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EDITOR’S LETTER
O
ur collaboration with Kganyo brings forth a visual text that makes a commentary on the lived experiences of women in South Africa amid the femicide which the country is currently facing. The issue also investigates the notion of self reflection through self care, we aim to understand the different ways in which one can reach this. We transcend this idea into other parts of the continent through the work of Ghanaian visual artist, Kwasi Darko, whose work explores issues of identity, positionality and the idea of being in relation to the social and political. We also sit down with Dr P. Gumede to find out more about the Aesthetics industry in South Africa. While we are still in the spirit of self reflection, I leave you in the beautiful words of Abena Amoah below. “Meet yourself again with a deepening embrace of all that sits in your being. You deserve a kind and forgiving friend who gives love freely without judgment. Be that friend. Your love is what you’ve been waiting for. Sit and proclaim your name. You are invaluable. Meet yourself again and again with a deepening embrace even on the days you do not recognize your image. You have been a lover unto many and it’s time to pour into yourself. Love your love.” Abena Amoah Till Next Time Folks Pretty Renae Mangena
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PRETTY RENAE MANGENA Iqhawe Team
Lethabo Motlalepule Phora Sikelelwa Vuyeleni
Copy Editor
Keamogetswe Mere
Designs and Illustrations
Koketso Maluleka
Photography
Creative Direction
Features
IQHAWEMAGAZINE
Sipho Biyam
Kganyo
Dr. Portia Gumede Anesu Mbizvo Kwasi Darko Keren Lasme Noluthando Mcira
IQHAWEMAGAZINE
IQHAWEMAG@GMAIL.COM
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CONTENT ISSUE 7 9
Creative of the Month Karen Lasme Noluthando Mcira Kwasi Darko
33 Feature
Dr. Portia Gumede
36 Feature
Anesu Mbizvo
44 Music Muzi
40 Useful Content Self-Reflection
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Cover Tebogo Mashile 7
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CREATIVES OF THE MONTH Living in the African Continent post-colonization and post all that the continent has been through is a very interesting experience to say the very least. The idea of self identity and self awareness within the space becomes a way of self reflection and finding one’s self. These creatives have found a way to speak to the multi- faceted issues that face young people living in the African continent today through contemporary art. Their work explores the notion of being, while still using the tools at your disposal to find yourself and find the spaces in which you belong.
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CREATIVE OF THE MONTH Photo Credit: Ksenia Burnasheva IQHAWE
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KEREN LASME Côte d’Ivoire
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y name is Keren Lasme I am a visual artist born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and raised in Bordeaux, France. I hold a MA in African Studies from SOAS University of London with a major in African philosophy, a discipline which highly influences my artistic practice. I see myself as an aesthete and a storyteller who uses different artforms to explore the Self and communicate my experiences, thoughts, feelings and knowledge. My work is mostly intuitive and contemplative and explores topics such as spirituality, the mystical, the body, the beautiful as well as our relationship with the natural world. I am also a jewellery designer, creative director and founder of iéfo a jewellery brand which celebrates the African Art of Adornment. About the work ‘The Cosmic Dance’ is a visual and sonic journey into the psyche. It was created during ColabNowNow, a digital arts residency developed by the British Council. For this project, I wanted to further explore my interest in music as a spiritual tool and how sound affects our state of consciousness. The idea was to create an immersive installation linking sound and sight allowing the viewer to be present yet transcend time and space. The otherworldly and symbolic aesthetic of the visuals attempts to interpret the nature of the cosmos while sonically, it is an invitation to journey into the cosmos. As a whole, ‘The Cosmic Dance’ asks us to expand our consciousness and imagine what lies behind the veil once the communication between the physical and spiritual realms is established.
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CREATIVE BRANDS OF THE MONTH
NOLUTHANDO PRECIOUS MCIRA
VRY_BLK
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oluthando Precious Mcira, a twentyyear-old female, born and raised in a small township, within the outskirts of Pretoria, Ekangala. She is currently residing in Johannesburg, in pursuit of attaining her Fine Arts degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. Growing up, as a little child, she was always interested in art, that whenever she’s given a book to read, she’d instead doodle. Her journey in art started whilst in primary school, her talent was recognized by her art teacher and further developed with the help of her brothers’ critics, and attending Pro Arte Alphen Park high school in Pretoria, where she majored in Visual Art.
