PANTA Issue 10

NAME OF ARTIST 101

CREATIVE CULTURE & ARTIVISM ISSUE 10 / FEBRUARY 2017

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ISSUE 10 / FEBRUARY 2017 EDITORS IN CHIEF

Charlotte Specht & Guille Lasarte MARKETING & ADVERTISING

Mario Rueda mario@bookastreetartist.com PROJECT MANAGER

Sophie Smeets COPY EDITOR

Charlotte Kench CONTRIBUTORS

Pepper Levain, Roxanne Goldberg, Nicole Schild, Janielle Williams, Russell Smith Photography, Jansen, Neels Kleynhans (NK Photo), JOS*, Camille Charlier, Alexandra Maciá, Teresa Schmidt-Meinecke, Sidney King, Deia Schlosberg, Fabian Stürtz, Patryk Witt, Ruben Neugebauer FEATURING

Hoda Afshar, Center for Political Beauty, Sandilé, Khaled Barakeh, Thomas Dambo, Josh Fox, Urban-Think Tank & Theatre4Change, Atong Atem, Luo Yang, Refugee Radio Network, Nevercrew, Quichotte SPECIAL THANKS

Becca Roithmayr, MO-Industries.com, Pau Quintanajornet (back cover stencil) PRINTER

MEDIALIS Offsetdruck GmbH Heidelberger Str. 65/66 12435 Berlin, Germany PUBLISHER

Book a Street Artist Markgrafenstraße 12-14 10969 Berlin, Germany info@bookastreetartist.com www.bookastreetartist.com ISSN 2509-842X www.pantamagazine.com panta@bookastreetartist.com

Cover photo by Atong Atem Photo on opposite page by Camille Charlier of Thomas Dambo’s artwork

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS This issue marks the tenth edition of PANTA and its third year in existence.

What began as a playful project developed, rather organically, into an independent magazine that tells the stories of artists from all over the world who use their craft for a good cause.

Creativity is a strong tool to promote change and our mission is to show that there is so much more to art than what we can find in the institutionalized art world.

In this sense, we seek to explore the bigger picture of what art has the power to achieve for communities and societies at large.

In this sense, PANTA naturally shaped into an artivism magazine over the years, and this is the theme we are celebrating here.

We hope you enjoy the work featured in this issue, most of which is concerned with filling a void. Each artist present on these pages has at some point encountered a lack of awareness, information or representation of their respective cause and we honour them for having the vision and the perseverance to transform that emptiness into something tangible, beautiful and meaningful.

Thanks for reading!

GOT SKILLS? www.bookastreetartist.com

Image by TAPE OVER || Tape crew from Berlin

I S S U E 10 / C O N T E N T S

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PHOTOGRAPHY

IN THE EXODUS, I LOVE YOU MORE Interview by Guille Lasarte Photography by Hoda Afshar

Born in Tehran and based in Melbourne, Iranian artist Hoda Ashfar uses photography as a means to address issues of power relations, representation and identity. We had the pleasure of talking to Hoda about migration, her influences and her artistic process.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

HODA AFSHAR

Tell us a bit about yourself – where you’re from, your trajectory and your development as an artist.

I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and after finishing my bachelor’s degree in photography, I moved to Australia to experience life in a different part of the world. In Iran I started my practice as a documentary photographer and photojournalist, photographing different aspects of life in Iran and exploring the issues affecting different social groups, especially minority communities. After migrating to Australia, the focus of my practice shifted somewhat: I began making more staged work in which I explored similar issues, but from a more conceptual perspective, and

especially in relation to the lives of non-Western subjects living in the Western world. So in this sense, I became the subject of my own work – I began reflecting on my own experiences and encounters as a way of approaching larger questions to do with identity and representation. This fed into my PhD research-based practice in creative arts, which I started in 2011. About three or four years ago I also began a new series about contemporary Iran in which I explore my changing vision of and relationship to my homeland.

During this period, I have exhibited my images throughout Australia and internationally. The first major exhibition of my Iran series took place last November in Melbourne.

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10 PHOTOGRAPHY

Are there any particular artists who have influenced your way of approaching photography?

My greatest influences tend to be outside of the photography world. I always find inspiration in literature, theory, other visual art mediums and movies. The artist who has probably influenced my documentary practice the most is the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. I am also very much inspired by the romanticism and poetry of the work of video artist Bill Viola, as well as the work of the exiled visual artist Mona Hatoum – in particular, her beautifully distilled way of communicating ideas related to power-relations and the condition of global exile. I love the writings of Edward Said for a similar reason.

HODA AFSHAR 11

Tell us about your process. When framing, setting up a scene, or finding the perspective that you want to document and represent – how do you translate that through the camera and into the photo?

With my work in general, I usually have a larger concept, story or feeling in mind that I’m trying to capture, and my choice of image will reflect that. I tend to think of each scene as in dialogue with the rest, and depending on the visual language that I’m aiming for, I’ll set up the scene differently.

For example, in my current series, In the Exodus, I love you more, one of the underlying themes concerns the notion of “presence and absence”, or the idea that our experience can relate to both the surface and depth of things. So I have adopted a visual language in this series’ images that relates to both aspects: to what is both present and absent in our

expectations, and to the hidden depth in the surface of things.

What do you think makes photography an effective medium for exploring issues of identity?

Like other art mediums, with photography, exploring questions of identity is inseparable from questions about truth and representation. Photography especially has a reputation for being a “vehicle” of truth – a way of capturing reality-as-it-is. But as I suggested earlier about my Iran series, I’m also interested in this idea that the surface both reveals and conceals. I like to explore questions about representation and identity through inverting certain expectations about what we normally see, and even hinting at the idea that what is more true is what is absent from the photo.

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HODA AFSHAR 13

Migration is something that shatters your world... It’s a strange, liminal existence, but it also gives you a particular kind of vision: a way of seeing the entire world as a foreign land, as Edward Said puts it.

What made you use photography as a means for analyzing your relationship with your homeland and as a medium for storytelling?

Since moving to Australia, photography has become a way for me to tell my story of migration, to explore themes about home and exile, foreignness, belonging, and more specifically, how cultural identity influences our art and daily experiences. For me, it’s impossible to separate my image-making from the sense of familiarity I feel towards a particular place, and this is also reflected in the work I make when I return home to Iran. Photography for me has become a way of reading, seeing and making sense of the world and of my own being and experiences – including my experience of diaspora.

Does part of the significance of your series In the Exodus, I love you more come from its condition as an ongoing series? Or is it a project you’d like to ‘conclude’ one day?

Exactly – because the focus of this series involves exploring my changing relationship to Iran, I could continue adding to it for the rest of my life.

I can’t really imagine what its conclusion would be, and I’ve loved the process of discovering something new each time I return to Iran to add to the series. But part of my aim with the work has also been to develop a certain way of “seeing” as an insider-outsider, and after several returns I feel more comfortable and familiar with the language that I have developed. So perhaps this chapter will conclude when I feel that this language is no longer useful for discovering anything new – when it has exhausted itself.

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What do you think makes distance and migration change our perspective of our origins? Do you think it makes some things clearer, or is it affected by nostalgia?

Migration is something that shatters your world, and transforms your world-view. The pain of being uprooted and of setting down roots elsewhere gives rise to a peculiar sense of homelessness, of not fully belonging, that you never really get over. It’s a strange, liminal existence, but it also gives you a particular kind of vision: a way of seeing the entire world

as a foreign land, as Edward Said puts it. That’s something I’ve tried to embrace, rather than clinging nostalgically to my image of “home” or to a narrative of painful “exile”.

Instead, I’m interested in exploring this in-between state as a mode of being that is closely tied to the modern condition of homelessness. I’m also fascinated by this idea that things can become nearer the more you draw distant, and vice versa – the play of presence and absence.

HODA AFSHAR 15

Does your work seek in any way to provide an alternative narrative to the dominant representations of your country?

