The Outsider Magazine by The Outsider PE

outsider the

youth issue

content

Editor Note

Creative profiles

Childs Play

Black girls cry

Out to me relates to being not in a boundary. Out also, to me, relates to being exposed. Out may also relate to everyone knowing and seeing what something really is. The response may be harsh, it may be rejection and those may bet the reasons why you are out. This initiative came from a place of fear and from a place of deep searching. This is from me but not for me but for my brothers, brothers who never made it out alive, brothers who weep on the inside but cannot show it, brothers who are out because of the truth on the tip of their tongues because their souls are aching on the inside. This is for my sisters who walk with their heads held high, whose long warm embrace comforts the weak. This is for everyone who sing the outsider song in whispers because if you listen you will hear them because I see them everyday but no foundation of a sanctuary has been laid yet. This is for us, for the youth that has no boundaries. For the youth that is slowly singing the ancient song of identity. For the youth whose voice sounds like a march of troops. For the underdogs who are ignored and not heard, for the visionaries who triumph in hate and come out victorious in love. For the youth whose strength, identity and determination is making waves. The push will be the truth. Welcome to

the

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art

JENADE AUGUSTINE photographer KHANGELANI KOTA photographer OKUHLE graphic designer

ESETHU ponGo fine

artist

photographer

MARGO LESSING

graphic lo o designer SIYABONGA NDLEBE 3

art

graphic designer

THEMBELIHLE BUTHELEZI

DYoSOPU

Second year Graphic Design student from Port Elizabeth. 20-something years old.

Siyabonga Ndlebe identifies himself as a creative. He is also an illustrator who illustrates his icons, his life experiences and also his dreams in life. His interest in art have always been evident in his life. With him singing when he was young and being in the school choir. He has always been drawing, whether it was in textbooks or in old calendars. He even used to draw for classmates in high school but quit when school kids began to bully him and call him names like sissy because of his ability to draw. Music was always his anchor. He has studied Marketing and graduated for it and it was in his third year of marketing when the art spark ignited again. There was also advertising in his third year modules and a girl named Natasha who was in his class inspired him to pick up the pencil and draw again as she was creative and was what he could easily identify as an artist. That was the time when people like Helen Green began to surface, Helen is Lady Gaga personal illustrator and Gaga is one of Siyabonga’s muses. When asked about that he said, “I have been tumbling through life and asleep most of the time. That was the time that I woke up.” He says that was when his soul, soul he thought was dead, woke up and was never asleep again.

The work which will be featured on The Outsider is a digital self-portrait. In the self-portrait he had to show who he is and also thing that affect him. He says that Thembelihle Buthelezi who is also a second year graphic design student, took a photograph of him in the studio and then he illustrated that photograph. In the project Siyabonga wanted to show a part of him that was filled with pain, a fragile part of himself which has made him rejected most of the time in his life. He confesses that he was blank when he started but singers like Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga inspired him to be brave enough to show who he is. In the portrait he is in a pose that says ‘This is me.’ Behind him are two flamingos and a black upside down triangle and the background is pink. There is also a barcode at the bottom right of the illustration on his t-shirt. Now the question was why he added those in the illustration when showing who he is. He simply answered, “I used the black upside down triangle behind me. Its symbolism goes back to the Nazi times in Germany and was used in the concentration camps and was used to brand people who were mentally ill, people who were weak.

Margo Lessing. 19 years old from Blue Water Bay, Port Elizabeth. Second year photography student.

Margo Lessing started showing interest in art when she was in grade 10 and it was not hard to convince her parents that she wants to pursue an art career. Reason for that is because her family is very art oriented and art runs through her family from cousins, grandfathers and throughout the whole family. She has had their support from day one. When asked how is that reflected in her work, she simply answered “My art is very dark – I don’t know why. I don’t see myself as a dark person, but I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from my family who’ve moved towards the dark side of art, like the dark side of our society and stuff like that.” Many people do not like dark subject matters, let alone dark art, Margo confessed that she does feel like an outsider in that space because people like pretty things and they do not want to see dark things. Margo does not sugar coat things, she shows it like it and that proves how people do not want nor like honesty. In terms of the work that was chosen to feature in The Outsider, we asked her to tell us about that process. She answered, “I’m a full blooded Jew. My grandfather fled from Poland to South Africa to escape from the Nazi war. My grandmother always speaks a lot about the German wars and what it was like for the family moving to South Africa and how that affected them and so I wanted to