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Her inspiration and influences are constantly growing, she not only finds inspiration from other artists, and her peers, but also through music. Just like Andy Warhol, a brand is what she wants to create for herself—Vry_blvk, is the brand. The name is derived from a song by Jamila Woods. Through her brand, she wants to either join in a conversation or start one of her own. And expressively communicate her ideas and visions. She uses a variety of mediums, she can’t be tied down to a specific one. She also uses her body as a tool to create drawings. She’s constantly trying out new mediums, to grow her understanding of materials and how she can further push them. With all that she’s learning, she hopes to be able to give back to her community in giving other young people with talents a platform for learning, exposure, and growth. She has taken part in the Tshwane Art Festival at the State Theatre (2016), and the State Theatre Gala Exhibitions that are held annually by the high school she attended from 2015—2017. Her work has recently been shown at, The Women’s Craft Exhibition, held at the IDC Gallery in Sandton. IQHAWE
Project: VRY_BLK
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he idea here is to create a more definite and clear work and “identity” for Vry_blvk , and extending the idea of an “iconic” superhero from Africa that battles the current and actual real-life battles faced mainly by black females and broadly in the context of how society has come to view them, as well as how the European-countries and ‘America’ has created a false “exaggerated” cultural identity of how black people are, and the finalization of the black female body, conflicted with concepts of “fetishism” and “otherness”. Vry_blvk, will appear as a sort of “guardian angel” that exists in the real world, protecting and defending the black female body, mainly, in South Africa, and abroad once opportunities arise. The whole concept is drawn from the themes of fantasy and fact. The concept behind the attire consists of items gathered from Noluthando’s mother’s wardrobe (skirt)— creating a mature sense of dressing, vintage stylization mixed with the modernistic style of her brother’s avant-garde matric dance t-shirt, created during the year 2009. The hairstyle is drawn from inspirational words from artists like Brian Montshiwa and Ropa, who constantly encourages her to take on the topic of hair politics, as they have mentioned her expressiveness through the consistent change of hairstyles.
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CREATIVE OF THE MONTH
KWASI DARKO
Ghana
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wasi Darko is a Ghanaian photographer and visual artist living and working in Accra, Ghana and across the African continent. My work explores the themes of self-expression, identity (African), insecurity, sexuality, isolation and gender fluidity. I love to travel and to explore the beauty and mystery of nature and this reflects heavily in my work as I always find a way to incorporate nature into the overall message. My muses are mostly underdogs and individuals who can also be described as the exceptions of the norm of whatever society they find themselves in. I believe we are in an age of self-discovery and self-acceptance and I explore these themes heavily in my work with hopes of carrying the message of self-love to anyone who comes across my pieces. There has been a steady rise of black awareness and the need for blacks to love and celebrate their blackness, be it their skin color, their fashion or culture and this has catapulted Africa to the forefront of global art in recent years. I consider myself fortunate to find myself in this new hub of inclusive art and I strive through my work to not only maximize the beauty of our uprising continent but to promote our essence and spirit through stunning compositions and rich themes.
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Project: Here & Now By our very genetic makeup, we should be fluid. We are half water and water does not resist, water flows. However, restrictions are placed on bodies and how they should interact with each other. From intimacy and emotions, we are conditioned to conform to specific gender roles and confinements. What happens then when one flows fluidly through contemporary and traditional African spaces in a non-normative expression of gender and identity. What is the outcome of self and society? In the second part of my work “Here & Now” I seek to explore this notion through the use of body movements and interaction. I developed this project under the British Council Residency named “ColabNowNow” which involved the uniting of 11 different artists (sound, visual and design) in Johannesburg, South Africa (1st Part) and Maputo, Mozambique (2nd Part) to create stunning visual and artistic work. I chose this project in development of the first series, available on my website because I feel personally as a queer African man that it is high time these conversations are had to make way for the commencement of safe spaces for anyone out there that does not identify with the specific sexual roles African societies tend to place on individuals. The images from this photo are embedded with Codes which creates a moving effect (Augmented Reality, AR effect) when phone cameras are pointed at it.
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AM I NEXT? The prevalence of violence in South Africa is the equivalent of that in countries at war, with 110 rapes and 56 murders a day.
