VANSA Winter School Workbook | The Everyday (2015)

2015 | THE EVERYDAY WORKBOOK Name: Date: Place:

CONTENTS Summaries

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Reflections on the everyday

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Giles Baro and Meghan Judge Milisuthando Bongela Steffen Fischer Ben Gapare Raimi Gbadamosi Thembinkosi Goniwe Dorothee Kreutzfeldt Kitso Lelliott Robert Machiri Rolihlahla Mhlanga Pops Mohamed Hlonipha Mokoena Nontobeko Ntombela Ntokozo Shezi Nomazulu Taukobong Reading List

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Participant List

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Notes

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THE WINTER SCHOOL Over six weeks, the Winter School served as a space to collectively explore the ‘the everyday’.

Evenings of facilitated conversations, the sessions were structured to encourage participants to investigate the impact of the ordinary on their work as cultural practitioners. Each session featured invited guests, tasked with unpacking ‘the everyday’. The Winter School is more than a public lecture series. It is a program of reading groups, interviews, seminars and supper.

Course dates: Wednesdays, 20 May 2015 - 24 June, 18:00 – 20:00 Venue: Oduduwa Republic, 320 Marshall Street, Jeppestown.

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SUMMARY

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SESSION 1 THEMBINKOSI GONIWE, MARY EVANS, ATHI JOJA Goniwe, Joja and Evans probed the usefulness and shortcomings of the everyday. Goniwe placed Ndbele’s text as part of a group of work on the ordinary from Roger Pool Driot, Lewis Nkosi, Chris van Wyk and Albie Sachs. For Goniwe, the ordinary hosts the nuances that inspire social action. To counter, Joja warned of reducing life to the everyday – particularly if that everyday does not reflect the brutality of oppression. Evans presented her work. She spoke of her representations of slavery, liberation and social life played out on silhouettes made of brown paper bags. Largescale spectacular scenes of everyday life, her work sits on the seams of both Joja and Goniwe’s interpretation of the everyday.

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SESSION 2 POPS MOHAMED Pops Mohamed began by asking, ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ Participants responded eagerly.

Stories were told, ideas were exchanged, histories were shared and a performance was had. This was a listening session; aural samplings of the makings of his ordinary.

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SESSION 3 SARAH GODSELL, MAKHOSAZANE XABA Participants read several of Makhosazane Xaba’s poems to prepare: ‘Running’, ‘Cotton Socks’, ‘The Weekend’, ‘My Body’, ‘Call me not, a Women of Colour’, ‘Come’ and ‘Skin Speak’. For their discussion, Godsell and Xaba used the everyday as a theoretical framework to review the poems.

And through this review, they addressed the lack of gender equality within our daily global existence.

Readings of the poems and questions from participants, outlined the ways violence permeates the everyday for women. Xaba concluded with a call for young people to recommit to action.

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SESSION 4 DR. DAVID KOLOANE, NONTOBEKO NTOMBELA Participants listened as Nontobeko Ntombela and Dr. David Koloane unpacked the stories that are illustrated in his paintings. Questions abounded.

And Ntombela and Dr. Koloane delved deeper into the stories. Their session was a moment for the archive – an opportunity for participants to gain insight into the ways Dr. Koloane’s everyday has seeped through his work.

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SESSION 5 HLONIPHA MOKOENA Prof. Mokoena mapped the work of nineteenth century mission-educated black scholars, their break from the mission, and their subsequent offerings to intellectual traditions in Southern Africa. Through this exercise, she placed John Tengo Jabavu, Magema Fuze, Tiya Soga at the forefront of the canon. Prof. Mokoena’s session was a history lesson. She compelled participants to study the details of the ordinary in order to retell history and reclaim the future.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE EVERYDAY

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GILES BARO AND MEGHAN JUDGE

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MILISUTHANDO BONGELA

I’m feeling very far from my everyday life today,

public building. People get arrested for releaving

I’m living a Friday afternoon in my uncle’s life.

themselves in the street so some resort to petty

I’m at a four day old taxi rank in a little town

thefts just to be able to use the toilet amongst

called Dutywa halfway between Mthatha and

other things. I squatted over the toilet, which

Butterworth. I’m en route to my grandmother’s

wasn’t bad and looked up to read the handwritten

house in Tyeni, a small village deep in the Ngcobo

graffiti on the door. “Ningamaxelegu maspala

district. I’m in one of those lorry taxi’s that are

waseMbhashe” (you are extremely filthy Mbhashe

usually packed with everything from packets of

municipality) and “Imisunu yenu rhulumente”

milie meal, live sheep and people’s daily lives

(Fuck you government) are two that I remember.

inside Ghana Must Go bags, which in this region

We walked back to the car and waited for it to fill

are called “ooNo Problem”. I’m sandwiched

up, which it did eventually. We are now on our

between an elderly driver and another old man

way to Tyeni at the exhilarating speed of 50km per

wearing a reflector vest, a cheque shirt and

hour!

brown chinos. His shoes are off and the car reeks of feet that have walked in the day’s 37 degree heat. He is pretty friendly and we spend the first hour of our acquaintance talking about history.

My uncle, who is responsible for our traveling in this way is in the back of the mini lorry captivating the back passengers with his oratory. When we arrived at the rank he said, holding my hand: “mtshana, you are always writing about how black people live from your comfortable life in Joburg, come and see how black people live”.

Nyhani, this place is indescribable and it would be a shame for me to try when I’ve only been here for two and a half hours. At that point, two police cars came into the small rank yard with blue lights, harassing vendors who were used to trading at the main taxi rank until Monday when the police swept all of them out. Nobody flinched but the flies. Shortly after this I needed to use the toilet and naively asked my uncle where it was.

