Artlife

volume 6 - special issue

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Contents

Editorial Candice O’Brien.............................................................................................. 3

Foreword Jill Coates.......................................................................................................... 3 Welcome to the 2013 Curatorial Forum in Bulawayo Doreen Sibanda..............................................................................................

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Zimbabwe’s First Ever Curatorial Forum Zvikomborero Mandangu.......................................................................... 6 List of Attendees .............................................................................................................................. 7

It’s Time Africans Told Their Own Stories Tandazani Dhlakama.................................................................................... 8 New Directions with Online Curatorial Practice Candice O’Brien.............................................................................................. 9 The Space Outside the Space Sanele Mankwele.............................................................................................. 10 The Artist as Curator Tafadzwa Gwetai............................................................................................ 11 Questions ForArtlife Interview with Tandazani Dhlakama on her experience with CIMAM in Rio de Janiero.....................................

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New Possibilities from New Ideas Mthabisi Phili.................................................................................................... 14 Issues in Curating Contemporary African Art Suzana Sousa................................................................................................... 15

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EditorinChief

Doreen Sibanda

Editors Raphael Chikukwa Taremeredzwa Chirewa Candice O’Brien Zvikomborero Mandangu Graphic Design Tinashe Hwindingwi Publisher Artlife is published under the auspices of

the National Gallery of Zimbabwe with

support and funding from the British Council.

National Gallery of Zimbabwe, 20 Julius Nyerere Way, Harare, Zimbabwe Postal Address: P.O.Box CY 848, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe Tel: +263 - 4 - 704 666/7 Email: info@nationalgallery.co.zw or ngz.harare@gmail.com Website: www.nationalgallery.co.zw Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without the consent of the publisher.

Every effort has been made to secure the relevant permission to reproduce the images contained within this journal. Any errors or omissions are unintentional and details should be addressed to the publisher.

Editorial

by Candice O’Brien

2013

has defied superstition, starting out as a lucky year with some much needed ‘firsts’ in expanding curatorial knowledge and discourse within the continent of Africa.

The University of Cape Town has launched its Honours in Curatorship course, a collaboration between the Michaelis School of Fine Art and IZIKO National Gallery, and the first of its kind in Africa. In March the Independent Curators International in collaboration with the Bag Factory hosted a five-day Curatorial Intensive in Johannesburg. In May the Centre of Contemporary Art, Lagos, in partnership with the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Ghana hosted a monthlong art laboratory entitled “The Archive: Static, Embodied, Practiced”, with a new curatorial segment included in the programme.

Photo: Sanele Manqele

The One Day Forum explored some of the contemporary issues around collecting, curating, conserving, displaying and interpreting of the arts in and from Africa. Alongside talks by National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s Director Doreen Sibanda and Zimbabwean curators Raphael Chikukwa and Clifford Zulu, guest speakers included Tessa Jackson from the Institute of Visual Arts in London, Kenyan curator Jimmy Ogonga, Angolan curator Suzana Sousa and from South Africa Thembinkosi Goniwe and Candice O’Brien. The workshop which followed offered training and knowledge to more than fifteen emerging curators from Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The three days of the workshop were, inevitably, too short a time in which to address all that needed to be discussed.

Although many more ideas and issues emerged in the discussions that took place after the forum and around the edges of the workshop, there was a strong sense that this was only the tip of the iceberg. The articles in this publication will serve to place several important thoughts on record and to highlight the fact that discussions about curating in Africa are only just beginning. Hopefully the recent workshops and together with this publication will serve to stimulate further discussions between Africa’s curators and encourage them to find ways of making things happen. CO

This special issue of Art Life is the legacy of the New Ideas, New Possibilities Curatorial Forum and Workshop which took place from 25-28 February 2013, the first of its kind in Zimbabwe, hosted by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in partnership with The British Council Zimbabwe, with support from National Museums and Monuments Zimbabwe and the Angolan Embassy in Zimbabwe. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe through the forum led by Raphael Chikukwa has assumed a wider role in the assessment of curatorial practices Candice O’Brien is an Independent Curator in Africa and more curators have been empowered through based in Cape Town, SA. the “New Ideas New Possibilities“.

In 2010 Raphael Chikukwa attended the successful ‘Curating in Africa’ Symposium held at the Tate Modern, and he felt that it was long overdue that we hold a forum for African curators in Africa, to evaluate the current state of our curatorial practice.

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Foreword

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he British Council in Zimbabwe is proud to have been a part of Zimbabwe’s first Curatorial Forum and workshop, titled New Ideas, New Possibilities. Together with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, we realise the need for providing platforms and training opportunities for cultural actors in Africa, to come together to share and pass on ideas and skills.

The workshop, a first of its kind in Africa, sought to identify new ideas and new possibilities for curators in carrying out their day-to-day work and reshaping the role of the curator in an ever-changing environment. By bringing together curators from around the region and those in Zimbabwe, with particular attention given to multi-nationalities and their treatment in contemporary art, and questions around how to redefine how African art is framed in contemporary discourse. The curators that participated included well-known names such as Tessa Jackson (Chief Executive Officer from Iniva, United Kingdom) and Thembinkosi Goniwe (Curator of the South African Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale) alongside practicing curators from institutions such as the National Archives, National Museums and Monuments, as well as local curators from both public and private art galleries.

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Photo: Jill Coates

The forum and workshop, which took place from February 25– 28, closed with a reception for the Remembering Pachipamwe Exhibition held at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. The exhibition celebrated the work of the original participants who attended the workshops, which were also supported by the British Council, between 1988 and 1994. Of special importance were the Chris Ofili ‘elephant dung’ paintings professionally restored by Natasha Walker, conservator and Chris Ofili expert from Tate Modern, who travelled to Bulawayo to complete the task with sponsorship from the British Council.

In the tradition of Pachipamwe, which means ‘we come together’ in Shona, the British Council is delighted that the curators and participants of the workshop were able to come together to mark this special occasion.

Jill Coates, Director of the British Council, Zimbabwe.

Welcome to the 2013 Curatorial Forum in Bulawayo

by Doreen Sibanda

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he role of a curator has its roots in museum practice and is concerned with the selection of objects for presentation and building of collections. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g. gallery, museum, library, archive or other historically significant sites) is a content specialist responsible for an institution’s collections and its subsequent interpretation. In contemporary art, the title Curator is given to a person who selects and often interprets works of art, in addition to being responsible for writing labels, catalogue essays, and other supporting content for the exhibition. O’Neill and Wilson (2012) talk of curating as a cultural practice once associated primarily with the care and selection of works for display, usually in the context of a gallery or museum but which emerged in the late 1960’s as a creative, semi-autonomous and individually-authored form of mediation and/or production.

The early 1990’s were recognized as a period of institutionalization for the curator, with the flourishing of curatorial training programmes following an initial institutional shift in the course of the sixties, which [came] from a certain uneasiness with respect to the inescapability of museums as well as other exhibition institutions to react to new forms of expression in art.

