Themes around identity and gender emerge in Tracey Rose’s work as she examines, probes and dismembers social history. Rose’s artistic practice includes video installations and photography, but she is mostly known for her performance art. The term performance art gained momentum in the 1970s. It represented a departure from the “traditional materials of canvas, brush…
2019 sees the second edition of the Human Rights Festival at Constitution Hill. In order to uphold a culture of human rights, the Festival acts as a signature event at this historic site. This year the festival will coincide with the country’s celebration of 25 years of democracy and the 70th Year of the Universal…
Helena Uambembe’s practice is personal and particular. As an interdisciplinary artist, she uses performance, photography and printmaking to recreate and reposition the history of the 32 Battalion —the infantry Battalion of the South African Army Founded in 1975. Uambembe draws on her own history rooted in the small North Western Town of Pomfret, where she…
Da ideia a chama já consome / A crosta bruta que a soterra – The flame of the idea already burns away / the rough burying crust (from the third and fourth lines of the first stanza of the Portuguese version of ‘The International’ socialist anthem). From a post located near the Santo Antônio Bus…
Refuse to be the Muse. This is a powerful and expressive statement. This is also the title for a month-long campaign running in connection with Women’s History Month by one of the leading online galleries, Saatchi Art. The campaign has a celebratory tone layered with a sense of defiance, and aims to encourage female artist…
Born in the small village of Nordanå in the south of Sweden, Stockholm based artist Maria Johansson completed her MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design in 2009. Her studies were presented as an amalgamation between design and art which shines through in praxis. The current artist in…
The visual collaboration titled NO BAD HAIR is a testimony to the generating power that can come from acting on spontaneity and creative impulses. Founder of street style brand Born Out Of Boredom Shakes Mbolekwana shared with me how the concept for the project evolved from a simple desire to receive a free hairstyle from…
Created over a weekend at the Durban International Film Festival in July 2018 Film Festival Film by the Medu African Film Ensemble takes as its narrative the navigation of the strange landscape of a film festival as seen through the eyes of Fanon a black female filmmaker. Shot in both a fiction and documentary style…
Curator Carlyn Strydom has been active in the heritage and arts sector for 7 years. Her own story in curatorship is tied to the development of the What is South Africa, even? project. Carlyn began her journey at the Holocaust Centre in Cape Town after she completed her first degree. An appreciation for how to…
Source Code Gallery curated by Fak’ugesi Festival and hosted by the Tshimologong Innovation Precinct is a digital arts and creative technology showcase and development gallery. Their temporary location at Tshimologong will launch in March 2019. The gallery’s tester programme features a monthly programming showcase that delves deeper into invigorating topics relative to creative technology practices…
South African artist Neo Matloga is one of three artists (together with Funda Gül Özcan and Lonneke van der Palen) nominated for the Volkskrant Fine Art Prize 2019. The twelfth iteration of the art prize is organised by Stedelijk Museum, Dutch daily newspaper Volkskrant and Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS. The art prize is accompanied by a…
‘Skate Value’ is a documentary series by Bushkoppies which looks into the people behind skate. I had a chat with Kopano Lichaba about the project: Where did the idea come from to make this series? How long have you been doing this and how many episodes are there at this point? The idea came…
