Rituals are the bedrock of our sense-making in this world….they help us regulate emotions, our goal/performance states, and our connection to other people. Kursat Ozenc It is with this sentiment on rituals that I approached five creative practitioners; Byron Fredericks, Refilwe Nkomo, Helena Uambembe, Simnikiwe Buhlungu and Tazmé Pillay. I wanted to get a sense of…
Fiction and art go side by side. One doesn’t depend on the other, however, I do think they become more beautiful the closer they exist to one another. In their junctions, the imagination is provoked and the ability to invent and create becomes clear. All this leads us to great capacities of significance and meaning…
It’s a long way to Gwadana; a place where tongues are long, clouds are neon, bellies are round, hills are pink and tails are chariots. As you travel along the edge, a tender song of melodies is set free. Mystery engulfs and fantasy captivates. Behind every hill lies an absurd universe. The mythology of witchcraft…
Everything that has happened in the world is a part of history, however, it is not necessarily in History. What we are taught and told is filtered through the perspective of those who are doing the teaching and telling — and these are often individuals in privileged positions. This, ultimately reflects how and what we…
I’ve often thought—in some sense—that there is something in Ngadi Smart’s work and artistic practice that both says something about and disrupts tidy notions of home. Less so in the actual conceptual and material articulation of her work but more so in the human vessel the work is mediated through being Ngadi herself and the…
Between the mirror and the self-portrait; there is a great abyss. Like still life, portraits and self-portraits are great classics in art history. Portraits were commissioned by people of great importance — and who could afford to do so — to mark their presence in the history of families and monarchies. Just as artists would…
Love for Moguls was a rose. Love for Mowglis, like us, is a poppy. A love smuggled across borders authorities tried stopping. First brown people we dated, self-hatred almost stopped it. Maybe it’s the thorns that I love, the cuts toughen the skin — I need to struggles to win so it’s the war that…
At times we are a little selfish where our experiences and sensitivity are concerned. I recognised this as soon as I was little, when I started playing the piano. I always valued my own experience, my own perfectionism. I should be very clear and exact to myself. Time, of course, passes by — and rightly…
What an extraordinary and disruptive year we have had to date. While most of us long for normalcy, I suspect we would be better served by embracing much of our new normal. During this time of Covid-19, hosting a film festival in a physical theatre would most likely have limited appeal. So this year, the…
Picós [have] served as communal entertainment for Colombians in coastal areas, where a majority of the country’s black population lives. The culture of the sound systems have always embraced and promoted African music and, as FACT Mag points out, ‘played a vital role in building a collective diasporan identity for many Afro-Colombians living in a…
Sculptural disciplines are most associated with the weight and heaviness of dense materials, expertly carved or rendered to create an artwork depicted as a third dimensional expression – present in the spaces we inhabit from varying tangible angles. Korean sculptor Do Ho Suh defies all notions of attachments to sedimentary materials, employing instead, the tactile…
Khumo Sebambo is a writer and curator whose work has emphasised collaboration and a deep knowledge of the artists she has worked with throughout her growing career. Her practice as a curator explores collective memory, nostalgia, popular culture and includes a special interest in textile arts. This is the foundation for her engagement with art….