I think most people will accept that the dominant Western media representations of Iran are as much a reflection of the political relations between Iran and the West as anything else. It’s a country that is often deliberately misrepresented for political and economic reasons, or simply because of orientalist fantasies. But I also find that many artists’ attempts to directly “correct” these representations can be just as misleading. My view is that exploring personal narratives is a better approach than one that attempts to address the

question of true-versus-false representations head on, which is just to say that, when we are talking about a place like Iran – or like anywhere, probably – there is no “single” reality that can be captured. My images of Iran reflect my experiences, and they will be quite different to those of the family of a martyr or political prisoner, say, or someone living on the margins of society. This is, I suppose, one of the ideas that I’m consciously exploring through my series – the idea that all image-making or story-telling is situated and perspectival in this way, but that such perspectival story-telling, perhaps, contains more truth than grand narratives or generalizing statements. ∆

ARTIVISM

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T HE ART OF EATING R EFUGEES Words by Charlotte Specht

Photos by Patryk Witt Ruben Neugebauer All photos courtesy of Zentrum für Politische Schönheit

For Philipp Ruch, there are two kinds of people in this world: the 97% and the 3%. The majority of the population whom are either lethargic or unaware during times of political unrest and the remaining 3%, whom Ruch calls ‘the martyr quota’; those that actively protest.

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I

t was during his academic career of more than twelve years that Philipp Ruch discovered the coercive power of art on society. The selfdescribed “aggressive humanist” occasionally slips into the role of an artist to perform for the Center for Political Beauty (CPB), the Berlinbased art collective that he founded in 2008.

For more than a decade, Ruch has distinguished himself as a dedicated and visionary artivist.

As artistic director of the CPB he leads the production and enactment of impactful and often heavily criticized ‘artworks’ that are usually executed in conjunction with hundreds of artists and humanists. CPB’s goal is to inspire protest and direct action by making the 97% aware of the inhumane aspects of German and EU policies by staging large-scale performances and installations in public spaces.

However, it is not only Ruch and the CPB who participate. Spectators of their performances often become complicit in the performances; ‘actors’ by default of their proximity – whether they are unassuming bystanders, law enforcement or government representatives. Sometimes the plays even grow to incorporate police helicopters, interception technology and political speeches – “without us paying them for it”, adds Ruch with a wry grin.

One of their most recent and arguably one of their most controversial mise-en-scènes is ‘Eating Refugees’, a condemnation of the German transportation ban for foreigners without a valid visa. The prohibition prevents refugees from

arriving safely to a state like Germany which presumably grants them protection and asylum once they enter the country. The perversion in this scenario is the fact that the law is not structured against asylum seekers. Instead, §63 of the Residence Act prohibits transportation companies to transport foreigners if they are not in possession of a valid passport and a valid residence title, thereby blocking a legal path of entry into Germany and preventing an application for a permit on German ground. As a response to “one of the deadliest things” existing in German policy, CPB responded with something equally menacing: four living Libyan tigers.

CPB’s proposition was simple: lift the transportation ban, destroy illegal human trafficking, and rescue thousands of human beings. As they claim, “The deletion of a single paragraph in the German law can change this.”

So, they raised funds and obtained a permit for an artistic installation in the middle of Berlin – an area resembling an ancient Roman Coliseum that would host the tigers. Then came the ultimatum: should the German government fail to the lift the ban and give free passage to 100 Syrian war refugees ready to board a plane from Izmir to Berlin-Tegel, the CPB had several refugees in Berlin whom had volunteered to enter the arena and be eaten by the beasts. The ministry of the interior reacted with heavy criticism, calling the performance a distasteful production and condemning the instrumentalization of refugees.

The performance ended without bloodshed.

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Neither the ban was lifted nor the airplane flown.

Whether these volunteers would have actually entered the arena is unknown and somewhat beside the point. The project ‘failed’ in its adherence to the publicly announced screenplay and critics claim that the CPB lost significant credibility with regards to their threats and effectiveness as a result. Although ‘Eating Refugees’ also failed to lift the ban, it drew attention to the plight of refugees that were refused entry on its basis and with that, engendered a much less measurable phenomenon: the awareness and consideration of the general public that this project was ultimately aimed at.

While their action art and performances are highly contemporary, the CPB is also dedicated to the search

and study of historical acts of what they call ‘political beauty’. There are quite a few glorious examples of political beauty in the past. Ruch raises the question of why there is not one minister in the European Union who stands up against the scandalous human rights abuses of Syrian war refugees – a leitmotif in most of the art productions of the CPB. In their experience, the 97:3 divide is most evident during times of genocides and mass murders. They have observed that active protest by the 3% has the potential to radiate extraordinary moral power, leading to the most beautiful – although sometimes illegitimate – political acts. It’s possible that the CPB’s members are not just political artists; they also act as historical anthropologists, scrutinizing such case

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THE GOAL: TO INSPIRE D I R EC T AC TI O N

studies as Stauffenberg’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Willy Brandt kneeling in Warsaw, Poland, or Christian Schwarz-Schilling resigning his ministerial post in Germany to protest atrocities in BosniaHerzegovina in 1992.

One project by the CPB that clearly demonstrates the power of artivism is ‘The Federal Emergency Programme’. Analogous to the British Kindertransport that rescued 10,000 Jewish children prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, the CPB staged a performance to recruit German foster families for 55,000 Syrian refugee children. They made hyper realistic ads, TV commercials, leaflets and a meticulously detailed fake website with an application form, allegedly created by the German government.

Philipp Ruch being interviewed at a performance

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Here we should have killed to show that you are acting like animals. But you are not acting like animals. You have strayed from us to be better than us. But you just have strayed from yourselves. We cancelled the final. In the name of the tigers we leave you alone with your dilemma. We are not the solution. We are the sad performers of your doom.

This is too real to be played.

Letter from the tigers to mankind

Although the artistic nature of the program was communicated and the call center was equipped with six actors, thousands of families applied. The successful outcome of the action is not defined by the arrangement for 55,000 refugee children to be placed with German families (although it could have been easily implemented by the German government). According to Ruch, this project showed something far more important for humanity: the ability to wake up, or to expand the moral imagination of human beings. In other words: the images of bombed neighborhoods in Aleppo and children’s corpses can suddenly be connected to a clear call to action, a guideline to help stop “the apocalypse of humanity”, instead of ignoring these images or scrolling past them in our Facebook feeds in passive dismay. This is the deep, almost intangible impact of the CPB’s form of artivism and one of their most important goals: to enlighten the 97% and inspire direct action.

In Ruch’s view, history is written, and also rescued by a few

outstanding individuals. While he clearly counts himself as part of the martyrs, he acknowledges the fine line in the balancing act of being an inspiring moral leader and appearing as an outright narcissist. In his eyes, what moves the 3% is a powerful combination of idealism, leadership by example, integrity and most likely desperation. However, these findings are of no use as long as the martyr quota is decreasing at a dazzling rate. Ruch’s attempt to recover this state of emergency also has a theoretical dimension to it that he outlines in his book If Not Us, Then Who? He calls for a new wave of enlightenment, for a change in the view of the world as past philosophers painted it for us. Most importantly, he urges us all to incorporate one simple yet far-reaching concept: that every human carries inside of them the entire human race. It means that we would have to accept dignity for all mankind, which would make it impossible to distance ourselves from another human being drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. ∆

RECYCLED ART

Thomas Dambo and the

Art of

Abandonded Things Words by Sophie Smeets Photos by Camille Charlier & courtesy of Thomas Dambo

It’s no news that the world has been facing environmental degradation for some time now, with a huge part of that owing to the excessive and relentless production of waste. Every day we throw away enough household waste to fill twelve of the largest container ships – an amount that is expected to double by 2030. Depressing as the statistics may be, some artists are responding by taking it upon themselves to transform the way we think about and interact with trash.

Enter Thomas Dambo: an incredibly resourceful, playful and inventive Danish installation artist based in Copenhagen who is creating quirky and vibrant artwork from what would otherwise have ended up in a landfill. Not only has he transformed three hundred discarded buckets into a giant white swan and made a kaleidoscopic elephant from plastic junk, his enormous woodland creatures – that are sometimes up to five metres tall – are fashioned entirely out of scavenged wood.

Dambo’s awareness of the relationship between his work and their environment, as well as the materials they were produced from, are evident in many of his undertakings as an artist. Whether he is installing birdhouses from recyclable materials for urban-dwelling birds or building a workshop space to invite people to engage in this ecological art practice, Dambo is tackling the bigger picture “litter by litter”.

I asked Thomas his reasons for repurposing waste to create his artworks. He told me that for him, it is only natural to use trash and that he has been using the things he found in dumpsters since he was a kid.

His art practice is not just ecological, it’s economical too – as it can generally be quite expensive for artists to source the materials required to produce their work: “Why buy new material”, he says, “when you can find perfect stuff in the dumpster around the corner where it’s just waiting to be burned or buried?”

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When something serves its first purpose to us, we tend to discard it without a second thought – and perhaps that thought is the second life we could give to that item.

