The UK Acid House movement of the late 80s is synonymous with fevered hedonism. The peace and love experience – fuelled by copious amounts of Ecstasy – and day-glo painted illegal raves, where thousands of dancers congregated in fields and warehouses. However, this youth culture scene also had an element of serious and transgressive political…
The text that is to follow- is the continuation of a conversation and speculations from a place of suspension, on the current and possible future implications of COVID-19 within South Africa’s creative and artistic industries with Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho of MADEYOULOOK. In the text that precedes it, titled Weighted suspension // conversations and…
“On moonlight nights the long, straight street and dirty white walls, nowhere darkened by the shadow of a tree, their peace untroubled by footsteps or a dog’s bark, glimmered in the pale recession. The silent city was no more than an assemblage of huge, inert cubes, between which only the mute effigies of great men,…
In Sesotho we say; “Lefu le holo ke ditsheho” —even in death or tragedy, we continue to laugh. This is counterintuitive if we view laughter as a sign of pleasure. Although it is true that we laugh when we are happy or amused, we also laugh when we are nervous, when we are scared, confused…
Code-switching is the practice of shifting the type of language you use or the way in which you express yourself, usually in the context of a single conversation. For generations, people who are multi-lingual have engaged in code-switching as a way to better express themselves. An NPR podcast by the same name—Code Switch—outlines the following…
We’ve been through something like this before. Chaos, instability, anger, collective anxiety, and fear are things we have experienced before due to a myriad of historical events that left the world shaken; and some that still have us on edge. Despite it all, in attempts to balance the scale, the universe has always countered seasons…
It is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless. About to birthed, yet already felt. Audre Lorde The work of Maneo Mohale is a family affair. An invitation to and invocation of so many of their far spread kith and kin of black and queer…
PLEASE NOTE: the piece that is to follow could be triggering as it relays scenes of explicit drug use. Please keep in mind that it is based on the life experience and subjective opinion of the author. It in no ways seeks to deter people from seeking help from and community within NA. Nor does…
“I believe in inhabiting contradictions. I believe in making contradictions productive, not in having to choose one side or the other side”. Angela Davis I feel the contradictions coursing through my body as I wait on the line for my call to be answered. They spill out all over the place, anxiously announcing themselves through…
This morning, on my way to the coffee shop I passed via Buitenkant street near the District Six Museum. In the cold light of day- men, women and children were sleeping, waking and brushing their teeth on the street. These, of course, are men, women and children who have been marked and named as refugees….
I have long since yearned to write an article on the art of tattooing, the symbolic practice. Tattoo culture today is rife, and by rife- I mean popular. The history and tradition of the “tattoo” has always fascinated me. I write here from the perspective of a tattooed person, perhaps what some might consider to…
Being queer in South Africa is complicated. Despite having one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, South African society remains rife with homophobia – and in a country where ‘corrective rape’ is common, the consequences are often physical. Overt expressions of queerness are unsafe in public, but also often in private too; pervasive…
