It must have been a random evening of mindless scrolling through my Instagram gallery when I suddenly received one of those incredibly annoying notifications of a livestream by someone I forgot I followed. Except, this time, I clicked in with full excitement after noticing that it was a SCCA Tamale live. The Savannah Centre for…
I’ve been thinking a lot about the work of Igshaan Adams in relation to Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. Using abstraction to guide him, Marx became well known as one of the most influential architects but for his work as a painter, ecologist and naturalist in the region. The patterns and intricate images of…
A dreaded J. Cole and an old Nelson Mandela stand side by side, with Nelson looking off into the distance wearing a light canary yellow Puma tracksuit in towelling fabric — gold chains to tow. The caption, a J. Cole quote, reads, “One thing for sure if you ain’t aim too high, then you aim…
It’s Black History Month in the United States, which presents Americans and the world at large an opportunity to learn more about historically minimised portions of a history that colour the present day existence of folks in the US and even worldwide. However, while most are detached from investigations of black history in the US,…
Warning: This article contains sensitive content that some may find graphic and explicit Recently, I came across some texts and reflections on the work of Clarice Lispector. The celebrated author produced most of her work in Brazil, where she lived from the age of two until her death in 1977. Born in the Ukraine, Clarice…
From the most traditional to the most current, modern and complex, Brazilian art is made up of various names. There are those in museums like the Moma and the Tate to those exhibiting in fairs or small galleries around the world. Art is vast and it only takes a few words to make it recognisable…
There are some factors and concepts that make more and more sense in a post-colonial and especially post-slavery society. Remembering that we are still a long way from those societies completely, I can say that we are at the beginning of the journey. One of the most important factors for this change to happen is…
The term ‘machinima’ describes the use of real time computer graphics engines to create cinematic productions. Machinima is a portmanteau of the words “machine” and “cinema” and is one of the more practical examples of collaboration between technology and longform art. I came across this term and description as I was researching film director Sheetal…
There’s an age old expression which states that, “a picture can communicate 1000 words.” So often, our words fail us. Even more often, we as a people have been failed by words left unsaid. We as a people who have been pushed to the periphery or have had our histories written for us, if written…
*This essay forms part of Bubblegum’s Collaboration with Bag Factory and their visiting curator from Uganda, EM Mirembe. There are two types of rulers: the artist who provides and sustains the fundamental ideas, the foundation of society; and the political chieftain, who comes to power with the aid of his soldier and rich business brethren who merely puts…
How are we to understand the time we are living in? This essay is written in the present tense about a tense present. The present is indeed tense! It is Marked by racial injustice, fraught debates about identity, and a global pandemic. W.J.T Mitchell, Present Tense: Time, Madness and Democracy. We can speculate on the…
*This essay forms part of Bubblegum’s Collaboration with Bag Factory and their visiting curator from Uganda, EM Mirembe. Reader, writer and PhD candidate Mapule Mohulatsi reads R. Daniels‘ artwork The Dreamer, in Medindi Manor with meditations on wakefulness. This is about a sleeping, possibly dead, black woman I met at a Cape Town lodge where the…
