Some December contemplation...

As we move into the final throes of what has been, for many, a true annus horribilis, most of us are looking to December as a time to pause, to assess the past year, and to prepare for what promises to be a turbulent 2019, both globally and in South Africa.

For the arts and creative sector, the risks are diverse.2018 was striking with regards to disruption in our sector– we have seen disturbances at SAMRO, NFVF, MarketTheatre Foundation, and the National Arts Council. This has caused higher levels of tension in the sector, and deepening mistrust between agencies, staffing, the sector and broader society. It talks to the need for extremely rigorous governance and interrogation as we move forward.

Furthermore, the elections in 2019, the recent passing of the Environment Minister (currently Derek Hanekom is both Minister of Tourism and acting Minister of EnvironmentalAffairs), the stepping down of the Minister of Home Affairs,potential budget cuts, government departments potentially being collided, the ongoing Zondo Commission on StateCapture, the delivery of the DAC White Paper to Parliament– it seems we are moving towards a perfect storm. All align in a need to amortise costs in the public sector next year. How the creative and cultural industries respond to this, will determine how we are included in the planning.

Hippie By Paulo Coelho Publisher: Penguin Randomhouse ISBN: 9781786331595

Having said that – ke Dezemba! At last. Time to slow down and allow for some contemplation. For me, contemplation comes through reading. Books open my mind to deeper, broader conversations. There are two books that you should pack into your reading pile, that talk to the challenges of past and present, the role of the personal to explain the public, of staring the future in the face.

The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho is probably most well known for the book The Alchemist, which has sold 85million copies in a diversity of languages. And yet his latest work, Hippie, described as ‘self-fiction’ comes at the most appropriate time.

Brazil has just nominated a president on the populism ticket. He has been described as ‘the Trump of the Tropics’, a man who was in the military during Brazil’s military junta

The US has a president who is telling us to ‘sweep the forest floors’ after the worst Californian wildfires ever, and swathes of Europe are fast-tracking to the right wing. All of which are deeply at odds with the themes of self-discovery, exploration and a powerful challenging of the social and historical order in Hippie.

In Hippie, we criss-cross South America, and finally join Coelho’s fellow travellers on the ‘Magic Bus’ across Europe and onto Central Asia, during the ‘70s.

Photograph from Paulo Coelho’s Hippie

Ostensibly it is a fictitious book, and yet it has been described as his most autobiographical to date. Coelho writes about himself in the third person, as Paulo – distancing the author from the narrative. Early in the novel, he describes being imprisoned during the Brazilian military junta, and it strikes a harsh chord with what the country is potentially about to go through in 2019. This is a story of self-discovery; it is a ‘journey to the past and a map for the future’. Actually, it is also a journey through the world, and likewise into the interior of our souls.

It is this idea of journeys – into the past, geographies, and our heritage – that is also covered in the most wonderful photographic ‘art’ book (I’m not quite sure how to categorise it) by Johannesburg artist, writer and social commentator Terry Kurgan. In Everyone is Present, Kurgan unravels the journey of escape made by her Jewish grandparents in 1939, at the start of World War II; a time she describes as ‘multiple histories’. The extended family escape the Nazi regime in Lvov in Poland, travelling to India, then Kenya, and finally finding respite in South Africa. The work is a delicate and forensic dissection of Kurgan’s grandfather’s diaries and photographs; through them the artist talks to history, and the retelling of history. The intimacy of the photographs and the diaries, are highlighted by Kurgan’s own intimate telling of their story. While completely different to Coelho’sHippie in style, it also offers a wonderful opportunity for introspection into what the psychoanalyst ChristopherBollas describes as the Age of Bewilderment. Indeed Brexit, the Trump era, and the latest election in Brazil, all describe a present that has confused many, a reverse trajectory back into horrors that Coelho and Kurgan’s family were struggling to escape many years back.

Bollas talks of ‘reflection and introspection’ as muchneeded, when currently ‘hate-based solutions are used toaddress world politics and problems.’ These books, andmany more, should be reflected and deliberated on, in atime when truth, false truth and fake news are pinned to thenoticeboard of debate.