He looked at me and said where would a toilet be when these people’s heads are still spinning from being relocated? We then walked around town until we found a municipal toilet. It costs R1 to use the toilet despite the fact that it’s a

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ORDINARY GESTURES STEFFEN FISCHER

The three sketches from the talks I attended depict the speaker’s literal body movement.

Static images of hair sit amongst the audience.

Although hair in itself has movement; the way it was braided, twisted and looped to form a shape in turn has made it still. These, I saw as defining threads of the everyday. What we perceive in ourselves and each other defines the everyday from a mundane ordinary one through movement of space and time.

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THE DAY KOROBELA AND I FINALLY SPOKE… BEN GAPARE

Five unsuspecting scholars of different

display of variety and when our eyes meet we are

persuasions sit around a table, unbeknown to

lost in a moment of irreconcilable chemistry.

them, the forensic palate sleuth about to grace their individual embroidery. Platter upon platter

Why is it that l am at a loss for words, how is it

of striking treats lie across an appropriately sized

that that you seem to have collapsed the only

dinner table, while discussion of the ordinary fills

passage that is capable of transmitting messages

the air, an expectation of the extraordinary enters

from my palate to the brain.

the design…

How is it that you know me so well Oduduwa?

Why is it that you tug on my only remaining

In unison, the ordinary cabal begins to straddle

strings of restraint?

into the paradigm of the connoisseur. Name

Your pull is a concern of the ordinary but

and adjective of taste and custom from far

something only the extraordinary can console.

afield grace the tongues of our newly inducted

Why are your moments full of quiet embrace that

connoisseurs. They speak of their journeys of both

warms the spirit?

far and wide and the plethora of tastes they bring

Who are you child of the soil that awakens the

to the dialogue. In the middle of the table sits a

gods with your subtle mysticism?

mild mannered man, whose only concern and

Who knows you well enough to steal a passage

single narrative to the burgeoning conversation

from your pages of seduction?

is a name and adjective all present can allude

Who is it that gave breath to your enigma?

to but only he can cobble the many ingredients

Questions scholars of the sciences sit and

sourced to describe the hypnosis that grips them

quietly digest as they sit in the small Republic of

all. Colleagues, are we all not involuntary victims

Oduduwa.

of Korobela?

Answers? There are none, only questions His audience around the table greet his note

abound, questions of…what was…what is…and

with giggles, murmurs and trepidation. A quiet

what potentially could be…in a world where such

female voice in the corner asks the young man,

questions have no definite answers, let alone the

what has possessed you to make reference to

vocabulary to describe this evading feeling that

such a concoction? The young man responds,

riddles both body and mind.

the body and depiction you all present to the food before us, makes me evoke the name of this powerful mystic unknown that our forebears and contemporaries speak off but few dare to adequately capture. Who is she? It is a she, right?

She that warms the tongue and fills the palate.

Each time my lips touch hers, it is as if we are strangers that have tasted the joys of forbidden urges. Week upon week, she taunts me with her

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WE DO NOT HAVE THE SAME DAYS RAIMI GBADAMOSI

Black lives are beginning to matter much more

Death by accident, Death by machete, Death

than they used to (At least on paper, as slogan,

by asphyxiation, Death by drowning, Death by

as rallying cry, on sweatshirts, on walls, and

neglect, Death by policy, Death by knife, Death

this demand for recognition reaches beyond the

by rope, Death by gas, Death by fire, Death

United States where the killing of black people

by starvation, Death by exposure, Death by

may make headlines, elsewhere, it seems

medication, Death by food, and the many other

business as usual.), but unfortunately that is

ways that black lives are curtailed.

not saying much, considering how Black lives as a collective item are treated. Black lives are

And as it will be inevitably be pointed out to me,

beginning to matter, even if understood as an

I appreciate that other lives than Black lives are

entity subject to likely aggressive termination.

curtailed, but my detractors have to accept that

Whether to have or not have a life remains the

the weight of a Black life is still being estimated,

enduring question, moving on to experience Black

not quite yet a uniquely valuable item beyond

life as a good and glorious experience is a moot

negotiation, or at least at a par with every other

proposition irrespective of attempted strategies of

human life on the planet.

invulnerability.

But in the meantime, there is life to celebrate, The reification of Black people dying (and how

record, and make art about.

else can one understand dress as mimicry and solidarity) by Black people still alive is important,

I was going to write about Black artists and the

even if it only provides the possibility of looking at

need to represent Black life, but realised that the

life as a reasonable continuum.

need to still alert the public to what it means to be Black in the twenty-first century still dominates

If a history of Africans as a continental and

the creative impulse. Not telling this essential

diasporic body is told in terms of how much

tale, can be construed as letting the side down, as

their lives have mattered, then the telling will

the fight for self and collective recognition is still

be harsh: Death in The Trans-Atlantic and other

on. Everyone does not have the ability to do the

Slave Trades; Death Camps in Namibia and

telling, and the telling still needs to be done.

elsewhere; Death under official and legislated types of Apartheid; Death fighting Colonialists

Death is not often beautiful. But it is possible to

and Colonialisms; Death in the Diaspora; Death

imagine peaceful Death, life drifting out of a body

fleeing Neo-Colonialisms; Death at the hands

willing to leave the mortal coil behind, pleased

of Nationalists, Death chasing a dream of a

at letting go (indicated by a indeterminate smile),

better life elsewhere; Death at the hands of

content with what they have achieved amidst the

Governments; Death at the hands of Police; Death

disturbance of living. The Death running through

by Genocide; Death at the hands of Armies, secret

this polemic is neither beautiful nor peaceful, this

Death, public Death, and it is worth mentioning

is Death hard, unpleasant, and unwelcome.

