cape Town September 19 police turned cannon conta purple dye on protesters. Th to mark prote later identifica arrest.
BOTTOM: The World Cup saw Capetonians o race and class together to ce the festivities Grand Parade UNKNOWN CC BY-SA 3.0
1976
2014
Tear gas during a protest
supplied
Adderley Street today
supplied
FEATURE
1800s
1900s
2000s
Oil painting by Thomas Whitcombe, 1818
Cape Town in the 1800s is a colonial city. In 1795 the English invade the Cape but relinquish control back to the Dutch in 1804, only to re-invade in 1806. The Cape would be an English colony until 1910. In 1875 the population of Cape Town is 35 000 people; by 1904 this number has risen to 170 000 people.
TOWN
TURES
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The old pier, 1911
In 1900 Cape Town was a city of unpaved roads and horsedrawn transport without electricity or plumbed water. By 1945 the development of the port had already brought industry, new kinds of immigrants and interesting forms of culture from across the seas (although we lost Woodstock beach in the process). During this century the city would be the site of some triumphs (such as the first heart transplant) but many more tragedies brought about by apartheid (the untold suffering of the forced removals in District Six).
2014 cityscape Instagram by Skye Grove
According to the 2011 national census, Cape Town is home to 3.7 million people, 42% of whom are coloured and 39% of whom are black. Of all households that fall within the city limits, 42% earned less than R3 200 per month in 2011.
Cape Town landmarks then and now
The Foreshore
sually over time? We found 20 images ity have drawn, painted, mapped and over the last five centuries.
1967
2007
Grove & Lisa Burnell
snapshots
TO THE CELEBRATORY
card from g the ng up Camps Kloof Nek.
SIMISA CC BY-SA 3.0
Greenmarket Square
1963
urple occurred on 2 989 when a water aining n a crowd of he idea was esters for ation and
2014
supplied
e 2010 aw of every s gather elebrate on the e.
District Six
2014
1970s
supplied
ZACKYSANT CC BY-SA 3.0
WE NEED YOUR HELP We know these 20 images don’t even begin to tell the story of our complicated, multifaceted, multicultural city. Help us to show a wider perspective on Cape Town by sending your images of Cape Town (along with a description) to molo@capetownpartnership.co.za. We’ll publish the best of them online at www.capetownpartnership.co.za or in the next edition of Molo. supplied by Cape Town Tourism
While we have made every effort to attribute all images correctly, please let us know if you spot any omissions.
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MOLO DECEMBER 2014
MY STORY
Making art in Cape TowN was painting and told me that I was doing a terrible job. He took my brush out my hand and started painting himself. From then on I did drama. Later I also studied spatial design through the Frank Joubert Art Centre, which is an incredible institution that provides art teaching and resources to kids who don’t have art at school – of which there are too many in Cape Town. After school I worked for an NGO here in Cape Town. I worked with rural people struggling for land redistribution, and that gave me a whole new way of seeing the city because it showed the difference between being urban and rural, and how the past has continued into the present. At the time I was painting a lot of graffiti and it was on the basis of this that I applied to art school. I still have that portfolio – and wow, are those pictures bad! As a student, I worked with the Human Rights Media Centre; and I played a part in organising and photographing an exhibition of stories from marginalised youth, called The Edge of the Table. The double meaning of this – of something being close to falling and also something on the periphery of Table Mountain – really struck a chord with me. We live in a city in which apartheid architecture has ensured that the past perpetu-
Haroon Gunn-Salie, on how Cape Town made him an artist, and how he makes art in Cape Town. As told to Ambre Nicolson Images by Ashley Walters and supplied
That’s why I make art; I think it can be used to tell grassroots stories, and I think what is lacking in our city and our country is shared community narrative. I think the story of nationbuilding as a grand narrative often drowns out the small but important stories we should be telling each other.