The curator’s moment had truly arrived by the mid-1990’s, with the emergence of biennials, organized international meetings and curatorial summits. The expansion of curatorial discourse was accelerated by the advent of curatorial training programmes in the early 1990’s. Students and programme leaders began to look at existing exhibition models and a relatively small number of established curatorial precedents, focusing on exhibition history and scrutinising the curatorial component instead of the artwork(s). The role of the Curator as storyteller and creator of new knowledge began to emerge to meet the demands for the poignancy of the specific, the particular, the regional and international in an increasingly globalized arena.

Photo: Tessa Jackson and Doreen Sibanda

During the late 1990’s, the discussion around curating acknowledged the subjective and authorial nature of exhibition-making, and the importance of a growing awareness of the curator’s part in shaping exhibitions. It is indicative of this that art magazines, over the last few years, have begun to focus on curatorial practice as one of their major subjects for discussion: discussions which have, in turn, largely been led by invited curators, maybe because many critics and professional art writers are now primarily curators.

Contemporary curators may be categorized as follows: i.

Permanent staff of an institution ii.

“Guest Curators” from an affiliated organization or university, iii.

“Freelance and Independent Curators” working on a

consultancy basis. iv.

Artist-Curator – there was an explosion of these in

the late twentieth century where artists would come

in to organize their own exhibitions, notable among

these was Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the Royal

Academy, London.

Many curators are involved in fundraising for exhibitions and providing educational tools for academic purposes. With the rise of information technology, curators can also be found in online spaces that work with digital medium instead of physical content.

Kennedy (2012) in his article ‘The Fine Art of Being a Curator’, noted that, since the year 2000, the contemporary art world has grown to what he terms ‘planetary size’ where more galleries, more fairs, more art-selling web sites, bigger museums, new biennials are being established almost by the month. This phenomenal growth has thus given birth to a ‘new kind of cultural figure’ – the international curator, who is constantly in flight to some place around the world.

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Notable names in the field of independent curatorship include but are not limited to: • Richard Birkett, USA • Nav Haq, Belgium • Lisette Smits, the Netherlands • Laurel Ptak, Sweden • Defne Ayas, the Netherlands The above Curators were nominated for the ‘The ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award’. Independent Curators International (ICI) produces travelling exhibitions, events, publications, and training opportunities for diverse audiences around the world. Established in 1975 and headquartered in New York, ICI is a hub that provides access to the people and practices that are key to current developments in the field, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art.

In Africa, major Curators include but are not limited to: • Simon Njami who was born in 1962 in Cameroon and

is based in France and studied art history, philosophy,

law and modern literature. Co-founder and was Editor-

in-Chief of Revue Noire magazine and long time

Curator for Bamako Rencountres de La Photographie Africaine • Olu Oguibe was born in 1964 in Nigeria. An artist,

novelist, art critic, independent curator and public

intellectual, Oguibe’s work has been exhibited in

museums, galleries and other major venues around

the world including the Whitney Museum of American

Art, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, London White

Chapel Gallery and the Johannesburg, Havana,

Busan and Venice biennials, among others.

• Okwui Enwezor also from Nigeria made his

breakthrough in 1996 as a curator of in / sight,

an exhibit of 30 African photographers at the

Guggenheim Museum. He was the Artistic Director

of the Joburg Biennale 1997 as well as the Curator of

Documenta 2002. He is the current Director of the

Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany as well as adjunct

curator of the International Center of Photography in

New York, and Joanne Cassulo Fellow at the

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

These and other curators have found their voices in the contemporary art scene, contributing significantly to contemporary art and curatorship in Africa.

Closer to home the first Johannesburg Biennale was unveiled in 1995, a year after the first multi-racial elections was held in South Africa , and was organized by a curatorial committee led

by Lorna Ferguson and Christopher Till under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. The Venice Biennale model of national pavilions was adopted and an Intern system was incorporated in the course of preparing the Biennale, acting to train art administrators and young curators for the event. The success of the first event marked it the largest art exhibition in Africa and in some circles was dubbed the most important show of the decade for its foray into the juxtaposition of global contemporary arts, practice and sensibilities on African soil. The African Institute for Contemporary Art (ACAI) was formed in the next year to oversee the organization of future events. The second Johannesburg Biennale in 1997 consisted of six exhibitions in six different venues around Johannesburg

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and Cape Town. Artistic Director Okwui Enwezor invited international curators to organize these shows around his central theme: “Trade Routes: History and Geography”. Parisbased Chinese curator Hou Hanru and New York-based Korean curator Kim Yu-Yeon organized the shows “Hong Kong, etc” and “Transversions”, respectively, addressing issues surrounding globalization. However, due to financial difficulties faced by the city of Johannesburg which was responsible for the greatest part of the budget, the Biennale was forced to close a month before its due date.

Following the early promotional work conducted by the first Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Frank McEwen during the sixties and seventies, its earliest attempt at contemporary curating was done by Jamilla Hava in May – June 1984, in the Kingsley Sambo’s Retrospective show and was followed by more in depth research into and documentation of practicing crafts people during the eighties. Between 1986 and 2002, the Gallery staged the annual Heritage Exhibitions which were more of juried shows than curated exhibitions.

These exhibitions were sponsored by Mobil Zimbabwe and NMB Bank among others. The 2002 exhibition marked the end of these annual exhibitions and at the same time the beginning of the new bi annual format for the show. According to one of the past curators, Pip Curling, the Heritage shows had no particular themes, as artists submitted some of the best works that they would have produced during the course of the year. These works would then be juried and selected for the subsequent exhibition which was the highlight of the year. The curator would then contextualize the works within academic, social, political, religious even colour co-ordination, among other perspectives for the purposes of the exhibition.

In other smaller exhibitions, calls were put out for thematic presentations of artworks which would then be contextualized ‘as and when they came’.

The introduction of the first Harare Biennale in 2004 under the title “In Motion: Navigating the Past/Negotiating the Future” was the last the Gallery staged due to economic hardships prevailing at that time and that eventually led to the withdrawal of the previous sponsors of the annual shows. A second edition entitled; “Identities Reconfigured: Post Colonial? Post Modern” was later muted and independent curators based in Ethiopia, Kenya and Senegal were considered. However the poor economic climate at the time also had a negative impact on its realisation.

The Gallery’s curatorial practice has however significantly changed in the last three years with the engagement of renowned curator Raphael Chikukwa where its Curatorial Policy seeks to honour the heritage of Zimbabwe through retrospective exhibitions on one hand while also engaging in contemporary art discourse through presentation of new

and avant garde works of art on the other. This is being done through the showcasing of thematically cohesive, inspiring and original exhibitions of artists and works from within and beyond Zimbabwean borders, while also promoting local artists so that they exhibit in international spaces. The model for the promotion of artists in international spaces was set by Zimbabwe’s participation at the 54th Venice Biennale from June to November 2011 in an exhibition entitled Seeing Ourselves – Questioning our Geographical Landscape and the Space we Occupy from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. The exhibition was Commissioned by Doreen Siband and Curated

by Raphael Chikukwa. It featured the works of Tapfuma Gutsa, Calvin Dondo, Berry Bickle and Misheck Masamvu. Zimbabwe once again took part in the 55th Venice Biennale 2013 and five artists were featured from different visual art genres. The Gallery’s participation at this international showcase been financed by various partners who include the Government of Zimbabwe.