portray where my family is from.” She didn’t look elsewhere for inspiration but within herself. Margo also used herself in the photograph and there is no better way to narrate her own story and owning it. In the photograph you can see that she is trying to fight the old past but also letting the viewer inside so that you as the viewer can see how she feels about it. Margo wasn’t there at the time when her grandfather left Poland but she understands and feels what they have felt at that time. She says she feels it just like how apartheid is imprinted on South African’s today and that the Nazi war is still imprinted on the Jews today. Another interesting part about this work is the fact that on her face is the Nazi symbol, a symbol that was used to attack, eradicate, abuse and even kill the Jews. It is also the very same symbol that made her grandparents move to South Africa so what was the reason for putting that image on her face? Because that image is quite incredibly shocking, controversial and even frightening to the Jew community. Margo answered that what was done to the Jews in the concentration camps was not taken lightly because if you see some of the images, what the Jews looked like – they were skin and bones and children were murdered and the women were raped. So the reason she put that symbol on her face was because she wanted to show how powerful the Nazi was over the Jews.

Thembelihle Buthelezi from Kwa-Zulu Natal. Graphic Design second year student.

Thembelihle Buthelezi is an only child at home. She grew up around her cousins and she refers to them as her brothers and sisters. She was mainly raised by her mother, her father was involved in her life but worked far from home. She says that her artworks are normally about that because being raised by her mother taught her how to be empowered as a woman because her mother showed her that you don’t need a man to always be around for you to be able to do things. She did admit that some people refer to her as a feminist. In relation to being called a feminist, she said, “I actually like the term but sometimes it’s a little bit too much but I like the fact that I’m a feminist.” She does try to portray that in her artworks and a perfect example for that is the artwork which is featured in the publication. It is a digital selfportrait and she said to some people it may seem like selling your body and also selling being a woman but to her it is portraying the beauty of being a woman and also using what people sell as a way of empowering women and saying ‘actually my body is beautiful.’ The next question was why that was important to Thembelihle – the empowering of women and making them realise that they are beautiful. She

said that the importance of that is because men sell women. That men always make women sex slaves and the fact that it is easy for a man to talk about the beauty of a woman but it isn’t easy for women to talk about the fact that she is beautiful and to say ‘no actually, I can take off my clothes and say I am happy with who I am.’ Thembelihle says that women are not confident enough to say that and that women always need a man to confirm their beauty. Thembelihle is definitely telling the truth because women have been objectified and the easiest place to look for that would be hip hop music videos. The self-portrait featured in the publication shows Thembelihle in her natural state, beautiful and naked to show her honesty. Naked but wearing a traditional Zulu neck piece to show that he carries her culture wherever she goes. She is holding her body, covering her breasts to say this is my body and that shows her refusal to being objectified and also saying she is a powerful woman. Behind her is a pattern that looks African but it’s actually a fusion of her two different sides – her Christianity side and also her African side. In the African part she used a diamond shape which represents being feminine in the Zulu culture and used a glass stained window for her Christianity side.

Khangelani Kota. 23 years old. Second year photography student. From East London. Khangelani Kota is a photography student who works part time on commissions. When asked to elaborate and tell The Outsider about his work which will be in the publication, he answered that, “It was inspired by Sir Ken Ribinson who was doing a Ted talk about how schools kill creativity and the whole idea of what he was talking about was how schools create copies of people and in that way sort of kills creativity and everyone ends up being the same copy of one identity and that is why it came to be titled “Just A Number.” When looking at his work there are a lot of social issues that concern his work and now the question was whether that is something he has personally experienced. Khangelani was studying Mechanical Engineering before studying photography. He says that Sir Ken Robinson talks about how people normally drop out at school and one of the main reasons for that is because of the linear way of educating students and that is why he dropped out when he was studying mechanical engineering. He says that he has always been interested in photography and by luck his parents allowed him to come and study photography. The interest now was on why was studying photography important to him and why didn’t he continue studying engineering because there’s a lot of ‘money’ in it. He answered that, “Well I feel that it doesn’t mean everyone should study engineering to make money. You can always find a way of making money if you study art, or study engineering or whatever. For example, if you look at Richard Branson, he made money in spheres he didn’t even study for, because he knew what type of people to get into