Whilst we are all familiar with the cliché “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, according to Dambo, there’s an attitude about trash that is still yet to change. When something serves its first purpose to us, we tend to discard it without a second thought – and perhaps that thought is the second life we could give to that item. In this way, Dambo’s art practice seeks to raise awareness about the ‘single use’ concept that we unconsciously derive from mass consumerism.

Ultimately, there are plenty of ways that we can incorporate recycled and ‘found’ materials into art and our daily lives by seeking out their second purpose.

Dambo’s joyful giant creatures are an invitation to consider his philosophy in a positive way: one person’s trash really can become another one’s treasure, it might just take a bit more effort and imagination than we’re used to. ∆

Thomas Dambo in his studio in Copenhagen

MUSIC

She’s 23, cool as a cucumber and recently released her first EP, I’ve Seen That Face Before, without any external help. I spent an evening photographing techno artist Sandilé and chatting about her music and what it’s like to be an independent female musician in the techno scene.

Words & photos by Pepper Levain

FOR THE

MOMENT

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Pepper: Sandilé, why is techno the genre of your choice?

Sandilé: I don’t know if I have ever consciously selected a genre for myself. It rather just happened. First I started out listening to dubstep, not techno. I felt this 4/4 sound was rather boring. As I got older I realised how many variations and differences there are. I found this fascinating and wanted to look further into it. Also, I went with my friends to techno and house parties since they didn’t like dubstep as much as I did. All of that made me drift more and more into the direction of techno.

P: When and how did you start making music?

S: I’ve always made music. I used to play piano and the drums and sing in a band. I also went to a music college but they kicked me out due to my lack of attendance (laughs).

I can’t really say when I started DJing actually, I’ve been doing it for quite a while now. Back home when I was a teenager I used the sound software Traktor and I just mixed and played tracks to myself. At some point I befriended a party host and DJ, who asked me to play the warm up at his birthday party. This kind of got the whole thing rolling.

P: What inspires you?

S: All my favourite pieces of music inspire me. When I listen to them I just think ‘wow – this track is simply perfect’ and this inspires me to achieve producing a track that I feel is equally perfect, but seen from my very personal perspective.

P: What is one of those perfect tracks?

S: Wax – 3003B. P: Is there a particular place that you associate with your sound?

S: Yes, a blue bridge in Cologne. A lot in my life happened there and I actually dedicated a track to it, called Blaue Brücke.

P: What does it feel like to stand in the club, having the crowd dancing to your music?

S: I hate being the centre of attention and being looked at by everyone. The first ten minutes are a nightmare to me.

After those ten minutes, however, I enter this tunnel mode and can get fully lost in what I’m doing. Then I connect with the sound and can really enjoy myself.

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36 MUSIC / SANDILÉ

P: Describe the techno scene – what’s the vibe?

S: There is a huge warmth and presence there – for the moment. What’s just been created vanishes immediately after it has happened. Say you play a great set at a party, it feels enormously eternal and powerful. The next morning it already feels so far away and nobody really remembers anything. It’s perishable but what is happening is still genuine.

P: Does techno connect people? Or is it just a bunch of isolated souls dancing in the same room?

S: Both. If you are at a good techno party, you easily achieve this feeling of community and connect with people.

Especially when the space fills up with that strong positive vibe. Being an artist though, it’s more of an isolated thing.

Sometimes I would sit there with my headphones on, in front of a computer for 14 hours without moving at all.

In those moments, that is the only thing in the world that interests me.

There is a huge warmth and pre What’s just been created vanishes Say you play a great set at a party, it f The next morning it already feels so far awa It’s perishable but what is

esence there – for the moment. immediately after it has happened. feels enormously eternal and powerful. ay and nobody really remembers anything. happening is still genuine.

P: When producing tracks yourself, is there a story or theme you work into them?

S: Hmm... I think with techno there is no such deep content actually. The main goal is to get blown by the beat.

P: Is there any sensuality and emotions at all?

S: Oh of course. The last edit I’ve done; Pepe Bradock – Deep Burnt, is very sensual to me. Of course I do express myself through my music but techno is definitely not the most emotional genre. There is personal content in each of my tracks but those are totally private. I work stuff out by abstracting it through sounds. It’s a very intuitive process based on the very moment. Also, naming my track titles is influenced by whatever is happening in my life right now.

P: Kind of like little soundtracks, just without the film.

S: Yes, exactly!

P: Do you enjoy the world during the daytime?

S: No. I don’t like big groups of people or the stereotypical human being I find on the streets at daytime. Summers are too warm for me so I can only handle temperatures at night.

P: What kind of humans do you like?

S: People that do not follow a strict line of how life is supposed to be lived: free minds with their own rhythms.

P: Can you connect with mainstream music at all?

S: I could seriously throw up when listening to chart music.

The songs all sound the same and function for a certain principle to make fast money. But of course I listen to other stuff than techno. If I only listened to techno I’d go mad!

Just this morning I got my hip-hop records out, KRS-One and Wu-Tang…

P: Are there many female techno artists? Do you like the term DJane?

S: It’s definitely male terrain. Personally, I’m used to it since I used to be a professional BMX rider. I had never questioned the term DJane so much until someone said something that is actually true: DJ is simply an abbreviation for disc jockey, which is a gender neutral term. DJane starts a gender thing that wasn’t needed. She can be a disc jockey just as much as he can be a disc jockey.

P: That was a clever cookie.

S: For me it doesn’t really matter whether a man, a woman or an animal hits the button, it’s really more about the sound.

P: So what is the reason for the dominant presence of males in the scene?

S: A lot of girls would like to produce or play in the clubs.

Actually quite often girls tell me that and say they just don’t know how to start or that they are too shy getting into it.

P: I remember that phenomenon from the skateboard scene… as a teenager I started skateboarding also as a protest against all the groupie girls cheering at the guys at the half pipes.

S: Yes, it’s a shame. In Cologne I’m about to start an event series to support other local underground artists that must be heard. Underground and unknown definitely doesn’t mean amateur! I’m excited to meet new artists and of course it would be great to discover some new female DJs as well.

P: Great! Any plans for the future?

S: I don’t really plan. I simply hope that I keep loving and enjoying what I do as much as I do right now. ∆

Labels: Like Records; Boutade Musique Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/tanteturnkopf

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THE PSYCHEDELIC CHEF

Words, recipe & illustration by JOS* For those of you who don’t know, JOS* is, among other things, PANTA’s psychedelic chef. In each issue he shares a recipe and an illustration cooked up by his wild imagination. Like many other great creative minds of the past century, JOS* is Mexican, and he spews out his stories in his native tongue. They are so vulgarly eloquent in Spanish that this time around, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to butcher the original sentiments through the act of translation.

So, here we present you with JOS*’s madness in its unadulterated form. For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, we apologize for this inconvenience. If you’re absolutely set on trying out this recipe and for some reason don’t have access to Google translate, please drop us a line and we’ll be happy to send it to you in English.

Enjoy!

INGREDIENTES Punk y cocina es sencillo de entender, solo habla de un consumo honesto, natural e inteligente donde no se perjudica al cuerpo y al medio ambiente, esto es evitando el consumo masivo y regresar a nuestras raíces, pero como somos cáncer y todo lo devoramos, no podemos existir sin solo consumir productos cultivados a no más de 4 kilómetros a la redonda. Es aquí donde se pierde el control de un ecosistema humano/animal y comenzamos como cuervos a invadir nuestros alrededores y comerlo todo.

Parks, un amigo graffitero de Califronia, me dijo una vez: “tienes que jugar el juego del dinero, porque si no estas en él, es game over”.

Recuerdo esos punks que en America fuera de los supermercados recolectaban comida de los contenedores como carnes, vegetales y de todo en general.

De eso vivían, teniendo una despensa extensa y gratis, pero que es vivir sin dinero y estar en esa revolución en contra del sistema y las grandes multinacionales? Que preferimos?

Vivir como los ejidatarios de Puerto Vallarta que caminan en la sierra y comen mangos gratis para siempre? Y suben a su lancha y pescan los mejores frutos del mar y comen como burgueses pero en mesa de madera enlamada?

Ser autosuficiente con tus propios huertos es buena opción, pero para los que nos gusta la carne, como hacemos para siempre tener una vaca en un departamento en medio de una ciudad capital y si queremos comer picaña toda la semana? No podemos entonces… gracias señores carniceros por comprarla en montón y matar en montón?