This Curatorial Forum, is also part of the Gallery’s initiative to engage more in this ever changing curatorial discourse to explore the way forward for Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole, for we realize there is need to dialogue in Africa for Africa and for our voices to be heard locally and globally. Aretha Amma Sarfoly noted that it is high time we realized our own worth and that this can only be achieved through engaging each other for we cannot ‘wait for foreign investment to preserve our present, to honour our past/legacy or to build our future.’

For if we do, we will have no one to blame when our legacy is ‘delivered in a foreign image’.

In some American organizations, the term curator is also used to designate the head of any given division of a cultural organization. This has led to the proliferation of titles such as “Curator of Education” and “Curator of Exhibitions”. DS

Reference Insight 84 Vol 1- 19???

NGZ Annual Report 2011 NGZ Curatorial Policy Seeing Ourselves Catalogue Pip Curling Interview, 2013 conducted by the NGZ Librarian, Nicolet Mwabaya Lilian Chaonwa Interview, 2013 conducted by the NGZ Librarian, Nicolet Mwabaya Walter Ndundu Interview, 2013 conducted by the NGZ Librarian Nicolet Mwabaya Aretha Amma Sarfoly, 2012 - http://globalfusionproductions. com/filmphotography/curating-in-africa-symposium-at-tatethe-future-of-african-art/ Kennedy, R. 2012. The Fine Art of Being a Curator http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/arts/design/as-the-artworld-grows-so-does-the-curators-field.html?_r=0 http://curatorsintl.org/events/independent_vision_curatorial_ award_nominees O’Neill, P and Wilson, M. 2013. Emergence http://w w w.ica.org.uk/Emergence%20by%20Paul%20 O’Neill%20&%3B%20Mick%20Wilson+17186.twl List of local and international partners Culture Fund Trust of Zimbabwe European Union Swiss Embassy Goethe Zentrum/ Zimbabwe German Society Portnet

Doreen Sibanda Executive Director National Gallery of Zimbabwe

Photo: New Ideas New Possibilities Attendees 7

Zimbabwe’s First Ever Curatorial Forum

by Zvikomborero Mandangu

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Photo: Curatorial Forum group shot.

he Curatorial trade is relatively new in Zimbabwe but is nonetheless garnering more and more practitioners as more institutions of higher learning are offering curatorship related programs. Naturally one would be able to deduce that there is a sizeable population of curators in public institutions and logically, there will be an increase in that populace. The conception of a Forum whereby curators discuss the direction in which way the trade can be focused was based on the aforementioned logic in the light of having the ‘ball rolling’ so as to when the curatorial community reaches a sizeable number, there will be an easy dispensary framework for curators that would positively buttress their respective fields.

of going onward to greatness” Sibanda concluded.

“New Ideas, New Possibilities”was the first Curatorial workshop to be held in Zimbabwe and the region. The Workshop took place from the 25th to the 28th of February 2013 at various locations in Bulawayo which included the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and the Museum of Natural History. From these two bases, the Forum party could take tours to other places such as Cyrene Mission; a place where the artwork occupies stationary space. With the Cyrene template to work with stood the challenge of how one as a curator could think differently on issues such as funding, audience engagement and space.

Now the possibilities of the direction curatorship will go are limitless!

The aspect of navigation was echoed by Thembinkosi Goniwe, a lecturer at Vaal University of Technology and the Witswatersrand School of Arts at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. Goniwe stressed that the imparting of knowledge is a two way street“ I came to Bulawayo to engage, contribute and participate among others from all over the world. More importantly I took this as an opportunity to learn from local artists, curators and other players in the art world.”

“Making curatorial strides with internal and external exhibitions, the nature of curatorship is changing and we do not have a sufficient amount of curators coming through” said Mrs. Doreen Sibanda, the Executive Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. We thought it would be a good idea to come up with a training workshop giving exposure of the field to emerging curators and aiding them to have a better understanding of the field in order to become good curators as we will need more and more curators going forward.”

She added “The aim of the workshop is to expose them to curatorial practitioners from different parts of Southern Africa generally but also one or two participants from beyond. This way they can have an understanding of what curatorship is all about. “I hope this inspires the young curators and helps them formulate a network and start small with the objective

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Jimmy Ogonga, a Kenyan artist and art producer attended the Forum as a representative of the Centre for Contemporary Art in East Africa. Ogonga was pleased by the situation in Zimbabwe and felt that the workshop was a shot in the arm for young curators. “What is fantastic is Harare and Bulawayo have a massive number of young people working in Museums and institutions” He said. “The important thing is to give them more contemporary tools that would work in navigating them to the articulation of Contemporary Art in the two cities.”

In as much as New Ideas, New Possibilities was concerned, the workshop was not only aimed at gearing up art administrators and art professionals only but was meant to connect them with curatorial counterparts from the fields of Natural History and Human Sciences.

Everisto Mangwiro, Curator for Ethnography at the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare applauded the interaction with other professionals in relation to the manners in which they go about their curatorial practice. The Chief Exhibitions Officer for the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo stated the interaction between the different disciplines was a interesting idea. “This cross pollination of ideas across disciplines is a first for me” she said.

An Entymologist at the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo, Dorothy Chipo Madamba became aware of the differences in curatorship at the Forum. “I have learnt the difference between

Art, Natural History and Cultural Curators.” She went on to say that it taught her more about curatorship and shed light on the possibilities that are out there. If we were to engage visual artists as a Natural History Museum, we would be able to reinvigorate our space and avoid Museums from becoming obsolete. ” Candice O’Brien, an Independent Curator and coorganizer of the forum said“ What we want to do is question the role of the curator in Africa and question how we interpret information and disseminate it to the audience”. Whilst Sanqele Manqele an Art Critic from South Africa also made query on the role of the curator. “We must consider the space before the artwork, not that the artwork is not important but we must question the need for four walls.” This is particularly important when one regards the availability of gallery and museum space on the continent. “Curatorship should not be limited to organizing and conceptualizing of space containing artwork but curatorship should focus on space” she concluded.

The impact the forum had on managers of space, for example Chengetai Makuni of Empire Gallery in Bulawayo was she hoped to apply the lessons she learnt at the workshop to her space. It is important to have a clear concept before embarking on a project. Equally important to communicate that concept to an audience clearly so that they know exactly what you are trying to achieve and they share the passion for your idea.

Suzana Sousa, an Independent Curator from Angola mentioned that she liked the way young curators have been brought together to network. “I came to discover more on the curatorial practice and equipped myself accordingly for the career path said Tandazani Dhlakama, the Curator for Education at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare. The workshop has been helpful in elaborating what a curator is. ”This way the Forum would cement the exchange of ideas from veteran curators to novices and insure continuity in the curatorial practice.” Njabulo Chipangura from the National Museum in Mutare hoped to gain new ideas on critical curatorship and the know how to initiate Contemporary exhibitions. “I hope to see these young curators coming up with better exhibition concepts so that our creative industry develops” said Vhoti Thebe, the Regional director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. “I also enjoyed the fact that the workshop was held in Bulawayo, a city which is historically significant and known for firsts. The Curatorial Forum yet is another one of those firsts!” he said.