“I
had a very unique childhood. Both of my parents were Umkhonto we Sizwe commanders in the Western Cape. I was born while my parents were living underground and my mother had just been framed for a bombing that she hadn’t done. She did do quite a lot of other bombings, but not that one. There was a lengthy hunt for her and eventually they captured her and sent her to prison, along with me; that’s where I spent the first eight months of my life. A story that my mom told to me when I was older was how I would take my crayons and stuff them into the lock of the prison door to try to open it – quite sweet, but not what you would consider a normal part of a child’s development. I don’t really remember most of this history, my memories are
made up of the stories I was told – I don’t have memories of the lived experience myself. This is something that came back to me when I was an art student at Michaelis. The exhibition I did at that time, called Witness, came out of those early experiences; because in choosing to work with a group of veterans from District Six, being told their stories and in translating those stories into artwork, I was also becoming a witness to them. My desire was to make artwork that could also function as the translation of oral history – not in a verbal or written sense, but in a way that is sculptural. When I was an older child we also lived between the realities of Cape Town in other ways. Geographically we lived halfway between the mountain and the informal settlements on the Cape Flats, in a place called Belthorn Estate. I think to this day my mother is the only white person who lives there. Seeing the mountain from this point of view also gave me a perspective on the city itself. I first studied art as a Grade 8 student. In the third term my teacher came up to me while I
When it comes to the Elion piece on the promenade, all I can say is that I am one of the Art54 artists, and I had no idea that that piece was going up. Problematic, right? Then there is the case of that toilet that Tokolos Stencils dropped off at the Brundayn Gallery. My question with that is, if it’s activism, surely it’s better not to be anonymous? And why brand the toilet with your statement – that was not a toilet, it was an art toilet! Lastly, I think the Remember Marikana campaign is really good and important work – but I went to Marikana, and you know what? There are no stencils there. Surely the place they would most need to be put up, on that highway down which the mining executives travel every day? It is these kinds of questions that led me to my recent campaign around street signs. After we arranged a follow-up to the Witness exhibition in the form of transforming one of the new homes in District Six phase two development, I realised that people are being moved back to Zonnebloem – not to District Six. When the area was first renamed that, a word that means sunflower in Dutch, it was meant to erase any trace of how the people had called the area home. So I took it upon myself to change the road signs back to say ‘District Six’. It’s
Haroon’s work, Sunday Best, 2012
ates itself. But through that exhibition I also saw the power of art to be provocative, thoughtful, transformative. And that’s why I make art; I think it can be used to tell grassroots stories, and I think what is lacking in our city and our country is shared community narrative. I think the story of nation-building as a grand narrative often drowns out the small but important stories we should be telling each other. I think it’s good that there is discussion happening around public art in Cape Town at present, but I disagree with some of the ways that artists are going about it.
been a year, but they’re still there. In the case of that work it was more activism than art, I think. The question, really, is: do I want, one day, to have to show my child this part of the city, and have to explain why it hasn’t changed? I wonder: is that what my parents thought before they had me?”
FEATURE
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2.Unknown
Street art
Description: colourful, abstract piece on face brick Location: Frere Street, Woodstock
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A V&
E AT W
1. Creation Generation Mural
Arm
By CORE Collective mural artists Rayaan Cassiem, Anwar Davids, Leigh Cupido and Amedeo Bisogno
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Graffiti is an ancient form of By Freddy Sam communication Description: A large-scale and a way monochrome work marking 20 years of democracy. for artists to Location: Woodstock, comment on the opposite Baltic Timbers at social injustices 111 Albert Road that exist in 4. Two Great Minds the city. 3. Freedom Day Mural
What counts as street art? For some, even the most elaborate mural amounts to little more than vandalism. For others, even the crudest tag is an artform. Here’s where to find some of the city’s best known pieces so you can make up your own mind. O FR
by Billy aka Alex Godwin
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Description: This mostly monochromatic piece was created to “create awareness and conversation”. Location: Corner Sir Lowry Road and Street, Woodstock HARBOUR
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Compiled by Brandon Roberts Images by Lisa Burnell
1 Freddy Sam By N
Location: Albert Road, Woodstock
5. Wall of Fame
Bloem
Buiten
Orphan
MANDELA BLVD LSON NE
CHRISTIAAN BARNARD
Martin
Jan Smuts
Fo G un ar d de er n s
DF Malan Parliament
C GO AST OD LE HO OF PE
Barrack
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CAN TERB URY
Albertus
Harrington
BUITENKANT
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Caledon
DISTRICT SIX
ROELAND
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8. No eating HATFIELD
7. Raised by wolves
By JAZ aka Franco Fasoli
By Nardstar
ANN Description: Painted by AND ILL ALE M Argentinean artists JAZ, this mural shows a wild cat devouring a man in a forest.
Description: colourful faceted depiction of a wolf and human face. KLOOF NEK
Location: On the side of a house just off Albert Road, Woodstock GARDENS
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9. Heart by Boa Mistura VREDEHOEK (a collective of five Spanish artists) Description: A giant patterned heart with a diamond at its centre. Location: Tribe Coffee Roasting, Woodstock Foundry, CT
Street art, by its nature, is fluid, and in Cape Town, it is also frequently short-lived. Nonetheless, this is a tiny fraction of the art that can be seen on the streets of our city. Other areas that boast impressive pieces include Mitchells Plain (see Falko’s goldfish mural in Westridge), Langa (see the murals by various artists that formed part of the 2013 Langa Street Art Festival outside the stadium) and Khayelitsha (see Chris Auret’s murals of children’s faces at the PACC clinic).