his circle and what kind of people to talk to and I guess in the business world it’s all about making connections and connecting with people.” Khangelani is not only a young creative but he also sees art as something that should be taken seriously. He see’s art as a way of communicating and reason for that is because people mostly relate to people who communicate. Khangelani also see’s art as a way of understanding what society is like around you and also expressing what you think. With art being like that to Khangelani, why was that important to him? He answered that art should be taken seriously and that was important because, “It’s sort of like a liberation to teach people what they don’t know about what they are able to do or what they are capable of instead of being told ‘This is what you can do and you should stick to this’.” Khangelani feels strongly about visual language and the reason for that is because people understand body language more than they understand speech. So for him being able to show someone something is far more easier than telling them that ‘this-is-what-it-is-and-it-is-like-this…’ and sometimes people don’t even listen to what you are saying, they just zone out. Whereas when you look at a billboard, even if you look at it for a split second, it stays with you in your subconscious and you are able to go back to that image at a later stage. Khangelani says that when he was younger he wasn’t a talkative person. He could vision who he was but couldn’t say it. Even now he can’t explain who he is but could show you who he is and that is what touches him deeply.

Jenade Augastine. 19 years old from Mangete, KwaZulu Natal. Second year photography student. Jenade Augastine is the first person in her family who is studying art. She did not study art in high school and says the change was quite hectic. Jenade says that in the beginning she wanted to study something else and that was more of a front to make her family proud her because in her family everyone expected her to do something totally different. She says that her doing art was a big jump because in her family there are engineers, accountants and those type of people. She finally told her parents what she wanted to do and says her parents were very supportive when she told them that she wants to study photography but in the beginning they were kind of like ‘…oh OK, first person in the family doing art.’

her. Jenade had her first camera in 2013 and when asked if she could tell us about that experience she said, “My father bought me my camera and it was actually for a trip I was going on. I went to Europe and yeah, I was very excited because I now have my own camera and definitely the experience of travelling. I think one day I want to definitely continue travelling doing travel photography. So yeah, I don’t want to go back to Europe again, I want to explore more of Africa. I feel like a lot of people go to those more commercialised spaces and there’s nothing wrong, I mean but I feel like Africa has got so much more to give, so yeah. I’m hoping to go to Kenya and Tanzania soon actually.”

Every creative has a story of how they started but with Jenade she did not do art at school but says that uncle Thamsanqa ‘Thammie’ Douse is the one who motivated her to do art. Uncle Thammie is from Oudtshoorn and the she says the first time he came to the farm he brought his camera with. Uncle Thammie then let her use his camera for a while and that experience is where it all began as that was the first time she interacted with a camera. She went around the farm and says she enjoyed capturing moments of everyday life. Jenade says uncle Thammie motivates and encourages her and that he has so much faith in

Jenade is planning to go to different countries here in Africa and not in Europe where it is commercial, the interest was where was that going to put her in the photography industry because she will be taking photographs of what is rarely seen and will try to show the unknown or ignored beauty of the world. She said that she thinks it is going to be hard making a mark in the industry if that is her angle and the reason is because it is more like freelance photography. Jenade says that a lot of people have gone to Africa and taken photographs but she wants to work more with children. She feels that children are still innocent

to this world, they don’t really know what is happening around them. Jenade believes that when taking photographs of children there’s a sense of purity in the image. What inspires her includes nature, children and also her family because of the support they have given her. She would like to capture people in the environment, everyday people and documentary photography. In terms of the work we chose to feature in the publication, we asked Jenade to tell us about that experience. She answered that she, “took a photograph of Amos Ragophala who is also a second year photography student and I have taken a photography of men in Oudtshoorn

Esethu Pongolo. Third year Printmaking Fine Art student from Queenstown Eastern Cape.