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At war and waiting Betrothed to the statistic 1 in 3, you or me Current affairs- they left her for death The marriage culminating in her demise #aminext IQHAWE
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was sitting in the window seat of a taxi on my way home after a long day when I learned of Uyinene Mrwetyana’s death. The 19 year old student from the University of Cape Town had been missing since 24 August 2019. The news came through the voice of a middle-aged man speaking in isiZulu on the afternoon airwaves. My throat tightened and tears welled up, threatening to spill and betray me. The taxi fell silent. uMa shook her head somewhere in the front seat with an “Oh Nkosi ’yam.” The male passengers, taxi driver included, went mute. After the 5 ‘o’clock news, Samthing Soweto’s Akulaleki accompanied us home and normal, jovial programming resumed. On Friday the 13th of September 2019, hundreds of women gathered in front of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange demanding that listed companies pledge 2% of their funds towards the fight against gender-based violence. The march was meant to be a shutdown of the richest square mile in Africa. Instead, it was a wake- for all the womxn like Uyinene who could not be there that day and those of us who must still walk around with our own ghosts. It was a womxn in waiting, a plea ignored, a call silenced and a message left on seen and read. The normalcy we tried so hard to disrupt persisted unbothered, interrupted only temporarily by our unions at traffic lights and intersections. On the day of the march, a truth I knew all too well stared me dead in the face -no one was coming to save us. The feelings around this resulted in the project shot. A bride in waiting with no one coming for her. Seen but never acknowledged. Her bouquet a blossom of current affairs. Betrothed to the statistic – “ 4 times the international femicide rate”, “ every 3 hours…” We are in waiting, wondering #amInext?
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Dimpho: Can we get a basic introduction to your history, both personal and academic. Dr.P Gumede: I was born in Clemont, in KZN and I went to school there, it is a semi-rural area. I had a great upbringing, we were relatively poor, we lived in a two-bedroom house and the room I shared with my siblings was used as a lounge, kitchen and a bedroom. And there were a lot of riots in the neighborhood about the struggle and about Nelson Mandela, whom at the time I didn’t know of, but I knew Winne Mandela because I would see her on television defying and fighting the police. Apart from my parents, she was the only other heroine that I saw fighting for our struggle. She symbolized this heroine that was outspoken, and what was nice was the fact that she was black and she was a woman. It gave me and a lot of people in my generation, the idea that as a black woman, you can do it, you can be strong, you can defy authority if it is wrong and you can have a voice. Upon completing secondary school I went and studied Medicine because at the time my grandmother ISSUE 7
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FEATURE
FEATURE
TALKING SKIN WITH DR. PORTIA GUMEDE
was sick and was taken care of by my mother who was a nurse. I thought it was a great idea because I wanted to help and understand how I could help. So while I was studying at university I fell in love with skin, it is the biggest organ, it protects you and a lot of diseases manifest through the skin and the kind of food you eat is manifested through the skin. And when I finished my internship/community services I decided to come back and specialize in the skin. The Journey I started attending aesthetics workshops it was just white doctors in the space and very few black doctors. What I found exciting was the information I acquired about dark skin type. Because that is my passion and it became important to share this information with people since in most cases people assume it is meant for white people or maybe expensive. Once I had completed all that I needed to I opened my practice and I am loving it. Dimpho: Could you tell us a bit more about the industry of medical aesthetics in South Africa? Dr P Gumede: Medical aesthetics in South Africa is dominated by white people because they have known about it for much longer. If you take a look at the products a lot of them were directed to them. They were tested on them and they are much further. It is said there hasn’t been much research on darker skin types. Maybe now things are changing because they realized black people can also afford and some things can be done which creates an interest which wasn’t there prior. Which put off a lot of people, even currently when you try to look up for instance hair rejuvenation on the net before and after pictures there is none of the African ethnicity. So it has been tricky in terms of treatment and products but I think things are changing and with the youth today they are embracing who they are much more than the previous generation. And our motto here is to be confident in your skin, be confident in your hair, in yourself and in who you are.