Death by bullet, Death by strangulation,

And then there is the everyday, equally of little

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and great value, when all of life is making it

There is Death, and there is life, and there is

from birth, to realization, to maintenance of

living each day. And after a while, the constant

life, to the avoidance of unwelcome Death, and

confrontation with Death makes life all the

everything in between is sidestepping the caving-

more present. Each day grows and glows, and

in of existence. It becomes a hard case of the

the matter of relishing daily existence seems

essentialised big picture, where everything is

all the more pressing. There is beauty in the

subsumed into the need for survival.

everyday, but one needs to have time away from the struggle of living, to savour life unfolding

When you are Black in this fancy Material World,

as it happens. Otherwise life flows by in a rush,

you have to accept Death as a constant reality,

forming currents around the Black body as it

this is if your big picture is clear, and the goal of

charges, purposefully, towards avoiding Death.

making the world safe to be Black is yours. ©Raimi Gbadamosi 2016 The Way of the Samurai is found in death.

When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. [. . .]

“We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. [. . .] If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.

Yamamoto, Tsunetomo.

Hagakure: Book Of The Samurai

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©RGb April 2016

SHORT NOTES ON THE ORDINARY IN THE EVERYDAY THEMBINKOSI GONIWE

‘How are things?’ What was he trying to say?

the things woven into our everyday lives.”1 In

... I assume he was asking after my news.

contemporary society we live among things, with

However, he did not say, ‘How are you?’ He did

a variety of objects that not only describe but

not say, ‘How is it going?’ … ‘How is business?’

also give meaning to our lives, as Neil Cummings

… ‘What are you up to these days? … ‘How

and Marysia Lewandowska in the value of things

is the family?’ What he said was … ‘How are

note, “we use objects as a sophisticated means of

things?’

making both ourselves and our world knowable.”2 Objects function in a numbers of ways amongst

Things … I do not know how they are, alas.

which I mention the construction, representation,

Besides, do they have lives of their own?

contestation and circulation of identity, politics,

What kind of lives? And when things are going

cultural value and socio-economic status, as well

well, what sort of well? … Are we ordinarily

as the implicated differentiations, hierarchies and

preoccupied by such questions? Do we ever try

inequities of these phenomena.

to find out how things are doing? Are we right or wrong not to concern ourselves? Should we

My preoccupation here is an attention to the

make an effort?

richness and profundity inherent in but sealed off by the virtue of ordinariness of things including

Do we talk of ‘things’ in order to mask a

some activities, people and places. This could be

proliferation and plurality without end?

because our normalized experience or customary knowledge of the everyday either blinds or

Things that come from a dozen different

renders neglectful if not ignorant our curiosity,

places, each speaking after its fashion of

alertness, focus and responsiveness to ordinary

a way of life and a certain kind of human

people, places and things. This attitude also

universe. These universes are all disjunct.

goes for some of the unusual or peculiar things that tend to be easily written out or undermined

By the end of this evening, I have decided to try

as uninviting, unpalatable, minor, useless or

an experiment … To play the explorer. I have

hopeless yet are inextricable parts that not simply

no idea how I will set about it.

add to but essentially make up the sum of our complex, dynamic and contentious contemporary

With the above passages from Roger-Pol Droit’s

life. Thus I took seriously Droit’s seemingly

how are things? I begin my thoughts on the

prosaic yet curious engagement with and about

theme of the everyday. My assignment is to

“Things to touch and things for looking at, or

briefly reflect on the fertility of ordinary things,

looking through. Things for setting in motion and

people and places in the practice of everyday

things that are motionless…Simple things and

life. I find Droit’s inquiry on the condition of

compound things, things natural and artificial,

things prompting especially “that things are in

handmade and mass produced, long-lasting

effect folded propositions” and hence his “dream

or short-lived, bright or dark…one-of-a-kind or

of recovering the ideas sealed inside some of

otherwise.”

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I also mused on Droit’s experiments of everyday 3

It is to this gloomy portrayal, an overdose of black

life, especially his peculiar exercises intended

predicament that Ndebele refers as the spectacle

to stimulate and widen the mind, bent on

of social absurd.

rendering the intellect flexible and elastic.

He offers intellectual experiments, which

Most importantly is that Ndebele does not

are strange introverted insights of the world

just pose a critique but forward a resolution

established through observing the ordinary in

to address the problem considered as lack of

the everyday life. In his words, “The idea is to

imagination, owing to the failure to rediscover

provoke tiny moments of awareness” that, for

the ordinary. Key to his resolve are methodical

example, “Futility can lead to thought, laughable

uses of “imaginative and ethical potentials”

can become serious, and depth can succeed

that, in opposing and subverting the pervasive

superficiality.” This awareness supposedly

domination of “the spectacle of excess”

aids our cognition that “there exists ordinary

and “surface representations”, writers and

situations, everyday gestures, actions we carry

artists should advance “inventiveness of

out continuously, which each can become the

treatment”, “sharpening of insight”, “deepening

starting point for that astonishment that gives

of consciousness”, “deeply philosophical

rise to philosophy.”4

contemplation”, and the “discovery of complexity in a seemingly ordinary and faceless” person or

For what Droit argues in the foregoing is certainly

subject. In one of Ndebele’s arguments I decipher

analogous to Njabulo Ndebele’s Rediscovery

a twofold proposition:

of the Ordinary.5 In this classic text, Ndebele provides seminal critiques on the challenges