Esethu Phongolo began drawing when he was in high school. When asked about the moment he told his parents that he wanted to do art, he smiled. He says that he was brought up by a single parent, his mother and that she is a very nice woman. He says that even when he was choosing his subjects in grade 10, she was calm about it when he chose visual art. His mother has been supporting him ever since. Esethu’s muses include Gerad Sekoto. It was in high school when he was introduced to his work and that is why

Whenever he has an idea, he goes to his journal and whatever comes up in that process he transfers it to the t-shirt. In his t-shirt printing he has adopted printmaking. He works with Lino and he prints the lino onto the t-shirt. Now that he was eased, The Outsider went back to the question of themes in his work in terms of subject matters and what he talks about in his work. He said, “I’m gonna start discovering my theme and my concept like now. So earlier on I thought I was gonna look into portraiture. I’m gonna do portraits of infants and young black kids. I discovered this because I have a little sister so

him. So when asked what themes are in his work, he couldn’t answer and said he wasn’t deep in themes yet. At the moment he follows what his art teacher instructs them to do. With Gerad Sekoto playing a huge role in his art, the interest was on how. Does he sometimes tap into Mr Sekoto’s subject themes in his work or does he apply the same technique that Mr Sekoto was famous for? He said it just happens naturally that he adopts some of his techniques but does not into his subject matters. Esethu also prints his work on t-shirts and he says that the t-shirt printing is random exploration. Whenever he has an idea, he goes to his journal and whatever comes up in that process he transfers it to the t-shirt. In his t-shirt printing he has adopted printmaking. Esethu also prints his work on t-shirts and he says that the t-shirt printing is random exploration.

what he’s trying to say in his art and so The Outsider wanted to know his journey as it the middle of the year now so why doesn’t he have a set theme or concept yet. He answered that, “Last year we weren’t properly introduced to printmaking. This year my lecturer is furthering that within printmaking itself. This year my lecturer niques of printmaking. From now on everyone is and everything.” Esethu is a young artist that is still mastering his technique and in every artist, there’s always something that they want to say and there’s a reason why they want to get into art, so what is Esethu’s reason? His answer was simple – “I just love producing – that’s it.”

Okuhle Dyosopu From Uitenhage, Eastern Cape. Storyteller.

Okuhle Dyosopu is a graphic design student who identifies herself as a storyteller. She has experience in film, design and fine art and has a lot of experience in in those mediums. She really loves telling stories and says that whenever people ask her what she does, she immediately says storytelling. Her creative process involves a lot of writing and her source books have a lot of writing and she says that the visuals come in later. What inspires her, mostly now, because she is young and has a lot to see, would be her life journey which includes things that she has learned and experienced and also things that she has observed from people in her space, especially her family members and lessons. A lot of the time being young, black and a woman there’s a lot of issues and challenges with it and those challenges and dynamics are evident in her storytelling. The interest was now on whether she understands the power of words. She immediately answered yes and she expanded that she grew up as a child who could not express herself with words that well. She comes from a very powerful collective of women in the family who are incredibly expressive and opinionated. She is the last born at home and so she did not express herself that much. She continued by saying, “Yes, I was talkative like any other kid but like in terms of expressing feelings and thoughts and views, I would really struggle. But art saved my life, that’s how I learnt to express

myself. Through art and visuals and writing.” Okuhle takes expressing herself very seriously and she does that very well in her work. She says that she feels like young people have more or less the same story, the story of not being heard and not being able to express themselves. She continued, “Young people in South Africa are not taken seriously as they should be. We’ve got a lot more to say than the last generation. We are asking the right questions but for some reason we are not getting answered that much. A lot of the time not being able to express yourself comes from family and the way you grow up. Our mothers and fathers their struggle was to fight for us getting education and economic independence but in the midst of that they kind of neglected the question of what do you do when your child doesn’t want to go to school? If your child wants to be an artist or kind of sees things a bit different. Of course it was the apartheid times and there was a lot of violence so who was going to think about those kind of things?” She says that this generation is trying to redefine what it was taught growing up when it comes to spirituality, identity, culture, tradition and it is trying to recreate its own system of expressing itself but it is not taken seriously. Okuhle’s mother is a single parent who worked for four children and grandchildren as well and that was all on a teachers’ salary so her main priority was for her children to get educated. Whatever

y first year of design was lessons of how design is all about problem solving and if so kids ekasi are natural born designers. When you live in a place where weekends as a kid is all about waking up and putting on your play clothes and not being forced to take baths in the morning and having to run errands for your elders that you try to quickly get done as soon possible so you can get to your crew and play and that’s all you live for although the culture of kids playing outside is slowly deteriorating ekasi they manage to keep that alive. The work that goes to keeping that alive is what fascinated me. This is about the forgotten designers I once read in an essay my design lecture wrote when he was a student how design

CHILD’S PLAY The Original Designers

schools neglect to market themselves to the people who are natural born designers just because of their demographics. Young kids like Olwethu who ran to go fix her hair before playing a game called dwaldla which requires specific design methods for the play tools such as the dwaldla ball and playing court. This game is a combination of mathematics engineer and problems solving a true designers bliss.