Aquí es donde entra el recuerdo y técnica de la buena cocina antigua, donde nos enseñan a aprovecharlo todo de un animal, fruta y vegetal, no es de moda un menú de temporada, es solo copiar y regresar a las bases... mermeladas? Pues si! Son conservas de una cosecha que si cuidas bien y lo sabes hacer podrás almacenar, comer y vender. Chorizo y salchichas? Pues si! No es solo comer un corte niche y desperdiciar lo demás, se usan las tripas y le metemos todos los pedazos que le podamos extirpar al animal con unos cuantos trucos de sabor, luego lo bañamos en su propia grasa.

Somos anarquistas de corazón, somos punks sin saberlo porque queremos filosofía moral donde todos cuidamos de nosotros mismos y eso es cuidar después unos de los otros. Seamos DIY culture sin usar esas siglas, solo sigamos el ritmo natural de consumir lo necesario, es por eso que con tanta demanda en tantos productos ahora es difícil encontrar una buena cerveza que no este inyectada de alcohol y no respete su proceso de fermentación, o un yogurt simplemente que ya no tienen lactobacillus bulgaricus, que es lo que lo caracteriza y de forma natural te restablezca la flora intestinal, ahora es solo leche amarga cuajada.

Sin entrar mas en el tema que nos llevaría a ponernos a llorar a todos de como estamos terminando con campos verdes que oxigenan el aire y en nuestras cabezas tenemos al ganado pastando y mares sin contaminación que intoxican y llenan de plomo todos los peces y luego los consumimos y no corre entre la sangre tanta mierda que generamos, cosechamos, digerimos, cagamos y vomitamos, les dejo esta hermosa receta de picaña glaseada en mermelada de cebolla y fresas.

Una picaña 250 gramos de fresas 250 gramos de cebolla 500 gramos de azúcar mascabado Sal y pimienta blanca Una cucharada de comino

MERMELADA

En una olla cocinar a fuego lento por 30 minutos las fresas en cubos, la cebolla picada, azúcar y la cucharada de comino. Dejar enfriar.

En un asador prender carbón, cuando la brasa ya este lista ponemos la pieza de picaña previamente salada y pimentada al gusto. Con una brocha de cocina cada 3 minutos barnizar con la mermelada hasta que caramelice deliciosamente y quede brillando como oro brasileño! Dejar la cocción al rededor de 35 minutos de cada lado si se busca un termino medio rojo.

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CONCEPTUAL ART

KHALED BARAKEH

Words by Nicole Schild Photos courtesy of Khaled Barakeh

Photo above: The Untitled Images (2014)

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Creativity as a medium for change

K

haled Barakeh sees his art practice as a tool for making a change, as he says, “on the ground”.

This is a perspective that has developed over the course of a career that bridges his formative years in Syria with his current life in Europe, where he relocated in 2008. Now based in Berlin, he works across a number of disciplines, which, in combination, can be described as site-specific conceptual art with a strong political bent.

His works speak of the connections and networks that exist between people and cultures, and, equally, of the lines that demarcate these as separate entities.

Born in a Damascus suburb in 1976, Barakeh grew up in Syria. During his school years, art class was essentially a free period with no teacher overseeing it. Still, Barakeh enjoyed Arabic calligraphy, which, he says, offered him his “first relationship to lines” before he had learned to draw or paint. Later, while undertaking compulsory service in the military, he would discover his talent for painting while carrying out his assigned task of repeatedly painting images of the president. “It wasn’t pleasurable, that’s for sure,” he recalls, conceding that the experience was nonetheless good for honing his technical skills.

This was followed up with art school in Damascus, where the curriculum was squarely focused on the classical techniques of artwork production, with no attention given to conceptuality. “I came from a very traditional

background in terms of painting and art in general,” says Barakeh. “In Syria, it was very commercially-based, with very few exceptions… there was nothing really innovative happening.”

One of two key points of influence in Barakeh’s life, alongside the advent of the Syrian revolution in 2011, was his relocation to Europe. “I went to Paris in 2003 the first time, and I was artistically and culturally shocked – not in terms of the society or the city, but in terms of the art world I found there,” he says. “I went to the Palais de Tokyo and got absolutely nothing from the exhibition.

I talked to the artist, I read the text... I didn’t understand.

I was completely confused. At that moment, I decided to come to Europe and continue my studies.”

Returning to Damascus, Barakeh ran a successful visual communications company for five years as a means of saving the money he needed for a European art education, first in Denmark and later in Germany. The influence of Europe’s free-thinking art scene then began to enter into his approach to artmaking, underpinning his technical prowess with creatively articulated political statements. “When I came to Europe, my work shifted with me, so I started observing and learning,” he says. “I really enjoyed the conceptual art because I felt I could practice whatever I want; I can embed whatever I want in my art.”

The Shake – Materialised Distance (2013)

“Coming from the part of the world that I do… naturally, politics existed in me. For example, I grew up in a village that’s partly occupied by Israel – a part I couldn’t and still cannot visit,” he says of his innate sense of the political. “You’re surrounded; it’s a hot zone area.” The interaction between this personal experience of the Middle Eastern geopolitical environment with the freedom of expression offered by the European art world was instrumental in generating Barakeh’s current practice – “The combination [of these two influences] is artivism… organically, it becomes one thing.”

Outcomes of the revolution in Syria meant that Barakeh was forced to extend his stay as a student in Europe, which eventually necessitated that he claim refugee status.

“I don’t like the use of this word [refugee] nowadays. All of a sudden, it becomes an identity in itself,” he says. “The word should count as a legal status, the same as ‘student’ or ‘tourist’. The only thing refugees all over the world have in common is their loss of home, and in most cases

a traumatic history. But people seem to think of refugees as one mass that thinks the same, acts the same, shows the same character traits and even the same knowledge.

That understanding is too straightforward and simply very false.”

Although some of his work is overtly informed by his homeland and his response to the conflict taking place there, Barakeh is clear that his identity is not limited to that associated with his nationality. His body of work is a testament to an attitude that perceives the contemporary world through a lens that emphasises interconnectedness, networks and parallel experiences.

For example, his multimedia work ‘Trans-migration’ (2012) saw a livestream of street graffiti in Copenhagen projected onto a gallery wall in Frankfurt, alongside the distribution of stencils reflecting a political slogan found in the graffiti and highlighted by the artist. The stencils circulated the globe to reach walls worldwide, including in Nigeria, Iraq and Egypt.

Transparencies (2013-ongoing)

His work is a testament to an attitude that perceives the contemporary world through a lens that emphasises interconnectedness, networks and parallel experiences.

In ‘The Shake – Materialised Distance’ (2013), he responded to an iconic public sculpture in Northern Ireland, which depicts two figures (representing the Catholic and the Protestant) reaching out to take each other’s hands. Barakeh produced a ceramic sculpture that models the negative space between the figures’ outstretched hands.

His latest project, Syria Culture Index (SCI), is perhaps his most literal expression of his recurring focus on the networks of connectivity that exist almost independently of geographic space. Still, in the early stages of development, the SCI will be an open online platform and mobile app designed to serve a number of functions, including providing a hub for Syrian cultural producers (including artists, designers, translators, editors, etc.) currently scattered across the world. It will also open an accessible and equitable point of contact between these producers and the creative opportunities worldwide, and provide mapping and statistical information.

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KHALED BARAKEH 49

Opposite page: Multimedia work Trans-migration (2012) This page: Portrait of the artist

“A part of what I’m doing now is resourcing funds from the art world in order to try to have more a direct impact on the social dynamics that my work is dealing with”

“The culture of artist and producer in Syria is dissolving, but it is kind of nice in a way because [that culture is] expanding to other places,” he says, referring to the ongoing dispersion of Syrians, including droves of creatives, into Europe and beyond. The SCI will provide a means for such displaced yet culturally and professionally connected individuals to become established as a community – in his words, a “parallel republic” that overlays standard geographic lines to unify people in ways that have little to do with where on the planet they are located. He sees this project not only as an effort to engineer a creative economy that supports the (now transnationally distributed) Syrian arts and cultural scene but also as an artwork in itself.

“A part of what I’m doing now is resourcing funds from the art world in order to try to have more a direct impact on the social dynamics that my work is dealing with,” says Barakeh of his current projects, including the SCI, for which he plans to acquire funding by 2017. He adds that conventional arts institutions have, over the past decade or so, become more open to receiving artworks that take the form of activism, and that he intends to continue working on projects within their structures. That said, it is clear that pandering to the institutions of the artworld is not the raison d’être behind Barakeh’s work. “I think art is not really the medium of change,” he notes.