D
E PA WA RK AL
Location: Sussex and Wright Roads, Woodstock
11. The Harvest
12. Madiba mural
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by Mak1one Description: Blue and ORANJEZICHT
By Faith47
Location: Queen Victoria Street, opposite the Company’s Garden
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TAMBOERSKLOOF
Description: This piece forms part of the Freedom Charter series, which includes works around Cape Town and Johannesburg.
T U CP
Commercial
KLOOF
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BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE …
TO MUIZENBERG
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The Street is the Gallery offers street art tours in Woodstock and Westridge in Mitchells Plain, both hubs of street art in Cape Town. For more information find The Street is The Gallery on Facebook or Twitter @AStreetGallery
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TO TABLE M & CAMPS OUNTAIN BAY
10. All shall be equal before the law
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Gallery
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Caledon
BUITENSINGEL
by Mike Makatron Description: This piece is the work of Australian artist Mike Makatron Location: 34 Cornwall Street, Woodstock
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Bloem
5 WOODSTOCK
DARLING
Spin
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AD RO
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LONG
LOOP
BREE
New Church
Leeuwen
ADDERLEY
Church
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10 6 7
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Longmarket
Queen Victoria
Dorp
Keerom
WALE
T KE 1 AR M W E N
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AND STR
nd e ra d G ara P
Church Square
t ke ar m re enqua e r G S
N W TO AY PE ILW ION A T A C R A ST
Parliament
SHORTMARKET
Burg
BUITENGRAGT
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Riebeek
Castle Hout
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Old Marine
Thibault Square
STRAND
Heritage Square
Chiappini
BOKAAP
Rose
TO CAMPS BAY
om
St Georges Mall
Prestwich
c vi re Ci ent C
Government Ave
TO SE AP OIN T
HEERENGRACHT
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The Company’s Garden
St
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WATERKANT
6. Green Elephant
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Location: near the train line in Salt River
13 C IC CT
LONG
Description: This was a popular canvas for some of the most prolific artists of the 80s and 90s. Today you can see works by the Burning Museum collective too.
TO V& A
BREE
By various artists
THE Street Is The
Description: Two large-scale painted heads, facing away from one another.
L/ AR G PA TEN Lewin O U T A G
By Faith47 Description: An electronic lighting system, designed by Lyall Sprong and Marc Nicolson at Thingking, illuminates each time a donation is made to the #ANOTHERLIGHTUP project, giving the work a new dimension after sunset and helping to fund lighting in publicspaces in Monwabisi Park. Location: De Waal Drive
14. We all Share Roots By Boa Mistura (a group of five Spanish artists) 14
black mural
Location: Canterbury Street, Cape Town
13. In Memory of Bonzaya
Description: A depiction of a tall tree with a heart at the roots. Location: Commercial Street
By an unknown artist Description: a turquoise, orange and white mural of local rapper Bonzaya Street Tyrant, who died in September 2011. Location: Albert Road, Woodstock
Do you have a favourite piece? Take a photo and send it to us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za
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MOLO DECEMBER 2014
ORDINARY PEOPLE
Changing the way we see the city
How do we “see” the city through film, photography and public art? We asked a filmmaker, a photographer, an artist and a writer about the role that Cape Town plays in their own work and how they would like to change the the way Cape Town is portrayed through Text by Ambre Nicolson Images by Lisa Burnell and supplied
can have one story about Cape Town, this place is a whole collection of short stories. There is no such thing as ‘Cape Town: the movie’.” Nonetheless, Cape Town features prominently as the setting for Jenna’s first feature film, titled Love the One you Love. “It explores the idea that love is this preordained, ‘meet your soul mate’ kind of thing,” Jenna explains, “In reality having no choice about who you love would be horrific. I think there are parallels to that in how Cape Town and South Africa are often portrayed in a
...if I’m lucky it will take me a lifetime just to figure out what I want to say about this place.
02 NARDSTAR
THE STREET ARTIST:
Nardstar describes herself as a “graffiti artist, street artist and mural artist who also does customising, gallery art and vector art.” Her work appears on the streets of Cape Town and Johannesburg and as far afield as New York and Connecticut. Why do you do your art? It’s my life.