Uehara Yuriko, an Art enthusiast said “It was interesting how different resource persons gave different aspects of curatorial practice” said Uehara. Whilst Mthabisi Phili, an independent Curator said “The workshop was beneficial in quite a number of ways as it allowed me the option to network with several individuals from beyond our borders”. New Ideas, New Possibilities effected a paradigm shift in Phili’s opinion.

With the intermingling of disciplines beneath the umbrella of curatorship, New Ideas, New Possibilities played an integral part in the conglomeration of organizations which would ordinarily not have congregated due to highly opposable missions and operations. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s Assistant Curator, Clifford Zulu pointed out the effort they had made to assemble a body of individuals who had extended knowledge in the curatorial field and bring them together with associates to have an idea exchange scenario established.

“This workshop was aimed at bringing young, emerging curatorial aspirants from Zimbabwe and the region together so that they could learn more about curatorial practice.” said The Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Raphael Chikukwa.

“This workshop went well as we were joined by the likes of Jimmy Ogonga from Kenya, Tessa Jackson from the United Kingdom, Suzana Souza from Angola, Thembinkosi Goniwe and Candice O’Brien from South Africa and myself, to share with younger curators” said Chikukwa, who is also the Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.“We have learnt a lot (even as senior curators) and are planning to make the Curatorial Forum an annual event” he said “We would like to extend our gratitude to our principal partner, the British Council and the Angolan Embassy. We also want to thank the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe and all the participants who dedicated their time to attend New Ideas, New Possibilities.”

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The answer could only be in the affirmative as there has been an exchange of information and experience with knowledge attained from this forum imparted to future practitioners.

All the participants walked away from New Ideas, New Possibilities with a new outlook and a much more refined notion of what the practice of curatorship really is, enlightenment took place to incite the question on whether there was a need for more curators in the region. The answer could only be in the affirmative as there has been an exchange of information and experience with knowledge attained from this forum imparted to future practitioners. This could only be satisfied by the inception of a follow-up edition of the workshop. With New Ideas, New Possibilities behind them, Southern Africa’s curators look forward to 2014 with the Curatorial Forum being beyond possibility and more of reality. ZM Zvikomborero Mandangu NGZ Staff Writer

List Of Attendees STARTING FROM THE LEFT:

Photo: Curatorial Forum members group picture

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2 1

3

7

6

11

16

9 8

18

17

12

15 19

4

5

13

20 14

10

21

23

22

23

1 Dana Whabira 2 ntombizodzwa Silanda 3 Chengetai Mukuni 4 Lillian Chaonwa 5 Jimmy Ogonga 6 DOROTHY C. MaDamba 7 Njabulo Chipangura 8 Everisto Mangwiro 9 Voti Thebe 10 Tessa Jackson 11 Georgina Maxim 12 Doreen Sibanda 13 Calvin Chimutuwah 14 Rashid Jogee 15 Yuriko Uehara 16 Thembinkosi Goniwe 17 Clifford Zulu 18 Candice O’brien 19 Raphael Chikukwa 20 Tandazani Dhlakama 21 Sanele ManKWele 22 Suzana Sousa 23 Chengetai Makuni 24 Tafadzwa Gwetai

It’s Time Africans Told Their Stories

By Tandazani Dhlakama

(Originally published in Panorama Magazine in March 2013.)

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he arts in Africa are being transformed and creative trendsetting is no longer being left to those in the Diaspora. Young art professionals desire to be an integral part of this continent’s second renaissance and are constantly seeking ways in which they can acquire new skill sets and make their disciplines more relevant in this shifting world.

Photo: Forum members having a lighter moment

fundraising, extensive networking and documentation.

Until recent times, Africans have been silent about their stories.

We have allowed others to interpret and remix our narratives.

We were silent for many reasons. Some suggest that we lacked the means to tell our own story because oral tradition meant that solid documentation was scarce or non-existent. Others, It is against this backdrop that the National Gallery of however, suggest that we chose to remain passive, as long as Zimbabwe (NGZ) decided to start the year by empowering somehow, our exoticized art work made it to the corners of the such professionals through hosting the first ever Curatorial world and we basked in short-term gratification.

Forum and Workshop in the southern African region. This workshop has taken place in the same year that the African Simon Njami put it this way: “On a continent where voice is Union marks its jubilee celebrations (50 years). It has also been a privileged means of expression, creativity does not speak. just over 50 years since the first ever International Congress of Or long refused to, that is. The silence might have been an act of defence and timidity, a sign of stupor which the world African Culture (ICAC), which took place at the NGZ. kept on producing with its speeches and machines. A refusal The Curatorial Forum and Workshop encouraged cross- to lay itself bare, to give in to rules devised for and by others. pollination of knowledge to occur between individuals from All interpretations contain an inherent misunderstanding. A Harare, Mutare, Bulawayo and other parts of Africa. I was silent mask cannot contradict an interpreter, it just lets him comment.” (Njami 2007)* honoured to have been a participant of this event.

Eventually, African curators such as Njami, Okwui Enwezor and Bisi Silva began to rise up in order to defy the status quo.

No one can contest that their work so far has been highly commendable. ‘Africa Remix’, ‘Art at Work’, CCA Lagos and Enwezor’s work through the Johannesburg Biennale and DoKumenta 11 have put Africa on the map, suggesting that This platform engaged 20 participants working in a diverse there is a new Africanity. Clive Kellner suggests this in his essay, range of art and museum organizations from various parts of ‘Notes from Down South: Towards Defining Contemporary the country, and South Africa.The purpose of this event was African Practice’. to create a firm foundation on which emerging curators could build strong African-centred curatorial practices. As someone However, in spite of all of these efforts, there are still vast gaps who has been working in the administrative side of the arts, that need to be filled on the continent regarding the visual arts. it gave me a sober insight into the world of curating, thus Strategically themed, ‘New Ideas and New Possibilities’, this forum and workshop was truly ground breaking and aimed to challenging me to discover new ways in which I can grow. develop ideas and install skill sets in young professionals like During the past 20 years, the role of a curator has dramatically myself. shifted from simply being a keeper of a collection of art works to a cultural activist, one who tells a story by highlighting relevant concepts using objects. More often than not, this includes The four-day Curatorial Forum and Workshop took place in Bulawayo from February 25-28, 2013. The event was organized by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in partnership with the National Museum and Monuments and was sponsored by the British Council.

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As a participant, I was able to sit under the mentorship of cultural movers and shakers who have made significant curatorial contributions in various parts of the world. These curators included Tessa Jackson, Chief Executive Officer from Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) London; Jimmy Ogonga, Curator and Founder of Nairobi Arts Trust/ Centre for Contemporary Art of East Africa, Kenya; Suzana Sousa, Curator of the Luanda Triennial, Angola, Thembinkosi Goniwe, an Independent Curator and Art Historian, Vaal University of Technology/Curator of the South African Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale; and Candice O’Brien, an Independent Curator from Cape Town, South Africa.

participants from different institutions. I was reminded about the importance of documentation through publications and journals. Sadly in the past, African professionals in the curatorial field have had little to refer back to because of failure of their predecessors to adequately document exhibitions, artists and artefacts. We were also introduced to new ideas such as Online Curating and ways that social media can promote gallery or museum programming.