“Creative acts are.” ∆

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PHOTOGRAPHY

and the third culture kids Interview by Charlotte Kench Photography by Atong Atem

As far as I’m concerned, it’s Atong’s world and we’re all just living in it. This powerhouse is the creative force behind the striking and internationally celebrated photographic portraits that grace these pages. As a South Sudanese artist in Australia, where even the most insidious strands of structural racism still linger throughout our institutions and extend to our recent history, Atong approaches her art and photography as a means of reclamation, representation and carving out a space for herself in a world that does not necessarily cater for her.

To revise the opening statement: what follows here is (the tip of the iceberg of) Atong’s world and we’ve been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it for you.

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Maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made it when a big internationally recognised art institution is genuinely ethical.

First of all, do you ever stop? Or sleep? How is it that you are constantly creating incredible images for the mere mortals whom worship at the altar of atongatem.com?

I only realised that I’ve been super busy just recently when I had to start saying no to things that were clashing. I’ve never been very good at saying no (even when I want to) so it’s been pretty wild to be forced to. I work a lot from home or my studio so I’m grateful that I can be relatively comfortable and pick my hours but it also means that I’m almost always working, whether it’s responding to emails, organising a meeting, editing content for others, putting together a talk; there’s always *something* to do. I’m not the most organised person though, so perhaps if I used a daily planner I’d be able to plan some “do nothing” days!

Where has your work taken you this year?

I’ve had a really great year with my work this year and last year. I’ve exhibited in New York at Redhook Labs and with them in Amsterdam for Unseen Amsterdam as well. I went to New Caledonia with my Mama too as an award from the Sydney Alliance de Francaise. I’m also really grateful to have been part of a group show, Ua numi le fau by my good friend Leuli Eshraghi at Gertrude Contemporary because it’s really exciting for me to work with curators who are working to reform the racism, sexism and colonial mentality inherent in a lot of the art world. I’ve done a lot in the last couple of years and have a lot more coming up but my relationships with Leuli and Redhook Labs has really opened up a lot of opportunities for me.

So, you’re what they call an “emerging” artist. What does that feel like?

I’ve been casually making art and chilling for most of my life so it feels nice to have people and organisations I deeply respect peeping me. I guess it doesn’t feel like

much to be an emerging artist because that’s what I’ve been for at least six years. That being said, it’s definitely a constant state of “THIS IS EXCITING” and “THIS IS TERRIFYING” simultaneously. Most of the excitement comes from the vastness of potential and the fear comes from the expectations. Being expected to have some kind of tangible upward trajectory that makes people watching me feel comfortable. I haven’t made new work in so long because I’m always so busy, but there’s an expectation that emerging artists should be eager to please and constantly doing and making and getting better, more profound and moving forward while I honestly want to look back at things I’ve done and meditate on them. The pressure to be new and innovative is maybe the most terrifying part of making art in the public sphere. I don’t want my fear of it to dictate what I make but I also don’t want to necessarily do things any particular way.

Imagine a moment that you know you have ‘made it’ as an artist – what would that be for you?

That’s a great question! I honestly haven’t thought about it.

I do remember as a kid thinking of being in this gallery or going to this uni or whatever. But after so many years of being kicked in the gut by the art world and the world at large, my priorities have definitely moved inwards a lot.

I think I’ll feel like I’ve made it when I’m able to not be poor because of my art or when I don’t have to compromise in such big ways, or when I just feel really good about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I mean, being in one of the big art institutions I admire would be incredible and I’d probably make a huge Facebook post about it but I also don’t want to support institutions that want to tokenise me and benefit from my oppression. Maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made it when a big internationally recognised institution is genuinely ethical.

PHOTOGRAPHY / ATONG ATEM 57

I’m motivated by reclamation but also celebration.

We are beautiful people with beautiful cultures and I want to show that off.

How would you describe yourself as a person in this world?

I am a South Sudanese woman who writes and makes art that is beautiful and personal to her.

What does it mean to be “full of yourself ” in a country that isn’t – as you’ve said in previous interviews – ‘here for you’?

I live in a world that isn’t here for me and that functions in a way that should lead to my demise! I’m physically, spiritually and psychologically sick in this world and that’s the desired effect of the systems of oppression that govern our world.

For me to make and talk about my specific experiences, especially publically, is an act of resistance. I come from a family who fought for years in resistance, and it’d be a shame for me to dismiss that and give up. For me, being full of myself means consciously deciding to resist and deciding to flourish in whatever ways I can. It doesn’t mean that I’m emotionally or psychologically strong every day, but that I try and don’t blame myself when I fail.

Some of the images that grace these pages are from your Third Culture Kids series. What is a Third Culture Kid? A third culture kid is someone who has grown up outside of their parents’ or their own culture and straddles the line between the culture that they’re from and the culture they’re currently in.

What has this series given you, on a personal level? Is this part of the space you are carving out for yourself and other young black Africans living in Australia?

Absolutely! It’s given me an outlet for a lot of the thoughts and feelings I have and it’s allowed me to connect with

people who have similar experiences in order to not feel so alone.

Will your mum be joining you in the studio as a subject of your photography?

I’ve been planning on photographing my family forever.

Initially I wanted to just use my parents and siblings for the studio series but there’s such an attachment and sensitivity there for me that I think it’s going to take me a while. I have such an admiration for my Mama and want to do her justice. I’ve tried to paint her portrait so many times but I think I’m not there yet…

Is there an element of reclaiming (of space, of practice or identity?) in your work? Especially with photography, which has historically been unbalanced ground for its black subjects?

The reason I’ve become so attached to photographing black folks, especially African folks, is because it’s about reclamation. Not only is the medium inherently “not for us”, also knowing the history of ethnographic photography in Africa and across the colonised world is motivation for me to take my claim to this medium that’s been used against us for so long. I’m motivated by reclamation but also celebration. We are beautiful people with beautiful cultures and I want to show that off.

What are you looking forward to in 2017?

I’m looking forward to more sleep, writing more and travelling! I’m looking forward to some really great upcoming projects and collaborations with friends who I admire and hopefully, I’m also looking forward to taking it easy. ∆

DOCUMENTARY FILM

HOW TO let go of

SAVE THE WORLD A novel approach to the climate change doc Words by Sidney King Photos by Deia Schlosberg

The title of Josh Fox’s latest documentary on climate change is long enough to qualify for a Sufjan Steven’s album – not to mention the filmmaker’s love of banjo playing.

How To Let Go Of The World And Love All The Things Climate Can’t Change is not your runof-the-mill climate change documentary - it’s a unique and welcome take on a critical world issue and on the sub-genre itself. We were fortunate enough to ask the writer and director about his latest endeavour and the success of his academy award nominated film Gasland (2010).

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60 DOCUMENTARY FILM / JOSH FOX

It’s 2017 and we’re still waiting on Captain Planet. He’s the Godot of our generation – the highly anticipated character in Samuel Beckett’s play who is notorious for having never showed up. With twenty years in theatre, Josh Fox understands all too well the Godot-esque existentialism that has arisen from the overwhelming challenge of climate change and the underwhelming response from world leaders to counter it.

However, in his latest documentary, Fox isn’t talking to us from a dystopian future – i.e. the “we’re all doomed” approach – nor with the hopeful catchcries that we have grown accustomed to – à la “If we all just recycle, go vegan and ride our bikes everywhere, we can save the world!” No, Fox occupies that uneasy place between

While he admits that this opening is “very odd for a climate film”, Fox is celebrating the New York state government’s decision to ban fracking in the upper Delaware basin – Fox’s homeland and the impetus behind Gasland. The outcome of this ban owes a lot to the success of Gasland – both the film and its accompanying campaign – in mobilising people to start an anti-fracking movement in America. Fox attributes the impact of the film to the fact that “we didn’t just rest on our laurels and put the movie on TV and say ‘That’s good, goodbye, we’re going home now’. No. It was a campaign from the beginning. We made sure we were on the frontline and giving the information to where it was needed most”. The film was toured

Josh Fox filming Gasland

resignation and conviction – one that has yet to be fully fleshed out by other climate change documentaries.

Ironically, it is Fox’s proximity to defeat that makes the film so refreshing. After a reel of environmental experts unveil their distressing verdicts on the “major overhaul of every human system: politics, food, energy, transportation, media – and all in the next three to four years”, Fox confesses, “I don’t know about you but I’m about ready to watch a few cat videos right now”. Too right, Mr Fox. Too right.