Design engineers and best friends such as Vuyisa, Baxolise, Liyabone and Likho spend their Saturday morning climbing trees picking a fruit called ‘Ngwenya’ whilst also designing a plastic diski ball stuffed with throw away furniture bits is only the tip of it . Playing is such passion it can usually result in worn out shoes and these designers figure out an innovative resolution to repairing flip flops using wire. But Siya and Avela are more like naturalist who use natural resources to create playing tools like using an orange fruit as a diski ball a great example of not listening to your parents when they told you to never play with your food.

These kids are the future and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even have a clue of the significance of what they do can be seen as a possible career most of them want to be lawyers and doctors when they grow unaware of the power of art in the world to them designing and constructing their means of playing is just another thing they do no one educates them in the possibility of earning a living in their ideas or being their own boss or playing and being kids for the rest of their lives I always find it amazing the older you got the more disconnected you are to your imagination what I would do to get my level of imagination back when I was still a kid and like many of us these would soon disconnect to theirs and all theirs constructions and engineering would be nothing but childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s play that all should grow out of.

BLACK GIRL’S CRY So let’s do a quick exercise where ever you are reading this, hands up if you’re pursuing any form of creative arts career, if your hand is up you’re pretty much f@#%*d, hands up if you’re a women and pursing a creative arts career if your hand is up its gonna be real shitty for you, now if you’re black and pursuing a creative art career uzawnya. If you’re black and female and pursuing a creative art career unyile gal shame! I was in matric and I had to decide what to do with my life, preferably I wanted to elope to some exotic Island and just be but I quickly snapped out of that dream as soon as realized that I wasn’t a trust fund kid and in order to enjoy life I like that I needed to make money I needed to get a qualification that would validate my economic worth So I decided to go to university to study art and see if I could turn that into a career. So I did my first year and again fell back to my old dreamer self and I wanted to be a fine artist and have fun with a paint brush all da again I was rudely reminded that I didn’t have the trust fund or financially supportive parents to just paint all day so I took up design at least there are jobs for that.

Design was great other than the clear racial difficulties as I was introduced to the world of commercial arts I was also warned not to be too comfortable that wasn’t a world made for a young black woman such as myself so classes were about how amazing Europeans were and their contributions even if it was at the cost of African identity distributions and constantly explaining my identity in consultation evidently I struggled a lot and I ended up dropping out myself worth was dangerously low and had lost my place as an artist. I moved to Cape town and joined the film industry studied film and part time intern for small documentary, broadcasting and commercial production although I was doing well and finally gaining myself worth as a story teller I quickly learnt film was another place young black women where not entirely welcomed to most production were owned my white Afrikaners producing black African content so they kind of needed young black story tellers like me with great content ideas but they never would give you credit for.

So it was only a year I decided to leave Cape Town and figure some other plan of being a story teller without selling my soul I wanted to tell stories that were my own and I could own I admit I can be dangerously impulsive and reckless so I decided in the next two years I would start my own production and produce my first feature film but telling that to my mother was like talking Chinese to n Egyptian so I had to figure a plan to calm her down I decided to face my fears and reregister back to school and finish what I started I needed to prove to myself that I was good enough and create designs again whilst figuring out how to start being my own boss it was the perfect plan. It was the scariest time of my life but it’s the middle of the year and pushing strong passionate about black youth empowerment and falling in love with story teller every day. Although we all have different stories but the story of the ambitious passionate young black woman trying to make a name for herself is like a broken record rewinding generation after generation I can only hope and pray to be a part of breaking that generational curse and inspiring young black women through my story.

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CENSORSHIP CORRUPTION PROPAGANDA ONE SIDED STORIES