There is a New Year’s Eve I remember vividly like the afterglow of a fireworks display. I was very young, barely five, enjoying the newfound victory of staying up until “Happy New Year”. I stood in the fog created by the multiple braai-stands, mystified by the happenings of black joy that intensified with every song…
Stacks of time-stained pages – riffled and rummaged through. Transactions marked only by an undiscovered paper trail. Complicit in ink. Characters emerge from oblique connections, layered in relations as narratives spill forth as the archive bears its secrets. Denise Bertschi engages with a research-centric art practice. Often her extensive research process is initially sparked by…
It is quite fitting that basic ideas that make up South Africa’s constitution are also the slogans that have become so closely tied to the core of the AFROPUNK festival and the online platform – “No Sexism, No Racism, No Ableism, No Ageism, No Homophobia, No Fatphobia, No Transphobia and No Hatefulness”. Considering that the…
The digital age has shaped and re-shaped various aspects of the human experience. With the internet came access to vast amounts of data, online shopping, app creation and social media platforms to name but a fraction of the elements that define our existence. Social media is at the crux of it all and is changing…
Fashion. Art. Music. These are three creative spheres that are often intertwined with one another. The Art’Press Yourself festival, organized by the agency DARAJA CONCEPT, took place in Paris on 3-4 November, and aptly represented this intersection. Described as an afro-urban festival, designers, filmmakers and artists with roots spreading across Europe and Africa were brought…
In the hustle and bustle of a metropolis like Johannesburg, it makes sense that there’s way more going on than one might expect. Partly to blame perhaps is the overbearing presence of the monstrously modernist buildings that make up the CBD, or perhaps it’s the city’s disjointedness stemming from Apartheid days which separated and segregated…
Estudio Cinco is a group of four young thinkers within the field of architecture. There interest in abandoned urban spaces in their hometown, Maputo, led them to conceptualize a way to bring new life to these forgotten areas. With an understanding of cinema as an art form that can allow people to connect on an…
AFROPUNK. A movement that has multiple branches, from its online platform to the festival to a series of collaborative projects. A seed was planted 13 years ago in the mind of Matthew Morgan, the co-founder of AFROPUNK, when the screening of the documentary Afro-punk gathered an intimate group of black kids who shared an interest…
Director Lebogang Rasethaba and producer Jasmyn Asvat teamed up together to create a one hour long film commissioned by MTV/MTV Base titled The People vs Patriarchy which explores the lived experiences as a result of patriarchy. Jasmyn explained that this film was aimed at young people, with the intention of getting people to have conversations about…
“This led me to only focus on how this makes women feel – about themselves, about their bodies, about their spaces in society and about the ways in which they (including myself) are constantly trying to negotiate spaces.” In a #metoo world, where the imminent threat of violation and violence reverberates through each pavement-step you…
Nikola Vasakova is the founder of Girl in Film (GiF). Working as a video producer in London, she knew a lot of women who worked in film in different positions but they all did not know each other. Nikola expressed that it can be quite isolating being a womxn in the film industry, so she…
Nkateko Masinga, like with most writers and poets, her writing stems from her passion for reading. Going to the local library with her older sister was her favourite pastime growing up. However, she always felt as though there was something missing in the books she was exposed to. “Girls who lived like me,” Masinga explained….