Nevertheless, How To Let Go begins with a victory dance. Fox twirls around to The Beatles’ “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da/Life Goes On, bra!” in the opening credits.

relentlessly across the state of New York and the public awareness campaign began to produce tangible results.

After the film, the record for public comments on the government’s environmental impact studies – 1,000 comments for the whole state - was continually smashed in every stage of the scoping process. From 10,000 to 78,000 and then a whopping 204,000 comments, it took the Environmental Department of Protection several years to respond to the growing number of comments in each round of their investigation. This gave the anti-fracking movement time to grow, and as Fox says “the time that we bought commenting on the process allowed science to really study the issue”.

Fox occupies that uneasy place between resignation and conviction – one that has yet to be fully fleshed out by other climate change documentaries.

Josh Fox filming How to Let Go

Josh Fox filming Gasland

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Whilst little scientific evidence existed to support the film’s claims in 2008, by 2014 there were roughly 500 peer-reviewed studies on the negative impacts of fracking – some of which were conducted by leading American universities. When it came time for the state to make a decision, they had both an unprecedented amount of citizen participation and a wealth of science to back it up. The Delaware basin was safe – for a while.

Fox found the momentum for How To Let Go – the third part of the Gasland series – after he realised that although his home in Delaware was no longer under threat of fracking, the trees were dying as a result of a pest that was spreading due to rising temperatures.

This incited an even greater endeavour, taking him across six continents in which the consequences of climate change and the fossil fuel industry were forcing local communities to take action. From the severity

of Hurricane Sandy to melting Icelandic glaciers, the rising sea levels threatening island nations like Samoa and Vanuatu to the cities in China where no one dares to open their windows – Fox navigates each new context with one question in mind. If it’s too late to stop it now, “what are the things that climate can’t change?” It is this approach that drives his travels and shapes our reception of the people he meets. Yes, this is happening, yes they are fighting and no – they didn’t stop dancing, singing and laughing at life.

There are two quotes from the film that help summarise Fox’s unique approach to the world’s climate crisis.

Ones that might even help us to peer our heads out from under the intoxicating escapism of cat videos.

Environmental Analyst Lester Brown reminds us that, “as environmentalists, we’ve been talking for decades now about saving the planet, but as I think about it,

The planet’s probably going to be around for some time, what’s at stake now is civilisation itself.

Opposite page and above: Filming How to Let Go Right: Josh Fox speaking at a climate change rally

the planet’s probably going to be around for some time, what’s at stake now is civilisation itself ”. Putting it into perspective, we’re just the final minute of the final hour on Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmic Calendar’ of Earth’s history.

Although we could crumble under the weight of the world, Mika Maiava, Pacific Climate Change Warrior, explains why he and his community won’t succumb to existential stasis: “We don’t feel depressed because we know we can do something about it!” So, we can wait idly for Godot to appear or, like in the final quarter of a game you know your team is going to lose, you can still give it your all. Either way, as Mika says, “you’re not doing yourself a favour” by just sitting there! ∆

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THEATRE

Words by Janielle Williams Photos by Russell Smith Photography Jansen / Russell Smith Photography Neels Kleynhans / NK Photo

Alfredo Brillembourg and Rebecca Looringh-van Beeck of Urban-Think Tank took a break from last-minute preparations for the play Holy Contract to talk about the interdisciplinary design practice’s recent collaboration with Theatre4Change.

Since 1998, Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) has conducted research and pursued concrete design projects addressing a wide range of subjects wherever they are concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism, in sites spanning from Venezuela to Brazil, Bosnia & Herzegovina and India.

Founded by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner in Caracas, Venezuela, one of U-TT’s most notable initial projects was a cable car system that facilitated travel between the barrio San Agustín and central Caracas. Before then, the city’s mountains and highways formed a physical border between the informal settlement and the wealthier city centre, where there was greater access to employment, day-care, supermarkets, libraries, hospitals and other essential services.

Since then, U-TT has sought to recognise and resolve a universal phenomenon: the divisive power that economic imbalance has in shaping societies and infrastructures. For the last three years, the practice has been working in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town, South Africa, on the ‘Empower Shack’ housing project.

Engaging deeply with the local community, part of the team has more recently been collaborating with non-profit group Theatre4Change to bring us an experimental theatre production inspired by the late American singer Gil-Scott Heron.

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“There can be no salvation, there can be no rest until all old customs are put to the test.�

HOLY CONTRACT 69

Holy Contract manifested in a short time span. According to U-TT researcher Rebecca Looringh-van Beeck, “if we had more time, we might have overthought things”. The production was conceived and led by Brillembourg, who wrote the initial script after taking to the stage to read a biography of Gil Scott-Heron. The singer and spokenword poet most known for The Revolution Will Not Be Televised also drew parallels in his work between the social and political issues in his hometown of Chicago and those faced in apartheid-era Johannesburg.

Old customs In A Sign of the Ages Gil Scott-Heron sings “There can be no salvation, there can be no rest until all old customs are put to the test.” If we consider socio-economic and racial division as out-dated customs that self-perpetuate from the construction of our cities, it is possible to see the ways in which urban design dictates social norms. In turn, these norms fortify the invisible architecture of society and the structures that separate the haves from have-nots.

A deliberate example of this architectural separateness is evident in apartheid-era South Africa; wherein the government established townships with the intention to separate and subjugate Black South Africans. Between 1948 and 1994, Black South Africans were physically

and economically segregated to the outskirts of a whiteonly city centre. Despite the passage of more than two decades since the fall of apartheid, South African cities are ostensibly structured in this way.

What makes South Africa a unique case study, according to Looringh-van Beeck, who grew up in Cape Town, is the lasting visibility of this legacy. In this way, postapartheid South Africa demonstrates the role of architects as “important humanist actors”, affirms Brillembourg.

This is especially evident as it is not unusual for a white South African to have never stepped foot in a township. Highways and rivers have forged a threetiered marginalisation – geographical, class, and racial.

In Cape Town, for example, the Central Business District (CBD) is the core, home to businesses, theatres, cafes and restaurants, nightlife, shops, malls, museums, and hotels.

Khayelitsa, a township of Cape Town, on the other hand, is an example of the housing shortage in South Africa that has driven millions to impromptu housing – namely shacks – situated in informal settlements.

Many have migrated here from the Eastern Cape in search of better economic conditions. However, Khayelitsa lacks the same investment in culture that the CBD has and initiatives that aim to increase access to the arts and cultural events are not well supported by officials. For example, the Makukhanye Art Room is an art and cultural centre that has been operating there since 2006, long before it housed Holy Contract’s development; yet despite receiving a degree of support the ‘shack theatre’ was never officially endorsed by the organizing committee of the Cape Town Fringe festival, under the auspices of which the production debuted.

Not unlike township housing, Holy Contract evolved in an equally improvised way. The play was based on the original text composed by Alfredo Brillembourg and based on reworked lyrics by Gil Scott Heron. Brillembourg’s initial concepts and main characters were workshopped with the local cast, led by actor and writer Mandisi Sindo, the director of Theatre4Change (Brillembourg and Sindo co-directed the production). The final text was then developed by Alfred, Rebecca, Mandisi, Amy and the actors. The stage was pieced together with recycled materials. Collectively they have formed a world created from nothing.

Above: Lino print used in the Holy Contract poster by Amy Rusch & Katharien de Villiers

The context of the play is informed by the urban challenges that South Africa faces today, as well as questions of social justice and identity politics. Therefore the actors of Holy Contract, community members of Khayelitsha, had to grapple with the truths of their personal lives in order to bring materiality to their roles.

The experience showed the team that it is possible, as Looringh-van Beeck says, to “create spaces with stories, sounds and voices and not just with doors and walls�.

It is in this way that Theatre4Change is making theatre more accessible to people from all walks of life whilst giving actors in Khayelitsa the opportunity to empower themselves through art.

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HOLY CONTRACT 73

74 THEATRE

No world of your own Although it is home to second, third and even fourth generation migrants, Khayelitsa means ‘new home’ in the local language, Xhosa. Even this name was imposed upon the population, however, by the apartheid planners who forcibly moved people to the township in the mid-1980s as an attempt to deal with overcrowding and growing resistance.

The dialogue in Holy Contract alternates between Xhosa and English, so it is fitting then that the protagonist, Khaya, whose name means ‘home’, is trying to find his. Home is both literal and figurative; the audience is never told if Khaya is trying to reach his house, heaven or some other metaphysical place. One of the characters repeats the line, “They said he’s dead, but he can’t be buried.” It suggests that even in death, or whichever existential state where Khaya

Theatre4Change is making theatre more accessible to people from all walks of life whilst giving actors in Khayelitsa the opportunity to empower themselves through art.

stands, he has no place to find solace.

