LEAESTHETIC Thuthukani Myeza

PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO?

I am a multidisciplinary artist and copywriter from Johannesburg, currently based in Cape Town and the creative curator of the World of words, Africa’s freshest poetry house. I write and I create visual artwork. I curate experiences, I am also a megalomaniac and music is the epitome. It’s my love language. So that’s my calling.

HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT TURNING YOUR TALENT INTO A CAREER?

So it depends on which medium, but we’ll take the broader scope of being creative. I was in primary school and for some time I got into Greek philosophy very early. It was a weird situation at school, but I got into Greek for us, very early and as cliche as it is, I started worrying about the purpose of life and everything I’ve read about. I’m just out here, like what is the meaning of everything? What is the purpose and like, and all my readings? And suddenly it came to me. Yeah, it was like the purpose was to create it. You create the purpose and you stick to it. So I was like, I want to create, that’s my purpose. That’s my life’s purpose. At that moment in time, that little kid was like, Yeah, that’s what I want to do, and that was the moment. Ever since then, I’ve chased anything that brought me closer to creating the medium. A writer, a poet, and I never stopped writing. I kept on writing when I moved to Johannesburg. I think I got more exposed to the poetry scene there. I started building my way up. I really started building my way up and the whole time while I’m doing school, long story short and ended working as a copywriter.

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR WORK? HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT, AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?

I am working with memories and portions of time and re-creating these memories into a different space, a different time for a different message. So, at any point in time, from my work, outside of my own emotional influence, but at any point in time, what you will find is culture. What I think you are seeing is your past just in a different gaze again, back to my analogy of memories

A big fight that I feel is in my work is the fact that, in history books and in school, we don’t go back to the more it’s like history are deprived of the stories and the imagery of our histories from so such an early age that even if you’re on the ground in the New Age, where everything is infinitives, it’s still hard to find. I am haunted by the ghosts of revolutionaries who did not make it to beyond notes or have streets named after them or be lines and textbooks for the bodies that flooded the streets and are not remembered. My work is also a big part of the racial stuff that I do. I like a lot of my work when dealing with racial tension is for that, it is to remind you of the atrocities of being black, of what it means of how we inherit our wounds, and we inherit this history. But there is no healing this wound, and it should not be forgotten. So that’s what I feel as well as decolonizing our identity and, it’s a part of my artist statement as well our history is still owned by the people who stole it. Every archive is in some university of the black child would probably never get to attend.

WHAT IS THE INTENTIONALITY BEHIND BLACK FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN YOUR WORK?

Most of my subjects are female male. I think it’s a common threat because that’s the most powerful figure in African history. It’s women, there are more archives of African women and there are men. I put some money on it. The closest thing to God or some of the closest people that exert the power and the majesty that is God or a higher deity is women. One of my pieces and African women are the custodians. And, um, what is this, uh, keepers of African culture and tradition? It’s intentional because we downplay their role, like in modern society and one South African culture being predating colonial times. But my emphasis is just on that because, like the females and themselves are godly, they are the closest thing we have to an entity way beyond us. I always feel like they made men as a prototype to test if the idea of a woman would work. That’s just a belief. We’re just a prototype to see that it’s possible, all right, let me make the real thing. And so it is intentional. I am very much intentional in having women. I wasn’t aware until someone actually pointed it out to me. It was subconscious. I only know as much as the work lets me know and as I discover it, But when going back, there is nothing as godly and as sovereign as and as majestic as a Black woman. There is nothing as magical as that. Always powerful, even like so. I know no discrimination against any other ethnic groups. But for me because I grew up around black women. I spent a good portion of my life surrounded by black women, and it comes off in my work.

PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO.

IMy name is Thabiso Ngobeni. I am the founder of CloudFolks and a self-taught graphic designer and photographer. I work with creative writing books. Although it’s amazing, I can say it’s a hobby, and something that keeps me going.

LET’S TALK ABOUT CLOUDFOLKS. WHAT DID YOU WANT TO DO WITH THE PLATFORM AND WHY DID YOU THINK THAT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT NEEDED TO EXIST?

This guy inspired me called Ivan Khumalo in Johannesburg back in 2010. I was inspired because he was posting images of different things you saw around him. I didn’t know that was something I wanted to do, So I created an account on Instagram, but I never thought that it would reach so many people because I want to put something that’s unique. The CloudFolks account started growing last year and I think the magic happened in February last year; we went from 1000 followers to 10,000 followers in that month alone and then we went to 30,000 and now we are sitting at 40,000. It’s quite amazing because it has all been organic.

WHY THE NAME CLOUD FOLKS?

IThere are so many things I was thinking before I came up with the name. I think I just wanted something unique or an image that doesn’t exist and I love clouds, so it just made sense.

WHAT IS THE INTENTION BEHIND USING THE NGUNI, ZULU LANGUAGE FOR THE COPY OF THE IMAGES?

My intention is to preserve the language we have. But at first I thought it wasn’t much. In the beginning, I had the feeling that people were going to engage with the content because they could not relate to it. But after I started posting, people took an interest in the content and the way it was written. I really appreciate that people could understand what I wrote and engage with it in such a manner.