On one level is an investigation of various

confronting creative arts and cultural productions

subjects and situations, particularly those not

that invest in the spectacular and obscene

always already public and dominantly in-our-face

exhibitionism in dealing with social, political,

but are rather subtle and nuanced, or appear

economic issues in a society circumscribed by

banal and minor. These are not so obvious

brutal tyranny. Ndebele observes the binary

but neglected subjects that tend to occupy the

oppositions between the oppressors and

realm of insignificance, the peripheral edge in

oppressed, exploiter and exploited, privileged

society. On another level, he proposes an analytic

and disadvantaged. Such binary oppositions

approach “in order to reveal new possibilities

mark the differentiation between the private

of understanding and action,” an approach

and public, self and collective. Of course with an

with which once grasped, would demonstrate

over-emphasis on graphic imageries of white

that artists and writers have “rediscovered the

opulence, luxury, domination and more so black

ordinary.” Of note is an understanding that “The

poverty, misery, oppression, as if no subtleties

ordinary is sobering rationality; it is the forcing

or nuances exist between these two extremes.

of attention on necessary detail. Paying attention

Moreover, as if nothing else is worth investigating

to the ordinary and its methods will result in a

and depicting in particular with regards to black

significant growth of consciousness.”

thoughts, feelings, experiences and aspirations.

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The focus on the ordinary subjects that are

but also what resides beneath the form of things7

synonymous with the marginal is akin to Michel

including people and places. It is their operation

de Certeau’s reading the anonymous, a dedication

in social networks that organize society and

to the ordinary man, the common hero; such

its inhabitants. There are also the aesthetic

being a concentration on “the anonymous and

properties, particularly renditions and usages that

the everyday where close-ups isolate metonymic

make them meaningful and expressive of their

details—parts taken for the whole.” Here I

own significance, attraction or insignificance.

am referring to de Certeau’s discourse on the

Creative arts are phenomenal forms or unique

practice of everyday life, where he argues for

productions that give recognition to things, people

attention to the informal or unrecognized subjects

and places for they render them as other infinite

in particular their “ways of operating” or doing

worlds, realms characteristic of ideas, feelings

things. I am invited by his decisive concern with

and experiences that are indicative of life itself.

“people who best navigate their everyday lives,

To engage the everyday through creative arts

not in conditions of extremity and conflict,”

and intellectual productions, an engagement

but in “the lived reality of ordinary streets,”

informed by or conversant with the selected texts

which are perceived “as the characterization

I discuss above, is to investigate the complexity

of everyday” and site of popular culture where

and dynamics of subjects, objects and contexts

power is negotiated, contested, manipulated…

that tend to be undermined or neglected in what

by “clever tricks, knowing how to get away with

Guy Debord calls the society of the spectacle.8

things…” So interesting are the sort of measures, procedures and actions people employ on a micro level in their perceptive ways to undermine and

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subvert chastising tyrannies. Take for example

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his articulation of “the tactic” and “poaching”

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as a device capable of “insinuating itself within the space of the other,” parading “its way into

4 5

the territory of that which it seeks to subvert,” a subversion “not to destroy or take over the

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entirety of that which it is entering,” nor “claims

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space for itself” but rather “is always on the

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watch for opportunities that must be seized ‘on

Roger-Pol Droit, How are Things? A Philosophical Experiment, translated by Theo Cuffe (Paris: Faber and Faber Limited, 2005).

Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, The Value of Things (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2000).

Roger-Pol Droit, Astonish Yourself: 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life, translated by Stephen Romer (United States: Penguin Compass, 2003).

Roger-Pol Droit, How are Things?

Njabulo S. Ndebele, Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essay on South African Literature and Culture (Scottsville: University of KwaZuluNatal, 2006).

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by (California: University of California Press, 1984).

A. C. Grayling, The Form of Things: Essays on Life, Ideas and Liberty in the 21st Century (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006).

Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Book, 1995).

the wing’.”6 To end, with the foregoing I undertook to show my interest in texts that draw attention to the importance of ordinariness in practices of everyday life. These texts, in their different yet complementary ways, also provide an occasion to investigate not only the meaning or significance

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EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE DOROTHEE KREUTZFELDT

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KITSO LELLIOT

I, too, live in the time of slavery, by which I

that forged the social, spiritual, cultural reality

mean I am living in the future created by it.

that are our everyday. I was considering the

Saidiya Hartman

exceptionally, unexceptional normality of racial violence and the exceptionally unexceptional ways

I have been thinking about how deep time/history

in which the coping of those violate bodies and

has this intimate proximity to and everyday

persons goes unrecognised and unappreciated.

intimacy with the present that has come out of

The video was shot in one of the oldest buildings

it. I was trying to reckon with the daily getting

in Accra, which is now a family compound in

on with life in the wake of and within a social

Jamestown. The stone circle in the centre of the

world produced by mass trafficking of human

frame is where slaves were put on display to be

beings. I did this at one of the epicentres of this

sold.

foundational violence, and affront to humanity,

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TURF AND SONIC IMAGINARIES ROBERT MACHIRI

How is our identity as urbanites linked to our

of gold and the layers of its sonic topography.

labored functions and how does that affect the

The overall outlook of this image therefore links

constitution of our everyday as subjects of turf

historical cartographies of the city to the legacy

politics?

of inclusion and exclusion inherited through linear boundaries of urban zoning. In response,

I picked a few semiotic elements that can

the combined visual elements, of the work create

circumvent the discourse of collective

imaginary lines of inquiry that cut across the

consumption in an urban environment. In this

sonic and geographic landscapes of this city so as

case collective refers to the experience of sharing

to interrogate the problems of its coloniality.

an identity or a coalition. This work is manifested through imaginaries drawn from Joburg’s colonial outlook of turfed spaces, the symbolism

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YANGA MANTANGAYI

ikhaya, April 2016

Imbhaletle, May 2013

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FORUM PROPOSAL ROLIHLAHLA MHLANGA

Forum Description: Venue: TBC Time: TBC Date: TBC Comic books and sequential art are fast becoming a part of South African culture post 1994. As cultural artifacts, they can tell us a great deal about what is important in our culture (and to whom it is important). The goal of this forum is to explore the ways in which comic books reflect African society, including its values and history. We will pay attention to how comic books are shaped by the historical context within which they are produced, youth culture and consumerism, and racial/ethnic and sexual representation of characters within the industry. We will be reading a range of comic books, graphic novels, and excerpts from emerging press books from continent and across the diaspora.