Khaya’s social and economic plight mirrors that which is faced by communities of South Africa’s townships. The play is marked by three events in which Khaya encounters an ethical or existential quandary, and is presented with a choice. These choices are part of a ‘holy’ contract, as they are made with the divine, hence the name of the play.

Khaya moves from one choice to the next, but all the while, the seemingly inescapable force of fate dances around his decisions. Despite the repeated presentation of a conflict that results in some sort of resolution, the circular narrative suggests that ultimately the journey and story may start over again, and that the same dilemmas may resurface.

HOLY CONTRACT 75

The questions can’t be answered Holy Contract leaves several questions for reflection.

Is Khaya deceased or simply in an altered state? Is he bargaining to enter heaven or is he making peace with himself? Are the people he converses with real, the ghosts of ancestors, spirits, or even representations of different parts of his own conscience? Could Khaya even be a portrayal of Gil Scott-Heron? A host of interpretations are plausible. The open-endedness of the story was a deliberate decision. A work with universal themes and fluid interpretation gives the observer the flexibility to amend it to his or her own life and society. “We want audiences to leave thinking and questioning their own situation,” said Looringhvan Beeck, and that theatre is an “incredible platform” for reflecting on such questions.

Holy Contract is a play of hope, of facing and overcoming the issues that haunt the township.

Sophitshi, whose holds a central role in the play as the narrator, apparently said that he couldn’t have taken part in a project that didn’t instill hope and promote healing.

Holy Contract debuted during the Cape Town Fringe Festival (October 2016), the first two performances at the Makukhanye Art Room and additional shows at the Guga S’Thebe Arts Centre in Langa, as well as at the City Hall in the CBD. Now, U-TT and Theatre4Change hope to raise funds for the reconstruction of Makukhanye and taking Holy Contract to Europe in the summer of 2017. ∆

Holy Contract Producer-Director Alfredo Brillembourg (U-TT) Co-director Mandisi Sindo (Theatre4Change) Assistant Director & Project Manager Rebecca Looringh-van Beeck (U-TT)

PHOTOGRAPHY

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GIRLS Words by Roxanne Goldberg Photography by Luo Yang Courtesy of MO-Industries.com

A young Chinese woman looks solemnly at the viewer, her chin cupped between scarred hands. Five years prior, the then sixteen-year-old Zhou Yan was doused with gasoline and set ablaze. Despite the vermillion blisters that line her arms, face, legs, and chest, Zhou does not appear a victim in the portraits taken by Lou Yang. She is serene, yet striking, sensitive, yet strong.

Luo’s particular talent for capturing the complexity of an individual’s inner world is what makes the 32-yearold one of the most compelling photographers of her generation. Based in Beijing and Shanghai, Luo is most well-known for her ongoing portrait series GIRLS, parts of which have been exhibited extensively throughout China and Europe.

GIRLS has been lauded for its ability to submerge viewers into the depths of Chinese subculture. But what makes Luo’s photographs stand out from the recent wave of photography attempting to defy long-believed and largely erroneous Western conceptions of Chinese women as submissive and traditional, is Luo’s eschewal of voyeurism in favor of empathetic camaraderie.

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Viewers, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, identify with Jin Jing (2015), arms above her head in naked abandonment; Jo (2009), legs splayed and raised as she eats watermelon in a crowded bed; Gao Zhe (2009), lying on her back with a cigarette burning in between her fingers, an ashtray balanced on her stomach, and a lover at her side.

We see women nude and sometimes tattooed, bruised and never airbrushed. As Dr. Eva Morawietz, CEO and founder of MO-Industries, writes in the GIRLS catalogue, “GIRLS are bad-assed and self-aware, yet insecure, vulnerable and torn, with a supreme sense of cool.�

Luo explains that to achieve the delicate balance between tenacious and tender, she spends significant time talking with her subjects before the camera comes between photographer and subject.

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“We build up trust and get to know each other. I think that’s why [the women] are relaxed and natural when we start shooting,” explains Luo. “It’s then when I get the images I’d like to achieve; when the girls feel brave and fearless.”

Luo’s process is a psychological one. Before she begins shooting, it is important she and the model connect on an emotional level. Luo works to maintain a relaxed, often humorous environment conducive to a safe and honest unveiling of a woman’s most masked attributes. Whether the location is public, as in an abandoned highway where Pi Pi (2015) stands in transparent panties, or private, as in the affectionately messy domestic setting for Da Fei with her boyfriend (2008), Luo promotes a confident, fearless zone where she and her model can play and connect, nearly forgetting their purpose of taking a photograph. In conversation about her shoot with Zhou, Luo described their shoot as “relaxed and even naughty and funny.”

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Luo says the sensation when a shoot is over is one of “release” and “encouragement.” Luo, who plans to one day open a Chinese-based organization to help women under physical and emotional pressure, says she benefits psychologically and emotionally from the shoots as much as her subjects do.

The mutual exchange between photographer and subject, which Luo describes as a “natural flow of energy,” is perhaps best encapsulated in Luo’s belief that each image contains her shadow – her emotions and confusions.

To view Luo’s photographs is to enter the inner worlds of these women – realms that cannot be succinctly sealed with a bow, but are rather wrought with the anxieties and tensions of modern life. Luo does not express the uneasiness inherent in the 21st century with speed. Instead, she uses film cameras in order to deliberately slow-down and develop a candid, snapshot quality to the images that are in fact, highly staged.

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The poses in some photographs are more obvious than in others. Ro Ro (2014), for example, shows a nude woman slumped over and staring into the camera, her head resting on a table as the morning sun fills the otherwise somber room with light. The stillness of Ro Ro is in stark contrast to Sabus (2013), in which a woman is holding a red-tipped microphone whilst straddling a singing lover who is strumming a guitar.

What unites these images is not only their raw albeit contrasting sentiment, but also their tactility. Luo is adept at wielding the wide array of textures film offers, in addition to light and form, to manipulate the unique psychological framework of a single image.

It is this expertise that makes each of Luo’s photographs unnervingly convincing.

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Portrait of the artist

Luo’s photographs have a certain rebel quality that has become a signature feature of the Contemporary Chinese photography movement. Among Luo’s peers are Lin Zhipeng and Ren Hang, who, like Luo, mainly photograph unapologetic nude women who are daring and assertive. But Luo, Lin, and Ren do not make political statements. They instead use the body to assert their individuality, effectively extracting the cultural and historical concerns of the previous generation into a more intimate and personal realm. In this way, the portrait of Zhou is not intended to be a statement about the socio-political events that led to her being attacked. The photograph is instead an intimate portrait of a woman – her emotional landscape as conveyed through her eyes, her gestures – and a trace of a keen photographer, sensitive to the unique complexities that compose this particular individual. ∆

RADIO

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Interview by Charlotte Kench Photos courtesy of Refugee Radio Network

REFUGEE RADIO

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Integration means both of us, we integrate; I learn you and you learn me.

Just a few days before Christmas in 2014, Larry, Asuqou, So, Sammy and Ab Yally Yally produced the first ever episode of the Refugee Radio Network in Hamburg.

Having been so disillusioned by the lack of accurate information in the German media concerning the refugee crisis, the team was thrilled that people from all walks of life called in to contribute their voice and start some much-needed discussion.

Founder and Editor in Chief Larry Macaulay took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the importance of alternative media, self-representation and art-based cultural integration.

What motivated you to create Germany’s first Refugee Radio Network?

We created RRN in 2014 as a necessity. When engaging with the local German community we found out that they didn’t know much and they had the wrong information fed to them. So we started teaching them and passing this information out – about refugee deaths in the Mediterranean and the war in Libya – in order to fight the mainstream media’s negative narrative about refugees. It’s always “They are dangerous people, they are terrorists...”

That’s what motivated us to create the first refugee radio in Germany. Radio is one of the most accessible ways to reach fellow refugees, especially for those who don’t have access to social media.

I was a radio presenter for a music show when I was in college and I was also a radio activist during the pro-democratic movement in the 90s in Nigeria.