Why host this Forum/Workshop in Bulawayo? I think that hosting this event there it gave us an insight into historical art events or organizations that fostered art in Zimbabwe and beyond. Participants were able to tour Cyrene Mission and attend the opening of the ‘Remembering Pachipamwe’ exhibition.

The mission school was founded by Canon Patterson in 1940.

His emphasis on visual art in the school curriculum helped to equip some of Zimbabwe’s top stone sculptors such as George Nene. Frescoes depicting dark skinned mythical and Biblical characters embellish the walls of the Cyrene Chapel, which still stands. It was important for the participants to tour Local facilitators and presenters included, Doreen Sibanda, the school to create a better understanding of the impact Executive Director of the NGZ; Raphael Chikukwa, Chief that art education can have on a society. In a similar vein, the Curator and Deputy Director of NGZ; Voti Thebe, Regional works in the exhibition were the product of The Pachipamwe Director of NGZ in Bulawayo; LilianChaonwa, Conservation Workshop that took place in 1992 in Bulawayo. Having these and Collections Manager NGZ; Clifford Zulu, Curator of NGZ works displayed exposed the young professionals to the in Bulawayo; and Dr Moira Fitzpatrick, Regional Director of the possibilities that can occur when there is effective networking Natural History Museum in Bulawayo. and collaboration within their practices.

Various topics were presented in order to challenge the participants and deliberate on possible solutions that affect the practise on the continent. Topics included The Role of the Curator and the Issues Pertaining to Biennales in Africa; Meaning and Aesthetics in Curating; and Curating Contemporary African Art. The Forum and Workshop enabled me to obtain practical information about how to drive a curatorial vision and engage new audiences. Drafting of curatorial concepts, conservation of artwork and skills needed to approach key institutions were among the many subjects discussed.

Plans regarding synergies between scientific/ historical museums and contemporary art institutions were made since much time was spent brainstorming with other

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I think that this Curatorial Forum and Workshop was well organized and a wonderful platform for all those who attended. All agree that there is aneed forthis to evolve into an annual event since it had such a tremendous impact.

Thank you British Council, National Gallery of Zimbabwe and National Museums and Monuments for making this platform an enormous success. TD Tandazani Dhlakama is a Zimbabwean visual artist and social media strategist. She was recently appointed Curator of Education at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, following her role as Marketing and Operations Manager. She holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors, Magna Cum Laude, from St Lawrence University, Canton. In addition to contributing to Art Life Magazine, she has written for Panorama Magazine, The Herald, and is the Arts and Theatre Contributor for Jewel Magazine.

Photo: Forum members taking a stroll inbetween workshops

New Directions with Online Curatorial Practice

by Candice O’Brien

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or the inaugural New Ideas, New Possibilities Curatorial Forum, I gave some thought to a still emerging and somewhat under-explored area of curating with my presentation ‘Online Curatorial Practice’. I particularly wanted to consider how the participatory and social aspects of online curating can be harnessed by curators and institutions working within African countries for collaboration and increased sharing of expertise, ideas and knowledge.

Online curating developed alongside internet art in the 1990’s, initially through independent projects and not long after by institutions appropriating these open, flexible spaces through affiliated websites. With the advent of Web 2.0 - websites which allow for userparticipation - and social networking in particular, the internet has become ubiquitous as a tool for arts institutions in audience development, marketing, content creation, professional exchange and networking, completely changing the way museums and curators interact with their audiences. As a result, curators and institutions are adapting their roles to meet the demands of the internet.

While curating continues to gain momentum in many African countries, it is still a relatively young practice, which provides a unique opportunity for digital technologies to form an integral role in the development of curatorial practice on the continent. There are some key challenges, namely access to the internet and learning to work with the internet’s tools and platforms, but the

Photo: Candice O’brien and Raphael Chikukwa

benefits are worth considering. While Krysa sums this up by describing how some aspects of the curatorial role still “the site of curatorial production has apply, such as selecting, organising and been expanded to include the space of framing works, curators are no longer the Internet and the focus of curatorial inhibited by physical constraints such attention has been extended from the as funding, venue, space, geography, or object to processes to dynamic network even the institutions or art structures systems. As a result, curatorial work (or lack thereof ) located within their has become more widely distributed countries. Because of this curating is between multiple agents. This upgraded becoming more open and flexible, on ‘operating system’ of art presents new one hand creating an encouraging possibilities of online curating that is collective and distributed - even to the extreme of a self-organising system that curates itself. The curator is part of this entire system but not central to it.”

environment for independent curators and institutions, collaboration and participation, while on the other increasing the need for curatorial authenticity and accountability which can now be demanded by audiences through access to multiple digital channels of communication.

According to Christiane Paul , the internet is inherently a “contextual network where everyone is engaged in a continuous process of creating context and re-contextualizing.” As a result, the role of the curator is moving from a centralised broadcast model to a more distributive network where everything is interconnected. Josia

This viewpoint can be difficult for curators and institutions to accept, as it indicates a move towards more collective, interdisciplinary working methods and marks a shift in how we understand authorship. In this context, the curator’s role is to create new opportunities for collaboration and, as Paul suggests,to explore innovative spaces for the documentation and presentation of works which are created by multiple authors and constantly develop over time. The internet can provide a useful tool for creating spaces such as archives, reading rooms or virtual forums – and with them new means of access and forms of interpretation. By negating physical boundaries such as geography and social spheres,audiences are given the opportunity to communicate directly with the curators, artists and other audience members, and to share personal connections with the work. It is this audience investment which can

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play a key role in challenging perceived understandings of contemporary African art and allow for the creation of new, informed understandings. Paul goes so far as to claim that “on the Internet, the spatial distance that would divide the center from the margin or text from context in the physical world is subordinated to the temporality of the link.”

As the role of the curator of contemporary art increasingly shifts to include both the physical and the virtual realm, curators and art institutions will need to rethink the physical museum, gallery or exhibition in terms of the conceptual and participatory nature of the web. As cultural production in general becomes more ‘networked’, the politics of selection, display, even the authority of the institution and the curator are being interrogated. Curators and institutions working in African countries have a particularly difficult challenge to keep abreast of contemporary discourse and developments around these experimental sites of practice.

There is the additional requirement to be more than expert in their field, they now also need to be expert in the tools of the internet and Web 2.0. But when we consider the exciting possibilities that curating online can offer – such as increased visibility, awareness, access, knowledge - can we afford to ignore the demands being raised by the technologies of our time? CO

A History of Online Curating’, available at www.publiccurating.cont3xt.net/?page_ id=436 Christiane Paul is the Director of the Media Studies Graduate Programs and Associate Prof. of Media Studies at The New School, NY, and Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Paul, C., “Flexible Contexts, Democratic Filtering and Computer Aided Curating Models for Online Curatorial Practice” in Joasia Krysa (ed.), Curating, Immateriality, Systems: On Curating Digital Media, Data Browser Series Vol. 3 (Autonomedia Press: New York, 2006).