Comic books have a notorious reputation of being seen as “kids’ stuff” or “low art.” In this forum we will take a serious, analytical look at comic books, examining them as social, historical, literary, and artistic texts that portray and critique very real and serious themes and events.

Objectives: •

• • •

To understand and examine the rising interest in the African narrative, and society’s response to contemporary concepts and thematics, that are necessary in generating relevance and uniqueness in the trending comic book art and sequential art.

To learn and understand the language of comics.

To develop an awareness of the intersections of race, class, gender in sexuality in the creation, production, art and stories of comics.

The develop an awareness around indigenous knowledge systems, as a source for scholarly, and their application in carving a new identity for African authors and storytellers.

Featured Publications: KWEZI issues 1 - 4 Created and illustrated by Loyiso Mkize Captain Rugged graphic novel - Written and Created by Keziah Jones illustrated by Native Maqari (More publications to be confirmed)

KWEZI isssue 4 launch

The theme : Dress as your own Superhero Costume Party Venue: TBC Time: TBC

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Artists we would like to perform: OKMALUMKOOLKAT aka Simiso Zwane presents 100k Macassette SPOEK MATHAMBO presents Fantasma (More artists to be conďŹ rmed) Moonchild Nomisupasta

Partner Background :

A lifestyle movement established in July 2012 in Protea North, Soweto by a group of young individuals who shared the passion for Lounge music and all it’s sub genres, seeking to create an alternative scene. This alternative scene would cater for those who love and enjoy Lounge Music, those that would love to learn more about this genre and those who seek a musical experience that is out of the ordinary. Something different that the mainstream dance scene that they have grown accustomed to.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO MUSIC POPS MOHAMED

I have a company called Kalamazoo Music. The

- Sipho Gumede, Khaya Mahlangu and all those

company started about 15 years ago. Back in

guys playing township jazz and slowly, slowly I

that time I lived, in Boksburg in a small township

started developing my own style on indigenous

called Kalamazoo. I use to hang out there as a

instruments. I then implemented that style into

kid going into the shebeens, just checking out

my own, which was supposed to produce future

the musicians playing. Kalamazoo was right next

South African music. The first album that I

to a mine shaft and the mine workers would go

released as Kalamazoo Music is called, Societies

to the shebeens and have a drink and some of

Children.

them would bring their traditional instruments from home, either from Zimbabwe or Malawi or

I didn’t have money for a record company, I went

Mozambique. You’d also have the township boys

to Magnets, a store that use to be in town and I

in the same shebeen playing an old, out of tune

got a small tape recorder, four track recorder

piano - the guys would be jamming. The shebeens

with a cassette, so you could only record four

were illegal gatherings back in those days, so

tracks on there.

those sounds were never recorded.

There was a good friend of mine who asked, ‘how I was the lead guitarist in a band. We played

are you going to record with these cars going

Grand Fund, Jimmy Hendricks, The Beatles

past?’ The flat I lived in was on Louis Botha 13th

anything that was top 40’s - that’s what we did.

street across from Kentucky.

I decided in June ’76, when we had the uprising

I said ‘in the wardrobe’ so I stuck the microphone

Soweto, that if I’m going to continue to play

in there and it was sound proof. When I put the

music, I needed to have a good reason for doing

earphones on, it was solid, you couldn’t hear a

that. So, I decided that I wanted to go back to my

thing. I didn’t have a reverb echo, and he said,

roots, I remembered that sound in Kalamazoo, in

‘have you got some reverb?’ I said, ‘no, go into

the shebeen and I wanted to recreate that sound,

the bathroom’ you know the bathroom has plenty

the mix of the indigenous instruments with the

echoes for a reverb and I stuck the microphone

modern instruments.

in the bathroom and I recorded it. I bought a little drum machine and started programming, I did all

I decided to start my own record company -

the keyboards, I asked Sipho Gumede to play bass

Kalamazoo Music. I got an auditor and someone

and no one charged me.

to help me register the company. I decided what I really wanted to do was to explore indigenous

I went to a professional recording engineer and

instruments, spend time in the rural areas.

said, ‘I want to mix the album’, he said, ‘you’re

I went up to Lesotho, Kalahari dessert with

joking, with this four set recorder’ I said, ‘yes,

the San Bushmen, I went all over the place to

I want you to mix it’ he said, ‘who’s the record

spend time with families that I did not know.

company?’ I said ‘me’ he said ‘okay well, I’m not

They welcomed me; everyone just welcomed

going to charge you for this, but don’t put my

me. During that time, I played with other bands

name on the album.’ I said, ‘cool’.

34

I took it to Mitchell and said, ‘this is like a demo,

it, handwritten. Every night I cut the cassettes

what can you do with it?’ We spent half an hour

sleeves. I took it to the printers; everyone thought

and I took notes of everything that he was doing

I was completely mad, but finally, I had my

on my little mixer, I still have that recorder and

product.

he mixed really quite nicely and I said to him, ‘do you know of anyone that can do the mastering?’

I started in Jeppestown, every record shop that

He said, ‘you’re really going for this’ I said, ‘yes’

I could find I sold to, it was R10 cassettes in that

so he took it to Forest Studios and they did the

time, I sold to the people right up into town.

mastering for me and I had my master copy.

