MIXED SPACE // delving into the blind spots in South Africa’s racial conversations

“So…What are you?”

The short film MIXED SPACE by Zara Julius looks into the experiences of middle class, mixed race individuals, teasing out the questions they have received from others and the ones they hold within themselves. The film draws on Zara’s own experience as a mixed race individual. South Africa has a complex and violent history around race, with the four Apartheid racial categories still firmly embedded within people’s interpretative frameworks used when interacting with other people. In the film we see participants reflect on the moments they first had to look at themselves through the societal lens, and the encounters they had which forced them to do so at a young age. Interviewees speak candidly about the violent questions and inferences they have tried to process throughout their lives, as well as share their points of reference for their racial identities in the past, the reasons why they were able to identify with them then, and perhaps not now. We see raw discussions around other people transposing their discomfort, confusion or curiosity on to their bodies through stares and claims about what they look like. This film delves deeply into issues around racial categorization and the “blind spots” in South Africa’s racial conversations. The film is also a space for self-identification.

Having directed, filmed and edited the film herself, in our interview Zara explained that her background in Social Anthropology has formed an important foundation for her methodologically and has allowed her to see the value in investing in a long term project.

While the short film MIXED SPACE has only recently come to life, the foundations for it began a few years ago with a series of focus groups in her apartment. At the time Zara did not anticipate that these would manifest into a film. In these discussions participants would share their experiences of what it is like to grow up being mixed race or racially ambiguous. Zara recorded these focus groups. In between the chats, tears and laughter, and being mixed race herself, Zara felt as though there was something powerful in the way that people were opening up about how they grew up, the questions they have had to face, as well as the unpacking of racial categorization. This feeling was coupled with a desire to do something visual.

She started working on a photo series which involved asking participants where they would like to be photographed, giving them the ability to control how they are represented and the objects they would like to appear in the frame. While working on this photo series she started thinking about the idea for a film, and shot a pilot of the film with one of the participants in the project. Interest around the film has snowballed and has become a lot larger than Zara anticipated, and she is pleasantly surprised.

The experiences that the participants in the film share speak to understanding and unpacking racial injustice. They share the pain, violence and exhaustion that comes from macro level racial categorization as well as micro gestures that influence the way in which mixed race people have to try and navigate space and interactions with other people.

Directing, filming and editing the film herself allowed the moments with the participants to feel conversational, and well as a form of her coming to terms with the questions and experiences that she has had throughout her life.

Zara finds it important for her work to be interdisciplinary, and so the first screening of MIXED SPACE at the AVA Gallery in Cape Town was presented to audiences as an art installation. In discussion about this choice, Zara expressed that she “really wants to be able to make work that makes sense in a gallery space, but also in an academic space, as well as a populous space or like a non-hierarchical space. [It should be] applicable to all those areas”.

The second screening took place Goldsmiths College in London. Keleketla! Library in Johannesburg will also host a screening of MIXED SPACE on the 6th of July.

Credits:

Zara Julius – director, producer, cinematographer and editor

Daniel Gray – music

The film features:

Kyla Phil – film maker and performer

Brian Kamanzi – writer, decolonial thinker, engineer, educationist

Qiniso van Damme – model, actress, socially major

Alexandria Hotz – decolonial thinker, activist

Kenny Morifi-Winslow – influencer, fashion anthropologist

Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh – author, political analyst, hip-hop artist

Meghan Ho Tong – architect

Sekh-Fei De Lacy – brand strategist, photographer, videographer