My clientele depends on the treatment so with more aggressive treatments my client base is white people and very few black people. I have a lot of clients in the ’20s and 30’s, people don’t realize there are different stages to the journey of aesthetics, so, for example, a 20-year-old will come in for rejuvenation because of dead skin layers. We as African people have more melanin so this means if we get a cut or bruise it gets red, inflamed or swollen. The melanin goes there and heals the area, once the skin is healed it still stays there and leaves dark marks. So we get clients who came in with such pigmentation problems which can occur at any age. Some people get post-pregnancy milaza, some come in for dry skin or sensitive skin. The older clientele want things such as mark prevention and mini botox and we also have micro-needling. Dimpho: Would you say it is safe for a client to do treatments themselves? Dr. P.Gumede: We can give treatments to a client but they have to be told exactly what to do, this means which area to use it on, how many times to go through, meaning the client has to be trained. On white skin (type 1 and 2 ) they can demo roll until they bleed because they do not have melanin meaning they won’t get pigmentation. But we as black people have to be milder and know the depth in which you can go, for example, you can not go deep around the eyes, the skin around the eyes is very thin. But if the client is trained then it is okay, hence information and education are important. Dimpho: Let’s talk about skin issues that face women with melanin Dr.P Gumede: The problem is most African people think we do not need sunscreen protection. There are different kinds of screen protection that you can use. You need to use sun protection daily. All kinds of lights can cause different types of damage, therefore when looking for sun protection products always get products with a broad spectrum and possibly with antioxidants. Dimpho: I would like us to talk about the difference between skin lightening and skin brightening
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Dr.P Gumede: One of the things I saw as really brainwashing people, is that light is better, that conception exists all over the world. Hydroquinone is damaging because you are killing your melanin where new melanin comes to heal, to a point where the damage is in the demis which is permanent damage because the melanin is fighting against hydroquinone. We as dermatologists use hydroquinone on a regulated basis, and can not be used daily because it can be damaging. It is on the streets and it is very unsafe. Drips that are now being used for skin lightening have an antioxidant called glutathione, sometimes it is in the form of tablets,creams or drips. It is an antioxidant that is good for your body, which also exists in the body. The side effects of gluten are it can cause skin lightening. Some people use the glutathione to get the side effect when in high doses to become lighter. We use it as an antioxidant, we put things that are food for the skin such as zinc, we give you the gluthethynon to feed your skin and not to make it lighter. There is regulation in South Africa which regulates the doses of the hydroquinone. Dimpho :What would you say to women of colour, to help them understand the idea of aesthetics? Dr. P Gumede: So I find that nowadays the role of women has changed, women are running their businesses and running countries and they have also evolved in wanting to feel confident because they are now on tv, they are actresses, and there’s a greater need to look a certain way. There has been a great development in the medical field; procedures such as heart transplants or joint problems. People are now living longer and want to look as great as they feel. Therefore this is about maintaining yourself so we are making you a better version of yourself. And make you look like how you feel, if you feel great you need to look great. ISSUE 7
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ANESU MBIZVO – THE NEST
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-Anesu: I started doing yoga when I was young because my mom used to do yoga; she used to take me with her. And I must have looked like a crazy person because I didn’t know what I was doing but I enjoyed it. And that continued while I was a kiddie and then in high school and varsity things kind of got in the way, I was more into sports. When I was in med-school that’s when I started doing yoga again but it was in Cape Town and a lot of yoga studios kind of looked the same, spreading out the same message and have the same kind of people who go there. Cape Town in itself is that kind of city; people are very segregated and things are for certain types of people. So I was always the odd one out. -Dimpho: Were you aware of it though. Would you step in and be like wow? -Anesu:I think the more and more I did it, the more I became aware. I started at a studio in Claremont and I thought its Claremont maybe it’s just the type of people who go here but then I went to different studios around Cape Town and it was the same thing. And then I did my teacher training in Cape Town and that’s when I also realized after I did the teacher training that I was the only person of color that I knew that taught yoga, which was weird. When I started teaching it was the opposite way, I’d be teaching to a certain group and the group was always the same; always people of privilege regardless of color but mostly white people of privilege. And then I came to Joburg and this city is very different and it’s a ISSUE 7