Then I came here, I saw the vacuum and I said, “How can we reach people who aren’t coming to the protest grounds?” It was tough in the beginning but a lot of mainstream media has picked up – from the internet and TV to print media and radio. We are not competing with the [mainstream media], we are here to represent ourselves and not to allow others to talk for us. We are the ones on the streets, at the carnivals, in the refugee camps and at the protest grounds. We’ve been to most of the biggest refugee conferences in Germany over the past eight months

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but before we got to that level we had to fight our way in. We had to engage them and ask them, “Why are you having discussions about refugees when there are no refugees represented here? Why is that?” Few people supported it but everyone is jumping on the bandwagon now. Now we are talking to mainstream media everyday.

How important is for refugees in a new country to have a daily connection to their own culture, language, music and news?

It’s very important. This is our own definition of integration. Integration means both of us, we integrate; I learn you and you learn me. Today we have seven different languages including African voices, Somali voices and Oriental karaoke from

Why are you having discussions about refugees when there are no refugees represented here?

Syria. We cover politics and sports from different nationalities and ethnicities and we also have a women’s program and a kid’s program. This is how we continue to include people from different ethnic backgrounds in our network. We are doing a lot of things in the artistic field, such as our live talk show and we also use cooking, music concerts, theatre and reading to bring people together and share cultural experiences. We do all of this to try to change the mindset of the people and we are really achieving a lot here in Hamburg. We use it as an example for the whole country – to show them that we are here, we are not bad people and we can make things happen.

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Speaking of which, in your first Refugee Voices show it appears that you like to ask pretty blunt questions. For example, when you asked one of the panel members point-blank, “Are you afraid of me?” Is this part of your approach to breaking down the barriers of misinformation and misrepresentation and open up some uncomfortable but necessary dialogue?

Yes, actually that’s my approach, because experience is our best teacher in my opinion. Why not ask, “Why are you uncomfortable with me? Why are you afraid of me?” There is of course this idea that “They are dangerous people.” Well, there are dangerous people everywhere, you can’t just pinpoint dangerous people to one ethnic group. It’s a long struggle, it’s difficult, especially now with the increase in the right wing extremism and xenophobia of fear and terrorism. Of course there are bad people amongst us. The world is made up of the good, the bad and the ugly. We know that if there is a bad or dangerous person, we have to work as a community to fish them out. I think RRN is the only media that campaigns for this and encourages refugees and the migrant community to try and find a solution if they notice some bad people among us.

What is some of the most significant feedback that you have received so far – from the German community and from other refugees?

We were invited by President Joachim Gauck to attend a festival at the Presidential Palace. But the most significant feedback for me is actually the refugees. We receive invitations all the time from people around the country who want us to come and help them set up their own refugee radio. We are sharing programs together on our network and that is how we continue to engage with each other. ∆

STREET ART

NEVER CREW Interview by Teresa Schmidt-Meinecke Photos courtesy of NEVERCREW

For the last two decades, Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni, aka NEVERCREW, have been exploring issues of the human condition, the relationship between man and nature, and economic and social systems.

Over years of artistic research and each developing their individual and collective styles, their work often engages with the liaison between dreams and reality, facts and fiction. The two self-described humanists have been using public space as the platform for their colourful and determined messages, inviting us to see the world from new perspectives.

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If there would be one thing in the world that you could change instantly, what would it be?

It’s hard for us to answer this question without bumping into simplistic good intentions… of course having the socalled “magic wand” there would be many things that we would like to change. For example, the redistribution of wealth, the rights of minorities and society’s reliance on profit and the exploitation of natural resources. It would also be nice if the word “stranger” could only have a positive meaning. Changing these things instantly would be fascinating and ideally, beautiful, but perhaps not as useful as if they were to come about gradually and with a shared consciousness.

Why is art your weapon of choice to raise awareness?

Even before we met, we have always been interested in movements, organizations and people who have fought or expressed themselves for the rights of minorities and for social equality and human rights in general. To be able to channel certain concepts through our work, however, is something that came with time and it’s always in progress. We’ve gone for artistic expression as a means of communication quite spontaneously, for the pleasure of creating, building and, in fact, communicating. Insisting on our path and choosing to work primarily in public spaces, amongst the people, we have gradually developed a vision about discussion and exchange. With the passing of time

We often use the image of the whale to insist on the relationship between man and nature.

In other situations, the whale allows us to add a more specific reflection or an empathic connection.

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and the accumulating of projects and experience, this comparison has therefore become even more direct and tangible, allowing us to work on a consistent discussion focused right on the comparison itself and then on the relationship between mankind and system. From here, we managed more and more to express the ideals and content we care about, trying to stay aware of the relationship between us, our work and those who perceive it. Art has, in general, a chance to get out of the lines of institutional languages, both verbal and visual, touching emotions, stimulating ideas in a way that’s at the same time instinctive and thoughtful, to propose alternative views to the ones that are habitual and strictly bound by the system.

Do you sincerely believe in change?

We think that things change by themselves and are in constant flux. We live in structures that seem immutable, but in the brief history of mankind are changed or terminated over a short amount of time.

It’s true that it’s difficult to create big changes from nothing, but sometimes even small circumstances can change the path and trigger new ones. So yes, we personally believe in the possibility that people and systems can change. We realize that it is a seemingly simplistic idea and one that is difficult to apply.

Mankind gives the impression that it does not learn from what happens in the past and puts greater value on making things profitable, creating a tangle that is extremely difficult to resolve. It turns out to be a vicious circle; people create a system that in turn influences people themselves, and so ad infinitum.

A seemingly unstoppable monster – however, as with every human phenomenon, it has an inevitable end. So it always concerns changing, and especially mankind; like many small parts of a larger mechanism, parts in relation to each other that are mutually dependent.

So, as there have been and there are people with different values from those of the system, it’s possible that the components change till the time when even the mechanism will work in a different way. In this sense, we are interested in the idea of “concrete utopia” by the artist Joseph Beuys, where the utopia itself reveals the path and the right choices that lead in its direction.

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Images of whales often appear in your art – why is that?

As mentioned, our work is based on the comparison, on the relationships between the components that comprise a system. To further this concept, we have been working on a kind of code over the years. It’s a code that we use and gradually develop; based on the archive of components we have built over time. Various mechanical and natural elements are part of this archive. Among the latter, the cetaceans are animals that allow us to create a much broader discourse with and on the power of their image. The whale is an animal that is easily recognizable, although it’s not easy to be able to have a real and close-up experience with one.

That’s why we believe it can give us the opportunity to build a communication that is direct, yet absolute. We often use the image of the whale to insist on the relationship between man and nature. In other situations, the whale allows us to

add a more specific reflection or an empathic connection.

For many years, for example, the whale has enabled mankind to “turn on the light.” Historically, whales have been killed for the purpose of obtaining oil from their blubber that could be burned to produce light. Even today, the adverse effects of the relationship between cetaceans and mankind persist. In addition to hunting in some areas of the world, pollution, exploitation of resources and climate change continue to have significantly harmful impacts on their health and habits. Therefore, we are interested in the visual value that the whale possesses as an environmentalist icon. It’s a direct message, but allows us to extend that reflection in whatever direction interests us.

It encourages us to think about the system of which we are all – consciously or not – an active part.

In order to experience different places and local realities, we are finding ourselves more easily immersed in the contrasts and the different ways of living on the streets, of sociability and the ways in which politics affect the population.

What was the mural or painting experience that marked you the most?

Each mural we make is a very intense experience for us and often involves living in a new place for a few days, immersing ourselves in environments and cultures different from our own and in which we have to quickly find a work/life routine. In terms of our artistic path, the physical and geographical path then becomes a single line for us. Each step is related to the previous one, despite the distance and difference between the contexts in which we create. Every detail is important, for better or for worse. In order to experience different places and local realities, we are finding ourselves more easily immersed in the contrasts and the different ways of living on the streets, of sociability and the ways in which politics affect the population. We consider our recent trips to New Delhi, Manchester, Cairo and Vancouver among some of the most impressive in our travels. ∆

POETRY

RECENTLY Poem by Quichotte Photo by Fabian Stürtz

Recently, the times have changed that is what people say they must be right, because we used to dance our fears away We used to play, we used to dream we also used to twerk it was for good – it made us laugh and always seemed to work Recently, the times have changed with banners in their hands extremists are marching up claiming back their lands Some believe in good old days when we used to say: Everything will be alright, just dance your fears away!

Only it is not enough just to let it go since the winds are blowing rough darker gets the snow Storms are coming up right now full of force and hate frightening our house of peace knocking on its gate If you asked me what to do I’d say: take the chance, fight these frightful tendencies!

But don’t forget to dance.

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I have tried in my way to be free.

Leonard Cohen

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