So that was my record company, that’s how my And that’s how I did the album.

whole career started and this is what I do on a daily basis, monitoring my record company,

Reliable Records had a shop called Reliable

sitting on the computer, calling the distributors

Repairs. I spoke to the owner, he said, ‘I listened

asking how many have you sold, where have you

to it, I really like the album, where’s the sleeve?’

sold and then I advise them where to go and sell.

I had forgotten about the sleeve. I ran to CNA

I’m using an independent distributor now for my

and I bought the stencil and I did the sleeve, I

albums but as I realized then: the power is my

took pictures of some kids and then I just did

hands, I don’t need record companies.

This picture was taken when I was a student at Fuba in 1982.

35

This is a very recent picture which I snapped in May 2016. It’s an old ruined toilet in Kalamazoo, Boksburg..

This is the courtyard of the house where I was born. The open door on the right is where we lived.

This picture was taken early February this year (2016), in Benoni.

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A passage way leading out of the courtyard of our old house which still exists! Also taken early February of this year (2016), in Benoni.

This is a picture of an old cafe next to the primary school where I attended as a kid. It was called Benoni Indian Primary School. This picture was taken in 2000.

37

EXCERPTS FROM ‘LOAD SHEDDING: RELOADED’ PROF. HLONIPHA MOKOENA

In introducing the 2009 published book Load

times we act dejected and angry. What seems to

Shedding: Writing On and Over the Edge of South

be at stake is a social and personal evaluation

Africa, the editors Sarah Nuttall and Liz McGregor

that would satisfy both our political anxiety

make the following observation about the

and our emotional angst. I would argue that at

moment or time in which the book was published:

the core of both uncertainties is the problem of revisionism. Whether thought of as part of

“Viscerally, the national mood seemed to be

South Africa’s grand historiographical tradition

brute delight on the part of some, but the early

or a contemporary mindset, the temptation and

symptoms of a depression for many others.

seduction of historical revision seems to drive

The feeling was that we were living at the end

our preoccupation with knowing what time it is

of the dream years, at the tail end of our big

and what we should do about it. In the 1980s,

Idea, and that we would need to find a different

the Marxist revisionists challenged the liberal

form of politics and new forms of personal

discourse that had up to that point written about

resilience in order to move forward, both with

South Africa as shaped and determined by a

the life of the country and with our own lives.”

contest between regressive Afrikaner nationalism

(10)

and progressive liberalism. By showing the folly of liberal self-congratulation, the Marxist

Whether we hear this as a prescient

revisionists turned their hermeneutic gaze

prognostication or an astute apprehension, there

towards the exploitative economic relationship

is something in this 2009 statement that seems

between black labour and white capital. They

to aptly capture the year 2015. Importantly, in

argued that whether progressive or regressive,

unpacking the temporal theme of the book,

South African capitalism had always had one

the editors also pose the question, “what is

objective and that was the proletarianization

this time that we live in, and why does it feel

and extraction of black labour. The dominance

as it does?” (11-12). Things don’t seem to have

and relevance of class analysis held sway until

changed. It’s twenty one years after our first

the end of apartheid when it became apparent

democratic election and we seem to epitomize

that although the working class in South Africa

the lyrics of the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

had waged a brave struggle against capitalism,

jazz standard, we don’t know what time it was.

it had not in actuality toppled the insidious local

The confusion seems to be both a problem of

version of volkskapitalisme (people’s capitalism).

temporality and temperament. Temporally, the

In future, there will be dozens of books written

country seems to be uncertain about whether

about the denouement of the apartheid story, but

twenty one years is a long or short time; whether

what we can say for sure is that it will not be the

it is significant or minor detail and whether

story of a revolutionary wresting of power from

we should be celebrating or be morose. Our

illegitimate rulers nor will it be a narrative of the

temperament tracks these temporal registers;

triumph of class analysis. However, the lasting

at certain points we are ecstatic to be South

tradition which Marxist revisionism seems to have

African and proudly wave our flag and at other

bequeathed us is revisionism. This tendency to

38

review our history and politics with a view to the

. . . [T]wenty one years after the end of apartheid

present is not in itself a bad thing since in the

South Africans are rummaging through the

aftermath of political transition, history books do

detritus of the closing chapters of the apartheid

have to be rewritten. It does however congeal into

years searching for a “radical” re-interpretation

a habit of mind when revisionism and nostalgia

of the past. When such rummaging yields no

become synonymous.

new insights, the conclusion reached is that the reconciliation moment has run out of “steam”. In

. . . Th[e] lack of conversation about presidential

effect, as an intellectual historian, I would argue

leadership has the effect of reinforcing the

that what South African writing especially has

“Mandela magic” mythology which is now being

run out of is not “steam” but imagination. The

challenged by those who nostalgically wish

resurgence of nostalgia as a mask for revisionism

for the “revolutionary Mandela”. This brand

is a symptom of the fact that in the post-apartheid

of revisionism even has its conspiracy theory

period, South African writers have failed to write

version: I once heard someone in a taxi say that

about the moment, the contemporary, the now;

the “real” Mandela died on Robben Island and

instead, what we have tended to do is to fall

the Mandela who became president was a body

back on the familiar “logics of apartheid”. This

double. This doppelgänger reasoning is given

is despite the fact that writers such as Marlene

intellectual credibility by those who now want to

van Niekerk, Mark Gevisser and Jacob Dlamini

posit that Mandela “reconciled” too much with

have given us so much to think about. Specifically,

white people and that this was some kind of

Jacob Dlamini’s Native Nostalgia (2009) should

mistake. The reason why this revisionism is pure

have been read as an anticipatory text since

nostalgia is that it ignores the fact that the 1990s

Dlamini warns against the constant re-ignition of

– the period when Mandela is supposed to have

the “struggle” as the main trope through which

sold us out – were the most violent years of the

to understand and write about black lives. In his

South African transition. In fact, the most tense

discussion of the difference between restorative

moment of the 1990s was when Mangosuthu

(heroic) nostalgia and reflective nostalgia,

Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party threatened not

Dlamini reaches the following conclusion:

to contest the 1994 election and had to be added

39

last minute days before the first democratic

“But if nostalgia is about present anxieties,

election. Therefore, the most radical compromise

what exactly are these concerns for me?