What do you think about making street art in Cape Town? The city is a graffiti graveyard. Years of graf have been buffed. It makes me sad to drive around the city and see no graf where there used to be tons, it’s so aesthetically boring and so restricted. There are no legal walls and the writers and street artists are limited instead of celebrated, or at least
JENNA BASS
01 THE FILMMAKER:
JENNA BASS
Jenna Bass recently completed her first feature film, Love the One You Love and is currently working on a feminist Western and an acapella hip hop mini-series set in Lavender Hill. She is also one of the founders of the African pulp magazine, Jungle Jim.
When I ask writer and filmmaker Jenna Bass what role Cape Town plays in her work, her eyes light up. “Growing up I thought that Cape Town was the southern suburbs; and then later I discovered town and I thought, ‘oh, this is Cape Town’ but of course over time I realised how wrong I was about that – I only knew a tiny fraction of Cape Town. It was a huge shift for me, and now I do find myself getting angry with simplistic misrepresentations of Cape Town and South Africa in film. I realised that if I’m lucky it will take me a lifetime just to figure out what I want to say about this place. It’s the only place in the world I know, that I have some sense of what goes on here – and even then of course there is so much I don’t know, but I don’t think you could find a better city to make films in. Every film that I make here is an excuse to find out more about this place. That’s the joy of characters, is that you can set them problems that means they encounter the city in different ways. I don’t think you
one-dimensional “rainbow nation” way that I don’t think is true or helpful. In both cases there is an idea of forced consensus. In my film two intersecting stories explore these questions through different kinds of relationships. One is a couple who find themselves conspired against to stay together, and another is about an older guy who is still in love with his ex-girlfriend and who befriends her younger brother to feel close to her.” Last year Jenna made a music video with the Hip Hop Collective known as Dood-venootSkap. “Together we came up with the idea of a hip hop acapella musical written in Kaaps. It has now evolved into a miniseries and hopefully we will be shooting it next year.” She is also working on a feminist Western, set in the Karoo, called Flatlands. Says Jenna: “The idea of a South African Western is not a new one but I think this place is really well suited to the genre and I think that a South African woman will make a great lead in such a film – South African women are so strong.”
Get started, there are no rules and no school that can teach you how to do this. Get a wall and get painting. Nardstar
considered as people instead of as bylaw statistics that make the city look good.
You work in lots of different mediums, including canvas, sneakers and skateboards. What other kinds of surfaces would you like to experiment on? I would like to experiment with wood more.
What would you say to the 10-year-old girl who wants to become a street artist? Get started, there are no rules and no school that can teach you how to do this. Get a wall and get painting.
FEATURE
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03 ALEXIAWEBSTER THE PHOTOGRAPHER:
Alexia Webster was working at a local production company that made music videos when she started taking photos of her friends. “One day I got a very unexpected call from a journalist friend of mine,” Alexia explains. “He invited me to join him as the photographer on a story he was doing in Ethiopia for a big British newspaper.” Although she had no experience as a working photographer, she packed her bags and camera and headed off on her first-ever assignment. Alexia’s Street Studio in Du Noon in 2012
“The newspaper really liked the work we produced and so my career as a photographer began.” In 2011 she started the Street Studios project, setting up street studios to provide free photos, printed on site, to anyone who wanted one. So far Alexia has held street studios in locations around South Africa – including central Cape Town, Blikkiesdorp, Woodstock and Du Noon – and as far afield as the Bulengo displacement camp in the DRC. “The responses have been quite different in different spaces so far because a family photograph has
a very different value depending on your access to resources,” she says. “At Bulengo, for example, hundreds people lined up over the course of six days to have their photo taken. With life being so precarious in the camp the photograph became a potential piece of family history. In Hillbrow on the other hand, the studio was a much more playful and lighthearted space.” Alexia grew up in Johannesburg, the daughter of writer and historian Luli Callinicos. “Her books were full of photographs of migrant workers coming to the city
I feel Cape Town is quite conservative and controlled in terms of public space and art. There is very little room for spontaneous or unapproved art that isn’t sanctioned by the city or corporate sponsors. Alexia Webster
to work in the mines, of crowded compounds, of domestic workers in the city, and Randlords and their opulent homes in the suburbs. I remember myself as a little girl spending hours looking through her collection of photos, imagining that world and piecing together the story of my city and my country.” Today Alexia has traveled to cities across the globe. How does Cape Town compare in terms of public art? In Alexia’s words: “I feel Cape Town is quite conservative and controlled in terms of public space and
You grew up in Joburg, how did you get to understand the arts scene in Cape Town when you moved here? I moved to Cape Town from Jozi in 2008 to work as an arts journalist for The Tonight section of the Cape Argus. I didn’t know anyone here. My beat was covering music, but I used it as a platform to explore every avenue of the arts scene in Cape Town. That was my key to the city.