Joasia Krysa is a Polish curator and theorist on online curating.

Joasia Krysa (ed.), Curating, Immateriality, Systems: On Curating Digital Media, Data Browser Series Vol. 3 (Autonomedia Press: New York, 2006).

Candice O’Brien is an Independent Curator based in Cape Town, SA.

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Photo: Group Discussion

The Space Outside the SPACE

by Sanele Mankwele

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arlier this year, I participated alongside role of the curator however, seems to be a a number of young aspiring curators, in mutable construct, that may now extend The New Ideas, New Possibilities Forum itself beyond the practicality of sourcing and Workshop, which was held at the National and displaying but further considers the affect that curating can have and not Gallery in Bulawayo. solely limited to the physical practice of Having only travelled to Zimbabwe in curatorship. my early years, I had no prior insight into the apparent dichotomies between the individuals who inhabited Bulawayo and the relevance of contemporary art making and curatorial practice. The workshop exposed the ambiguous relationship between art making and the ways in which we display and build collections, be them artistic or historical. In our discussions around curatorship, the question that seemed most pertinent was, what is a curator? Doreen Sibanda, in her discussion around the role of the curator, defined the curator as the ‘keeper of a collection’, or custodian of a museum or other collections, the one who is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the collection. The

Photo: Camaraderie

Photo: Sanele Manqele

The idea of curating and collecting of pieces is one that has become vastly relevant in our negotiation of contemporary art, not in the viewing of the work but also and possibly more importantly, in which pieces we choose to display. What works do we choose and where do we display them in a contemporary context, where there are no limitations in the accessibility of information, as prompted by Candice O’Brien’s presentation on Digital Curating.

Is there a curatorial consideration of where we choose to exhibit work and how this will impact those who come into contact with it, whether we have the control or not? It became evident to me as we voyeuristically peered over a balcony in the National Gallery, overlooking a barricaded exhibition,that curatorship extends further than our ability to subjectively select work but is also relevant in what we choose to communicate through our visual mediums.

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In his presentation, Jimmy Ogonga showed an intervention by New York artist Yazmany Arboleda entitled Monday Morning Nairobi. The intervention aimed to create a moving sculpture with 10,000 yellow balloons, as they were given to the morning commuters in Nairobi city. This intervention considers an art object or even performance outside of its traditional space, the space outside the space. What happens when curating extends beyond the physical walls of a gallery or museum space and begins to interact with a social context directly? I became seemingly interested in this idea of ‘space’ especially in Bulawayo, a multicultural yet conservative city, where similar to all contexts,there is a need for art to pose questions around African discourses and complexities. There lives an apparent need for curatorship to question not only the subject or relevance of an artwork but also to question the spaces we choose to place artworks in. Gabi Ngcobo, Johannesburg based curator, speaks to this notion in an article

by Obidike Okafor, entitled “transiting with Gabi Ngcobo” . Ngcobo emphasizes the role artists have in creating work that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also questions and comments on society, with reference to work by South African photographer Zanele Muholi.

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When reading this article I began to mankind. He views our existence as having question the premise in which we often been transformed into a virtual realityconsider the role of the curator, my based paper work and documentation. own negotiation with artworks and contemporary commercial gallery spaces. I Following these experiences, I am looking am currently working as a gallery manager forward to curating some really incredible for Art Eye, located in The Design Quarter exhibitions, with the inclusion of the new in Bryanston, Johannesburg. While my artists and ideas I have acquired when managerial responsibilities are largely I was in Zimbabwe. I hope to be back in administrative, there lives a significant Zimbabwe very soon to hopefully engage curatorial component that involves not with other projects and exhibitions that only my assistance in the curating of will be taking place there. SM exhibitions, but also in finding artists who reflect our unique view of South Sanele Mankwele is currently Gallery African and African Art. This space exists Manager at Art Eye in Johannesburg, South on a basis of complimentary synergies, Africa. She holds a BA in Fine Art from such that I have been able to bring new the University of Witwatersrand and an artists to join our family. Tafadzwa Gwetai Honours in Brand Leadership from Vega is a young Zimbabwean who I met at the School of Brand Communications. She workshop in Bulawayo. He is a dynamic has previously worked with the Center for artist whose work reflects a contemporary Historical Reenactments and the Goethe subject, rendered with often traditional Institut in Johannesburg. stylistic qualities. In July, Art Eye will host Tafadzwa Gwetai’s exhibition ‘Counting People’, premised on an exploration of humanity and individuality through our systematically driven world. Gwetai engages the number system using mathematics as a form of design. He reintroduces and redefines mathematics with science and logic to create a new language;a language that challenges the very core of industry and its relevance to

This space exists on a basis of complimentary synergies, such that I have been able to bring new artists to join our family.

Photo: From left to right- Raphael Chikukwa, Dorreen Sibanda and Tessa Jackson in

The Artist as Curator

by Tafadzwa Gwetai

Photo: Tafadzwa Gwetai

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he New Ideas, New Possibilities workshop gave me the opportunity to realise that there has been a shift with what we call the curator in these contemporary times. The role has shifted from the gathering and documenting of artefacts or art forms to the transmitting of a message and a voice that was once lost. I gained from the workshop from two points of analysis. One being that of an artist and the other that of a curator.

and reduce misinterpretation of art from Africa when exhibited in foreign spaces. The workshop also gave me more insight on the relevance of time, space and context. To create impact the curator must be always aware of the environment and community.

Artist’s perspective

The overall workshop was very insightful and the pleasure of meeting all the participants who had different artistic and curatorial experiences in Africa was a great experience. TG

Tafadzwa Gwetai is a Zimbabwean visual artist and emerging curator. He holds a BTech Creative Art & Design (Hons) Degree from the University of Chihnoyi, Zimbabwe. As an artist he has exhibited at Gallery East in Australia, Colour Africa in Munich and most recently at Art Eye Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has exhibited extensively at Gallery Delta, National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare, and in 2012 he held his first solo show ‘Aesthetic Codes: When Art Meets Science’ at the National Gallery in Bulawayo. He has curated exhibitions for Empire Gallery, the National Gallery in Bulawayo and currently with the Visual Arts Association of Bulawayo.

During the workshop the idea of the voice also reached out to me that the artist must have an understanding of their creations, in a manner that their works of art do not contradict their created intention. I believe that for the artist to critically understand their creations would contribute to narrowing the gap between artist and curator.

Curator’s perspective The workshop had a key focus on the nature of curating in Africa and the shift in how the story can be told. There is an opportunity to reflect on our own African heritage and redirect the message to their immediate environment and community. This can secure the preservation of the message

The workshop also gave me more insight on the relevance of time, space and context. To create impact the curator must be always aware of the environment and community.

Photo: Gwetai addressing a New Ideas, New Possibilities workshop

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Questions For Artlife Interview with Tandazani Dhlakama on her experience with CIMAM in Rio de Janiero.

Photo: Museu de Are Mordena do Rio de Janeiro Copyright Leila Barreto

Q:

You recently attended an International Committee For Museums Workshop/Conference (CIMAM) in Rio De Janiero, Brazil. How far placed is Africa in Curatorial terms?