lot more metropolitan, a lot more mixed, people of colour are doing amazing things but the yoga scene was still the same. And I just started feeling like it was almost like this exclusive club. I just started feeling like it wasn’t right and a lot of my friends were keen to do yoga but they mentioned they felt a bit left out because it didn’t seem to be a thing for people of colour; the music that was playing, the type of environment and the advertising was really just these thin model looking people, that didn’t look anything like them. So going through that I think was my reason to wanting to show people of colour but also real people who just generally don’t feel included in those type of spaces- may be people who have different bodies, people who have disabilities or challenges, queer communitywhich welcomes everyone and shows that yoga isn’t about looking a certain way or bending yourself into certain shapes, it’s just about moving with your body. 37
-Dimpho: That’s so cool because you mentioned not only color but also other areas where people would have been maybe felt cut out, I would imagine people don’t think about how they have to maybe teach people with different needs. -Anesu: I started doing yoga when I was young because my mom used to do yoga; she used to take me with her. And I must have looked like a crazy person because I didn’t know what I was doing but I enjoyed it. And that continued while I was a kiddie and then in high school and varsity things kind of got in the way, I was more into sports. When I was in med-school that’s when I started doing yoga again but it was in Cape Town and a lot of yoga studios kind of looked the same, spreading out the same message and have the IQHAWE
same kind of people who go there. Cape Town in itself is that kind of city; people are very segregated and things are for certain types of people. So I was always the odd one out. -Dimpho: Were you aware of it though. Would you step in and be like wow? -Anesu: Very aware and I think the more and more I did it, the more aware I was. I started at a studio in Claremont and I thought its Claremont maybe it’s just the type of people who go here but then I went to different studios around Cape Town and it was the same thing. And then I did my teacher training in Cape Town and that’s when I also realized after I did the teacher training that I was the only person of color that I knew that taught yoga, which was weird. When I started teaching it was the opposite way, I’d be teaching to a certain group and the group was always the same; always people of privilege regardless of color but mostly white people of privilege. And then I came to Joburg and this city is very different and it’s a lot more metropolitan, a lot more mixed, people of colour are doing amazing things but the yoga scene was still the same. And I just started feeling like it was almost like this exclusive club. I just started feeling like it wasn’t right and a lot of my friends were keen to do yoga but they mentioned they IQHAWE
felt a bit left out because it didn’t seem to be a thing for people of colour; the music that was playing, the type of environment and the advertising was really just these thin model looking people, that didn’t look anything like them. So going through that I think was my reason to wanting to show people of colour but also real people who just generally don’t feel included in those type of spaces- may be people who have different bodies, people who have disabilities or challenges, queer communitywhich welcomes everyone and shows that yoga isn’t about looking a certain way or bending yourself into certain shapes, it’s just about moving with your body. -Dimpho: That’s so cool because you mentioned not only color but also other areas where people would have been maybe felt cut out, I would imagine people don’t think about how they have to maybe teach people with different needs. -Anesu: So I studied medicine, after I qualified I had a lot of private yoga students who were people who had spinal injuries or MS or cancer and they felt like they couldn’t go to a yoga studio because whatever they were going through their bodies weren’t as strong as they were supposed to be. So it was really about creating a space that felt safe for everyone. Dimpho: yeah I’m one of those people who can do it at home but will never step into a studio, you mentioned that you studied medicine, do you still practice? Anesu: Nooo, so I went through six years of med-school - loved it – and I knew I wanted to be a doctor but once I started to practice, I realized I was fulfilled. It just felt 38
like I was giving people 5 minutes to tell me everything wrong and then I’d just give them a pill – this made me feel like a liar, a fraud. So I left and went to corporate where we infused technology with health, its needless to say, that too didn’t work for me. It felt like people were just doing what they had to do, not present at all- which didn’t sit well with me. Until a fellow yoga teacher called me to go check out a pre-school she taught yoga at. And I loved it, now I’m teaching 2-3-year-olds yoga- if anything they are teaching me- together with running the studio and taking classes there as well. -Dimpho: Your views around beauty and wellness space? -Anesu: I think the wellness and beauty space has the potential to be a really empowering modality or space, but with anything, and it happens across the board with sports, yoga or whatever you are trying to get out there, people kind of get into this mindset of it is about the way other people see you or what other people think of you and looking a certain way, losing weight to have this type of body, wearing all this makeup to look that way and I think that disempowers a lot of people. For me, everything is about choice, if you want to wear makeup but wear it because you want to wear it not because of other people. And if you want to exercise, exercise because it makes you feel good not because you want to have a certain type of body for other people. So I think it’s very hard with yoga as well – as it is part of the wellness space- people see it as a ISSUE 7