that Mandela made was not with Afrikaner

What is it about the present that makes me

nationalism but with Zulu nationalism. The end

cherish shattered fragments of memory?

of the Mandela compromise would therefore

The book should be considered a modest

not lead to some revolutionary reorganization

contribution to ongoing attempts to rescue

of South Africa but to a resurgence of these

South African history and the telling of it

other nationalisms (ethnic and otherwise) that

from what Cherryl Walker has correctly

were dissipated by the pragmatic and pacifying

identified as the distorting master narrative

leadership of Mandela.

of black dispossession that dominates the

historiography of the struggle. The master narrative would have us believe that black South Africans, who populate struggle jargon mostly as faceless ‘masses of our people’, experienced apartheid the same way, suffered the same way and fought the same way against apartheid. That is untrue. Black South African life is as shot through with gender, class, ethnic, age and regional differences (to name only the most obvious distinctions) as life anywhere else in the world.” (Dlamini, 2009: 18).

What Dlamini’s book Native Nostalgia gave us in 2009 is a manifesto of the present, a writer’s guide of how to write about the moment. As he is at pains to explain in the book, writing about the present does not mean ignoring the past but it does mean understanding your place in that past rather than trying to vicariously live someone’s else past. I can’t think of any other summation of “writing South Africa at 21” than Jacob Dlamini’s warning against the seductive torpor of unreflective nostalgia.

40

ON BEING TAUGHT NONTOBEKO NTOMBELA

Writing a summary (or reflection) on the seminar

As I listened attentively to the story of the dog

held between artist, curator and writer, David

that has become emblematic in Koloane’s work,

Koloane and myself, as part of the VANSA

I was reminded of Njabulo Ndebele’s argument

winter school 2015 programme, has been the

about the use ‘irony’4 as a strategy towards

most difficult thing to do. It has been difficult

overcoming a system of silencing - that he argued

not because there is nothing to say about it, but

can help writers address experiences of the

because I still do not know what exactly happened

ordinary lives of South Africans (what he calls

or should I say I still don’t have the words to

“intimate knowledge”5) without turning them into

describe what transpired in that moment. To

a spectacle. His observation of the limitations

me this moment touched on a number of things,

and possibilities of some of the literary writings

some of which I suspect are going to take me

of 1980s is useful in thinking about other creative

years to understand and unpack, but perhaps

practices. They are useful in understanding how

touched on what Rangoato Hlasane described as

an artist like Koloane also uses irony to deal with

a generational conversation. And so this moment,

history’s incongruent past.

to me, became a history lesson, and a lesson where I found myself entering a classroom that I

At that moment Koloane called on us to pay

was never afforded the opportunity to learn from.

closer attention, just as Coetzee cautions us

Even though, at this moment I was occupying

to “stay attuned to the silences and deletions”

the position of convener of the seminar, I at once

of the history that remains unrecorded in the

took put the position of a student, and a student

mainstream. Such a task requires a collective

who was learning from a teacher1 who “I could

effort and by choosing to have a conversation

not have had because of the violent separation of

format, rather than a translation of his work

bodies and knowledge that was apartheid.”

2

through a presentation only by me, the hope was offer other students a chance to learn from this

This moment also brought home the realization of

extraordinary teacher. This was a rare moment,

the never-ending legacy of apartheid of just how

one that will keep us thinking for years to come.

much un- and learning one needs to do. These moments are always hard hitting. In her article ‘Practioning’ Molemo Moiloa proposes “praction” or “thinking through and making in context”

1

3

as a tool and approach towards unlearning the burdens of western art histories often

2

prescribed by the academy and to take up the task of addressing the aspirations, demands, and histories of South Africa, in ways that speak to different contexts and experiences. She compels us think about other ways of recovering and uncovering another kind of classroom?

41

3

Even though David Koloane has taught art for many years in his early career, he has only taught in spaces motivate by the circumstances of apartheid those, which were mostly informally recognised, such as FUBA (Federated Union of Black Artists Art Centre) and Thupelo workshop, but not higher education.

Writing about her experiences of teaching in London, Carli Coetzee contemplates a historical account that considers a past where “choosing our ancestors and our teachers, can create paths that can lead to … accentedness”. Accentedness she argues is about acknowledging the asymmetries between the addressee, the address and the addressed in order to deal with historical distortion and conflicting viewpoints. Coetzee, C. 2013. ‘Amazingly Accented Classroom’ in Coetzee. Accented Futures: Language Activism and the Ending of Apartheid. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 157 - 165.

Moiloa describes “practioning” as “engaging different practices simultaneously in ways that contradict, or make difficult, our initial wider opinions: a compendium of sorts, but as a whole thing, not a sum of its parts.” Molemo Moiloa, ‘Practioning,’ in Compendium, ed.

4

5

Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (Johannesburg: iThuba Art Gallery, 2014), 2–3 Describing Ndebele’s use of irony, Johan Geertsema states, “Indeed for Ndebele, restoring a sense of irony would be a precondition for moving beyond apartheid. The struggle against apartheid, which continues and aims to achieve a post-apartheid society is a struggle that involves irony… irony makes one aware of the complex truth that ‘nothing can be taken for granted’, and has a role to play in bringing readers to political consciousness by making them ‘reflect deeply on the nature and implications of their commitment’ to the struggle for liberation, thus facilitating effective and action through raising of consciousness.” Geertsema, J. 2004. ‘Ndebele, Fanon, agency and Irony. Journal of South African Studies 30(4), 749 - 763.