A: It’s difficult to speak about the entire continent, especially since I believe that I am still learning and exploring the concept of curatorial practice. However, based on the fact that Africa had the fewest number of participants at CIMAM Annual Conference, I think that the curatorial practice in Africa needs to grow. Through institutions, workshops and independent initiatives, it needs to be nurtured and young African curators must be encouraged. People must begin to realize the importance of the practice and the role of the curator. If they do so, they will realize the significance of embracing opportunities like CIMAM Conference. This may be far-fetched, but I think the reason why there were only 4 out of 25 grant recipients from Africa to attend CIMAM was because people didn’t apply. They didn’t understand the significance, they didn’t research on opportunities like this one and therefore didn’t benefit. However, there are so many similar opportunities out there. Emerging curators must start taking advantage of these- for the sake of the curatorial practise in Africa.

Q:

In engaging with peers from other continents, what strides do you believe can be made in • Africa?

• Zimbabwe?

the local audience and those abroad. He is the director of the 8thRencontresAfricanes de la Photographie among many other projects he facilitates.

African institutions need to be even more creative in their museum and gallery programming as they face unique challenges compared to the rest of the world. This means that fulfilling our goals as managers of art institutions can be more challenging for us. We don’t have the institutions that are 100+ years old like Europe does. However, we should not despair!

We certainly have the potential. A recent article on the BBC affirms this. In this article, NaveenaKottoor asked, “With major museums in London and New York showcasing leading contemporary African artists this summer, and Angola’s recent success at the Biennale in Venice, is the world of art finally putting Africa on its map?” I think the answer is YES. We are rising up; our economies are picking up at a faster rate than the Asian Tigers did when they were at our stage. This means that we can foresee much more investment in art in the future.

Even though we have a long way to go, there are so many new spaces that are popping up and flourishing across the continent. Examples include CCA Lagos, Raw Material Company, Centre For Contemporary Art East Africa (CCAEA) and our very own Njelele to name a few.

A: One of the keynote presenters at CIMAM was Samuel Sidibe,the Director at the National Museum of Mali, Bamako.

Sidibe’s case study on the National Museum of Mali made me realize that Africa needs to use his example in order to engage more with the rest of the world. It was interesting to see how Sidibe had transformed the art scene in Mali, or West Africa at large through the National Museum of Mali. He has done this through diversifying the programs that the institution offers. He has also promoted archaeological heritage while building the contemporary art scene there through key festivals. This has been in order to fulfil the demands of both

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Photo: International Committee For Museums Workshop/Conference (CIMAM) 2013 Rio de Janiero

Q:

In relation to the Curatorial Forum held last February 2013 in Bulawayo, with regards to your experience at CIMAM, how best can you expand any future forum spearheaded by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe?

A: Well, I am excited that the NGZ is planning another curatorial forum for 2014. I hear that the next one will be bigger and better. It will coincide with an exhibition that I and 3 other young professionals will curate. We were chosen to curate this show after our team won the best curatorial proposal at the Forum. The fact that other curators will be able to critique our work is quite good.

I think the facilitators of the last forum realized the more urgent needs of emerging young Southern African curators.

Therefore, I believe the next one will be directed towards addressing those issues. Participants wanted more practical tips on how to hang work and how to make key decisions about where work goes. Perhaps more time needs to be spent on identifying potential funders in Africa. It would be nice to hear about how to foster successful collaborations with archaeological/natural history museums and other art forms of artists, just a person who uses art to highlight certain ideas.

Q:

In your view, how is CIMAM helping to break the wrong notion that true African art should reflect archaeological objects and must be seen from and ethnographic view? Is this discussion even relevant? Or is the world over this falsity?

A: I honestly think that the world is getting over this.

However, we did spend a short amount of time discussing the whole exoticizing issue during one presentation. But even then, not many people seemed to be bothered by it. The questionabout ethnographic art came about during Rodrigo Moura’s case study. This came about after discussing the development of the InstitutoInhotim and Claudia Andujar’s work with the Yanomami (indigenous population). Rodrigo had organized an exhibition of Claudia’s work who is a Swiss Born photographer who spent time in the rain forests taking pictures of the people there. He made it seem as though she had been instrumental in helping that population through documenting them to the world. The question was, is it right to show an ethnographic body of work in this day and age.

It probably was okay to do so 40 years ago. However, today can it not be seen as condescending, or selling the idea that indigenous peoples need the West to “save” them? Food for thought.

Q:

Do you believe there is a curatorial scarcity in Zimbabwe and Africa at large?

however, suggest that we chose to remain passive, as long as somehow, our exoticized art work made it to the corners of the world and we basked in short-term gratification. Eventually, African curators such as SimoneNjami, OkwuiEnwezor and BisiSiliva began to rise up in order to defy the status quo.

No one can contest that their work so far has been highly commendable. Africa Remix, Art at Work, CCA Lagos and Enwezor’s work through the JoBurg Biennale and Documenta have put Africa on the map.

However, in spite of all of these efforts, there are still vast gaps that need to be filled on the continent regarding the visual arts. More curatorial forums and workshops should be held, and curatorial courses should be offered in all tertiary art schools.

Q: Which speaker had the biggest impact on you at the CIMAM Conference?

A: Zoe Butt the Director and Curator of San Art in Vietnam gave a case study that I could very much relate to.

I could relate to the challenges she faced in explaining the role of a curator to her community, since curatorial practise is relatively new there too. In Zimbabwe, a few artists and members of the public view this role with suspicion. Others over glorify it. Just as in Shona, there is no word for art in the local Vietnamese dialects. From Zoe’s talk, I learnt that one has to find a new language with which to communicate art to the community. This language must be locally relevant, yet have an international consideration. Art institutions must invest in building trust with locals for them to be relevant. Her case study shed light on how you educate a public that is so used to a guarded fixed idea of art. The answer varies depending on context, but in each scenario, patience, creativity and consistency is key.

After listening to the challenges that Zoe faces in her work, I was more grateful for our art scene in Zimbabwe. This is because Zoe talked about how the concept of art is guarded by government and permission is required to host the simplest art events and exhibitions. Everything in Vietnam has to go through cultural police. She elaborated on how education sometimes doesn’t do justice to the study of art. This is because it takes more than just education to produce artists.

She discussed the line between organizational censorship and government censorship and spoke about whether or not a curator has a social responsibility to assist artists. After all, a curator is not a manager.

A: Yes, but our annual curatorial forums are addressing this issue. During the past 20 years, the role of a curator has dramatically shifted from simply being a keeper of a collection of art works to a cultural activist, one who tells a story by highlighting relevant concepts using objects. More often than not, this includes fund-raising, extensive networking and documentation.

Until recent times, Africans were silent about their stories.