means to an end “I’m gonna do this so I look this way, I have clear skin like that person whom I saw in the magazine” whereas it’s not actually about that. It’s about celebrating who you are and that’s my journey as well, always feeling like I’m on the road to somewhere and it gets quite exhausting when you feel like you constantly chasing something. -Dimpho: Do you have any story that relates to how yoga was able to assist you -Anesu: I think I can only speak from my personal experience. When I was working as a doctor, just feeling really conflicted, anxious, stressed, when you feel like you’ve dedicated all this time to reach a certain point and when you get there you’re not happy and everyone else around you kind of seems happy, functioning and normal and you’re like “no I’m not really happy here” and you don’t know what’s going on- on some “somebody lied to me” tip. Before I decided to go to corporate I was in very much a space of feeling anxious, down, depressed and confused but mainly I realized for me all my stress, anxiety, depression and sadness were all from worrying about what other people were going to think once I moved. It was never “I knew I was going to feel great once I stopped doing medicine, I knew I was going to feel fine”, but it was what will my family think, my friends, my colleagues, are people going to think that I’m a failure and I think that’s actually where most mental stress comes from; what you think other people are going to think of you. -Dimpho: Which says a lot about how we don’t have conversations with ourselves about ourselves, ISSUE 7
we are just living completely from the outside… -Anesu: Exactly. All of your value is based on what image other people have of you and you get into this whole thing, once that image goes or shifts then you feel like you’ve lost a part of yourself. So that’s what I was going through and the one place where I felt like I was at home, just being free was when I was teaching yoga, for me practicing and teaching are kind of similar and feel the same. And I think a lot of people have that experience, I mean one of the main benefits of yoga, what it was made for was to change your mental state, get you in touch with yourself, and in doing that, mental stress and illness will kind of get absolved in the process. So I think it’s a huge thing, a huge practice for anyone suffering from mental illness. I had once wanted to teach it in the psych ward in the hospital where I was working but they were like “mmmh we’re not too sure, some of these people are a little hectic” but I mean that’s exactly what you need and I think a lot of mental illness is the mind, your thoughts and what you attract in your thoughts and yoga is about transcending your thoughts- you’ll be able to have your thoughts but know that they aren’t really you or that you don’t have to attach your emotions to your thoughts. -Dimpho: You could choose not to think it also. -Anesu: I think the one problem though with so many mental illnesses is being able to break out of it enough to go and get help, that you do something about it. And that’s the difficult cycle, is that once you are depressed and anxious, then you feel too depressed or anxious to go out and get help and 39
then you feel more depressed and anxious and then it’s just a vicious cycle. -Dimpho: What’s the reception been? -Anesu: It’s been good, it’s been really good and everybody that’s come loved it, it’s such a beautiful space and the teachers are amazing. Every student that’s come has kind of stayed and become part of the community. There have been a few people who haven’t understood what we mean by inclusivity and I think that’s just a general problem that we have in the world, in South Africa, where if you say you are speaking up for certain group of people then people think you are excluding other people. We’ve had people say most of the teachers are people of color, does that mean you’re not welcoming white people into space? And we’re like not at all, that’s not what empowering people who have been previously marginalized mean and it’s the same thing with the whole “Black lives matter, all lives matter” kind of thing. You can appreciate the value of every type of individual and still want to uplift the people who aren’t usually seen and if anything, that’s what we are trying to push. There’s been the conversation and that’s what we wanted, to get people to think about it. So our space is more about getting people to question their identity, how attached they are to their identity, how much their identity defines them, does it hold them back, does it empower them? So it’s been really good. IQHAWE
USEFUL CONTENT
SELF-REFLECTION Self-reflection is a process that involves spending some quiet time daily thinking and reflecting upon yourself and upon the events, people and circumstances of your life. It involves looking at your day objectively and asking yourself a series of questions that can help you to better understand what happened, why things happened that way, and what you can learn from these experiences to make more optimal choices tomorrow. You could, of course, spend your self-reflection time in a variety of ways. You could, for instance, reflect upon your day, upon the choices and decisions that were made, upon your actions, behaviors, values, attitudes, and interactions. You could also reflect on your thoughts and the emotions that coloured the IQHAWE
events of the day. Likewise, self-reflection can be spent thinking about the knowledge you have acquired, and about the opportunities that have resulted and how they were utilized. Moreover, reflecting on problems, and planning for your future are two other ways you can put this time to good use. A typical self-reflection session will involve reflecting on the day’s events and circumstances. This, of course, would include assessing how you dealt with or responded to those events, people and/or circumstances, followed by what you have learned and how you plan to use these lessons to make tomorrow better. It sounds like a very straightforward process. However, there are various layers of self-reflection that you might like 40