What stories do you think are missing from Cape Town’s public art?
04 ATIYYAH KAHN THE WRITER:
When people were forcefully removed from their homes all over Cape Town, their stories went with them. The art world here represents a specific elite voice that is not true for all who live in Cape Town. This new SunStar at Signal Hill and the sunglasses in Sea Point are great examples. Also, why are there so many legal street-artworks from international artists in Woodstock but so few local artists?
Why does street art matter? Atiyyah Kahn grew up in Johannesburg and studied Street art provides a voice to the political science at Wits before studying journalism in voiceless. It is important because Grahamstown and Los Angeles. She now calls Cape the free nature of it means it does Town home. She is an arts journalist, one of the founders not discriminate, and the temporary nature of it means that it of the vinyl appreciation series Future Nostalgia and a is always fresh. In South Africa, believer in the power of street art. the writing on the walls is more relevant than the stuff saved for
art. There is very little room for spontaneous or unapproved art that isn’t sanctioned by the city or corporate sponsors. In most of the other African cities I have visited, there is informal public art everywhere in various forms, from sign writing to street performances and graffiti, but unfortunately it’s mostly unfunded. I think Johannesburg is a great example of a city that allows both approved and spontaneous acts of public art that represent many different voices and views of the city.”
Why are there so many legal streetartworks from international artists in Woodstock but so few local artists? ATIYYAH KAHN
bourgeoise galleries. I find the hidden spaces under bridges, in between alleys or inside abandoned buildings much more interesting canvases.
Having lived elsewhere do you think there is a stereotypical image of Cape Town and if so, do you think it is deserved? Most people overseas who know about Cape Town associate it with a place of immense beauty. That’s fair. People from other parts of South Africa, though, commonly criticise it for being too European. That’s not well-deserved, because while many Germans are scooping up precious property in the Bo-Kaap, Cape Town is not limited to just the few streets in the CBD. My experience in the six years I’ve spent living here shows me a massive cityscape with an incredibly diverse history, untold stories and a rich heritage that is often ignored.
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MOLO DECEMBER 2014
YOU SAY
STREET TALK
PICTURE THIS
Joy Zhang “This is the first picture that was ever taken of my dad and me, a few days after I was born in Texas, and a few days before my mom shaved my head. Other than just being a special photo because it’s a special moment, it’s one of my favourites because I can almost feel my dad’s anxiety at being a new parent as he holds me; the start of his new life adventure.”
You showed us your most cherished images, from family snapshots to inspirational photos – and a new tattoo. Text and images by Lisa Burnell
Wesley Howes
I’d have to say that this photo is my favourite because it shows the three of us – my dad, my uncle and me – at our happiest, after Liverpool had just won 2-1 against Spurs. Poseidon, my dad’s Alsatian, was pretty stoked too.
Clint Cloete
Natalie Lucia:
“I think my favourite image would be one on my phone of a space cluster of numerous gases. I am intrigued by space and astronomy.”
“This is one of my most meaningful tattoos – the dead geisha – which symbolises a big marking in the change of my musical career when I decided to go solo.”
Munya Makasi:
I painted a picture of a lion and a cheetah. I keep a copy of this on my phone with me because it will always remind me of home and of Africa’s nature. Ryan Geduldt “Right now my favourite or most meaningful image is the tattoo that I want to get: it’s a design of a cross fused with a treble clef, a mix of my music and my faith, with Psalm 24 written in music notes underneath it.”
Tendai Mahlengwe
Adrian Lucas:
I keep these photos with me when I travel because they remind me that no matter where I am or what I do, these people love me. This is my weapon against sadness.
Martin Marais “I think any picture of Table Mountain is always my favourite. No matter where I am in the world, the moment I see that mountain I’m reminded of the place I call home.”
“My favourite piece of artwork is a political painting done by the local artist Ayanda Mabulu, which I first saw in the World Art Gallery. The piece speaks to the truth about political leaders. Desmond Tutu, Queen Elizabeth, Obama, to name a few, all sitting around one table. Mugabe was nailing his tongue while Obama was sharpening his. This piece particularly touched me because it showed the truth about politics, and how politicians lie to their people.”