Ndebele, N. 2006. Rediscovery of the ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture. Scottsvilles: University of KwaZuluNatal Press.

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NTOKOZO SHEZI

Inspired by the subject of the everyday presented by the Winter School, Pops Mohamed and ‘Still Grazing’ by Hugh masekela. A compilation of South African contemporary musicians through the decades, marking various points of South African/African experience locally and abroad.

1. Pops Mohamed- So Beautiful (African Classics 2008) 2. Salif Keita - Nyanyama (Folon 1995) 3. Vieux Farka Touré - Slow Jam (Fondo 2009) 4. Jimmy Dludlu - June 16 (Portrait 2007) 5. Hugh Masekela & The Union Of South Africa Mamani (1971) 6. The Manhattan Brothers - Chaka (Colours of Africa 1948 - 1659) 7. Miriam Makeba - Jolinkomo (in Concert Live at Lincoln Centre 1967) 8. Nduduzo Makhathini - Emanqngqo (Mother Tongue 2014) 9. Simphiwe Dana - Mayine (Kulture Noir 2010) 10. Khethi - Izinyosi (Woza Moya 2014) 11. The Brother Moves On - The Mourning After (A New Myth 2013) 12. Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness (BCUC)Spiritual Train (2010) https://soundcloud.com/ntokozoshezi/afrowinter

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A STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE EVERYDAY NOMAZULU TAUKOBONG

My kind of ordinary is a South Western Sunset

So I make the proverbial stop, to caress the last

in the thick of winter, I stop by Food Zone, To

moments of sun before the day is due.

caress the last few moments of sun before the

Cards at play, Exchange and banter, something

day is due. Familiar faces, the game of cards at

icky and sticky on the grill. Warmth embraces me.

constant play, exchange of banter on basic daily existence. Warmth embraces me. The usual liver

The Biography

and whatever else sizzling on the grill, no fancy

Food Zone is a container restaurant that draws

no frills but enough to comfort the gut, and bring

contemporary youth and lifestyle enthusiasts in

hunger to slumber... and more than the physical

the heart of Soweto, Rockville. It is also the home

sustenance, I go there to feed my kind of ordinary,

of Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness (BCUC) a

Because being ordinary in my neighbourhood

seven piece ensemble from Soweto, South Africa,

is faith enacted, Chained to our daily toil of

that fuses rock, indi and indigenous sound into a

commuting, the admin of life & rent... nyaope-

unique and authentic expression of modern day

whispering rumours of sons and daughters

Soweto. As a cultural activist and change agent

morphed to zombie dust, hope and life burnt out

it earths and centers my somewhat nomadic

of their eyes, roaming the streets, feeding an

lifestyle.

insatiable appetite for scrap metal.......I love my hood but sometimes it’s hard to love.

Image credit: ‘BCUC’, Hugh Mdlalose

44

45

READING LIST

46

47

Geertsema , Johan. ‘Ndebele, Fanon, agency and irony’, Journal of Southern African Studies, (2004) 30:4, 749-763.

Mohamed, Pops. “Southern Rhythms - Episode 1.”

YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 14 May 2015.

Mokoena, Hlonipha. “Magema Fuze and His Book, Abantu Abamnyama.” Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual. Scottsville, South Africa: U of KwaZulu-Natal, 2011. 24-30.

Morphet, Tony. ‘Ordinary - Modern - Post Modern.”

Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 80 (October 1992): 129-41.

Ndebele, Njabulo S. ‘Chapter 2’ Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture. Scottsville, South Africa: U of KwaZuluNatal, 2006. 31-54.

Xaba, Makhosazana. Come, Skin Speak, My Body, Cotton Socks and Call me not a Woman of Colour in Tongues of Their Mothers. Scottsville, South Africa: U of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

Xaba, Makhosazana. ‘Running’, ‘The Weekend’ in Running & Other Stories. Athlone, South Africa: Modjaji, 2013.

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49

PARTICIPANTS

50

51

Amy Watson

Milisuthando Bongela

Ashley Whitfield

Molemo Moiloa

Ben Gapare

Niren Tolsi

Bianca Mona

Nomazulu Taukobong

Caroline Kamana

Ntokozo Shezi

Julie Tayler

Natasha Vally

Danielle Bowler

Pakama Ngceni

Dineo Bopape

Phande Liphosa

Dorothee Kreutzfeldt

Philisa Zibi

Euridice Kala

Raimi Gbadamosi

Fareed Kaloo

Robert Machiri

Fulufelo Mobadi

Rolihlahla Mhlanga

Gcobisa Ndzimande

Samara Ragaven

Gillies Baro

Shannon Ferguson

Johnny Muteba

Sheetal Magan

Kathleen Ebersohn

Sarah Godsell

Kitso Lynn Lelliot

Yanga Mantangayi

Lauren von Gogh

Steffen Fischer

Lavendhri Arumugam

Sumayya Ismail

Lloyd Geyde

Talya Lubinsky

Londiwe Langa

Tamara Arden

Meghan Judge

Usha Seejarim

Mika Conradie

Vaughn Sadie

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NOTES

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CREDITS Fulufelo Mobadi, photography Gcobisa Ndzimande, coordination Raimi Gbadamosi, Lauren von Gogh, Euridice Kala, Taryn Mackay, Success Maake, and Vaughn Sadie, consultation Oduduwa Republic, atmosphere Robyn Cook, design Molemo Moiloa and Ashley Whitfield, concept Ashley Whitfield, editor First Published in 2016

Part of VANSA’s Two Thousand and Fourteen Ways of

Being Here Project

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www.vansa.co.za