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to explore during a typical session. Self-reflection requires that you are open and honest with yourself. It requires that you look deep within yourself at all the parts of yourself that are not all that attractive, and could very well be downright ugly. These are the parts of yourself that will lead to a better life as long as you are willing and able to explore them with the intention of gaining valuable growth and selfimprovement. Most people are convinced that they are right most of the time, and when the evidence is stacked against them, they complain, make excuses or throw blame. This kind of attitude will never allow you to gain value from the process of self-reflection. You must instead turn off your victim mentality switch and start taking full responsibility for your life and circumstances. Only in this way will self-reflection help you build the life you seek. Regular periods of self-reflection effectively allow you to: • Learn from your failures, mistakes, and experiences. • Clarify your values, priorities, and strengths. • Release emotional attachment to people, things, and events. • Make better choices, independent decisions, and new associations. ISSUE 7
• Remove inner roadblocks that hold you back from achieving your goals. • Examine your habitual behavior patterns and intuitive feelings. • Uncover hidden dreams and aspirations as well as undiscovered potential. • Gain deeper insights into your thoughts and a vast array of experiences. 41
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SELF-REFLECTION METHODS 1. Quotes Using quotes can be a useful way to initiate reflection because there is an ample supply of them, and they are often brief and inspiring. Here are some quotes as examples you might want to use: “If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without insight.” ---Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.” ---Horace Mann “I believe that serving and being served are reciprocal and that one cannot really be one without the other.” ---Robert Greenleaf, educator and writer
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2. Meditation Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought or activity to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.
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3. Readings Readings about the issues can stimulate thinking and discussion, much like Quotes. Readings can include a mixture of viewpoints, including some that may be controversial or challenge an individual to consider alternative ideas. One should be encouraged to connect the content of the readings to their service experiences, and to bring in other reading that they believe to be relevant. Such material includes relevant literature (philosophy, fiction, and policies), newspaper articles, service provider pamphlets and poems. John Earl Coleman’s: The Quiet Mind is a good book to start with.
4. Pour out your emotions Cry if you need to. The point is to reach the goal of solving a problem and understanding yourself
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LETTERS TO
MUSIC
ZENO
I
f you have been listening to Muzi since his early days of ‘Bundu FX’ then you are aware of the musical genius that the Empangeni born and bred artist is capable of. It comes as no surprise that his fourth much-anticipated album exceeds all its expectations. ‘Zeno’ named after his first born daughter can be described as a carefully constructed and composed Zulu symphony. The album consists of tracks such as Esancane which features Samthing Soweto, Sondela featuring Black Rose and Ngeke which features the lead singer of internationally acclaimed BCUC Zithulele. Yet I must say my ultimate favourite has to be Good Vibes only where he features upcoming artist Espiaco Dios. The carefully-crafted and constructed sequencing in each track carries unique symphonies and rhythms that are representative of his South African musical influences. The album fuses
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elements of electronic pop, maskandi, trap, and kwaito. Muzi together with Melenial Media held an exclusive listening session in Johannesburg Maboneng at the Bioscope, attendees were graced with not only a beautiful experience but also were given a backstory to the creative process behind some of the songs. One audience member went as far as saying that Muzi has found South Africa’s sound. The listening session was followed by a Q&A session where the artist got to share details around the making of the album and spoke about the hardships he faced after his equipment was stolen earlier in the year, yet found a way to move past that experience to be able to create the album form a good space. All I can say is, this music ensemble is one of his best works and definitely one for the books. 44
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Abes’mame base Africa by Ntombiyombuso Dowelani Instagram: @slfshhhbstrd Twitter: @slfshhhbstrd
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IQhawe Magazine’s main focus is representation, creating representation, commenting on representation as well as capturing its creating and means of execution. We do this through content creation in the form of visuals and text. Our purpose as a magazine is to unravel and define what is the aesthetic of a contemporary modern-day black creative, yet at the same time making commentary into the multi-layered facets of the young black people of our era. The magazine also functions to profile young people working in the creative industry by featuring their work to merge the gap between them and their intended audience
