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
2
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’.
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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.
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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.
42
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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PARTICIPANTS
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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