We allowed others to interpret and remix our narratives. We were silent for many reasons. Some suggest that we lacked the means to tell our own story because oral tradition meant that solid documentation was scarce or non-existent. Others, Photo: Delegates at CIMAN

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New Possibilities from New Ideas

by Mthabisi Phili

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ew ideas are the vehicle by which new possibilities are created, new ideas are the package of new possibilities, and possibilities are opportunities; we can chose to take opportunities or neglect them! The Curatorial workshop under the banner New Ideas New Possibilities, provided us with an opportunity, opening a platform to discuss the cause and reason, what this cause and reason is or was, or whether it was discussed can vary from each and every person who was there, the result is always subjective.

The fact is, on a local level there is a need to connect the contemporary practices of artists, artworks with curators. This is even more important on a regional level, which is why Jimmy Ogonga (Kenya), Suzana Sousa (Angola), Tessa Jackson(Iniva, UK), Thembinkosi Goniwe (Johannesburg) and Candice O’Brien (Cape Town) where present to facilitate the establishment of this connection. The forum discussed and defined the role of a curator, this was clear enough. However, the importance of being relevant to artists and art of one’s locality as a curator can never be overstated, and in the words of Koyo Kouoh during the ICI Curatorial Intensive in Johannesburg,“the nature of one’s curatorial framework should be determined by one’s locality and environment; in short, you have to dig where you stand!” The importance of relevance is of utmost importance as a curator, we have to find our context and understand it.

The occurrence of these two programs almost side by side seems to hit at a common dirge, that we need more curators. New Ideas, New Possibilities took stock of the curatorial talent and ambitions in Zimbabwe. The discourse served to invigorate all those very singular and isolated individuals that were venturing into curating or, to be correct: organising exhibitions more or less in their isolated engagements. The program really harnessed these initiatives, while

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Photo: Mthabisi Phili

investigating the museum’s collection, its role and its interactive position in the artistic historical arena. The ICI Curatorial Intensive kicked off in March, soon after New Ideas. The Curatorial Intensive certainly lived up to its name, it is an intense, premier program organised by Independent Curators International. The program outlined the history and progress of curatorial practices, from museums to public interventions. The professional discussions encompassed facilitators that were Zdenka Badovinac(Gallery Lubjiuina, Slovenia), Koyo Kouoh (Raw Material Company, Senegal), Michelle Marxuach (Beta-Local, Puerto Rico), Didier Schaub (Douala Arts), Gabi Ngcobo (Center for Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg) and Nontobeko Ntombela.

The conception of New Ideas, New Possibilities means that someone realised that there was a need for more curators in the country and region. This is an obvious fact, we do need more curators. But one could also ask: do we need more curators or do we need more art institutions that are relevant on an international stage?

It will be foolish to prescribe for more curators instead of ‘us’ lobbying for a relevant art syllabus in the educational institutions that already exist: this therefore is the real problem; that we have defunct syllabuses being used in the few art institutions that do exist, and that there are not enough educational institutions for current art practices. Our dependence on a Western template for most things has rendered us incapable of writing and structuring our own syllabuses. Hence after being to the Curatorial Intensive in Johannesburg, I very much applaud the efforts of Gabi Ngcobo and Donna Kukama in engaging Wits University to come up with an undergraduate and postgraduate syllabus for art students. This action reflects initiatives that we need from all ‘Africans’ in order to stop this inherent over-

dependence on Western food aid, medical aid and even on what to learn and how to learn it.

New Ideas follows in the footsteps of initiatives in West Africa by Olabisi Silva, who initiated an annual program through CCA Lagos. Her program was a breakthrough in 2010. Currently I am writing these words in Ghana at the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in Accra, I am attending the Archive program organised by CCA Lagos Bisi Silva and FCA Adwoa Amoah and Ato Annan. It has always been Olabisi Silva’s cry that there is a conceptual gap in art education in Africa. “There is a huge gap in what the artist is saying in his/her/about their artwork and what the actual artwork really looks like.” Bisi Silva is credited with initiating the vision of empowering the artist in Africa, and this annual program has continued to grow, spilling into Ghana and involving more and more emerging artists and curators.

There is great anticipation for what these combined synergies will bear in the coming decades. The platforms are indeed opportunities and are naturing mature, artistic professionals who will engage in a global artistic discourse in their own context. New ideas, new possibilities and new opportunities are there. In the words of Thembinkosi Goniwe,“we need always a vision that is drawn from ourselves”, and of Raphael Chikukwa,“we need to connect and link the region; the education that we receive should be administered without the exclusion of our own values and identity, in terms of our history and position.” MP Mthabisi Phili is an independent curator and writer. He has worked on exhibitions for the Visual Arts Association of Bulawayo, the National Gallery in Bulawayo, and in November 2011, he founded Voices in Colour, an organization whose mission is to “connect contemporary cultures.”

Issues in Curating Contemporary African Art

by Suzana Sousa

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ew Ideas, New Possibilities started as a Forum open to the public with presentations from all the curatorial facilitators as well as Mrs Doreen Sibanda, Director of the National Gallery, Tessa Jackson, Director of the Institute for Visual Arts(Iniva), Raphael Chikukwa, Curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and Clifford Zulu, Assistant Curator at the National Gallery in Bulawayo.

Photo: Suzana Sousa

to the curators’ panel on Thursday, 28th February. This was very successful with the curators engaging with the participants and their presentation, as well as among themselves, to discuss specific points of each proposal.

Overall I would say the results were excellent, the time spent with each participant and the groups in particular allowed us to know each other and to produce honest and useful feedback. Also, the way the sessions were organised allowed enough time for everyone to meet each other outside of the workshop giving space for work relationships to come out.

For the Forum in my presentation ‘Issues in curating contemporary African Art’ I tried to highlight the challenges for curators when dealing with contemporary African art in a context that is not only within the continent but extremely influenced by Europe and America and concepts such as the I would suggest for next year more time, maybe through global South. Essentially there are two sets of challenges that separated sessions, to discuss some of the topics. Although the groups went through most of them it would be useful to should be considered and addressed. dedicate more time to some of the questions that came out from the discussion but because of time constraints that was First, the lack of infrastructures in our own contexts and not possible.

Such themes as the curatorial CV and profile, countries: this lack of structures is usually a lack of museums, audience development and public programming would profit galleries and/or art schools but also a lack of categories to from specific discussions that could take place as a unique describe and analyse local and African art history (or histories). session instead of in groups, maybe using concrete examples Second, the concept of contemporary African art is set as an and tools aswas the case with the presentation on art handling opposition to ‘art premiers’, as the French would put it, and and conservation.

SS is mainly thought in a western framework of more general categories. Which means that to curate the present African art production means to address this in a serious and relevant Suzana Sousa was born in Luanda in 1981. She has a degree in way otherwise we will be perpetuating a power discourse Artistic Studies (Compared Arts and Cultures) from the Faculdade and denying ownership to the continent of its own cultural de Letras of the Universidade de Lisboa and is studying for a MA in Postcolonial Cultures and Global Policy at Goldsmiths’ production.

College (Cultural Studies Department), University of London.

The following day started with a lecture by Jimmy Ogonga and Since 2003 she has worked in the area of cultural production and ended at the Cyrene Mission. The next two days were marked management in Angola. Among other projects, Suzana Sousa is by the group work. This culminated in a proposal to be pitched one of the curators for the 3rd Luanda Triennial, in 2013.

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