Reaching sideways, writing our ways: the orientation of the arts of Africa discourse
- Simbao, Ruth K, Miko, William B, Ijisakin, Eyitayo T, Tchibozo, Romuald, Hwati, Masimba, NG-Yang, Kristin, Mudekereza, Patrick, Nalubowa, Aidah, Hyacinthe. Genevieve, Jason, Lee-Roy, Abdou, Eman, Chachage, Rehema, Tumusiime, Amanda, Sousa, Suzana, Muchemwa, Fadzai
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K , Miko, William B , Ijisakin, Eyitayo T , Tchibozo, Romuald , Hwati, Masimba , NG-Yang, Kristin , Mudekereza, Patrick , Nalubowa, Aidah , Hyacinthe. Genevieve , Jason, Lee-Roy , Abdou, Eman , Chachage, Rehema , Tumusiime, Amanda , Sousa, Suzana , Muchemwa, Fadzai
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145886 , vital:38475 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1162/AFAR_a_00341
- Description: In Rehema Chachage's video installation, Kwa Baba Rithi Undugu (2010), sculptural objects representing old-fashioned transistor radios are mounted on the wall, side by side (Fig. 1). Embedded in each radio is a small video screen, which reveals a figure who stands in one place while the vertical line of the radio tuner crosses her body in search of the desired frequency (Figs. 2–3). A man's voice wafts in and out as it is periodically interrupted by unsolicited noise, revealing the difficulty of relating to others when sound is interrupted or there is an absence of voice. Voice, writes Chachage, is a “prerequisite for interlocution and the construction of discourse.” This work engages with the assertion that to “live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree …” and to do so full heartedly with your “eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit … whole body and deeds” (Bakhtin 1984:293).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K , Miko, William B , Ijisakin, Eyitayo T , Tchibozo, Romuald , Hwati, Masimba , NG-Yang, Kristin , Mudekereza, Patrick , Nalubowa, Aidah , Hyacinthe. Genevieve , Jason, Lee-Roy , Abdou, Eman , Chachage, Rehema , Tumusiime, Amanda , Sousa, Suzana , Muchemwa, Fadzai
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145886 , vital:38475 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1162/AFAR_a_00341
- Description: In Rehema Chachage's video installation, Kwa Baba Rithi Undugu (2010), sculptural objects representing old-fashioned transistor radios are mounted on the wall, side by side (Fig. 1). Embedded in each radio is a small video screen, which reveals a figure who stands in one place while the vertical line of the radio tuner crosses her body in search of the desired frequency (Figs. 2–3). A man's voice wafts in and out as it is periodically interrupted by unsolicited noise, revealing the difficulty of relating to others when sound is interrupted or there is an absence of voice. Voice, writes Chachage, is a “prerequisite for interlocution and the construction of discourse.” This work engages with the assertion that to “live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree …” and to do so full heartedly with your “eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit … whole body and deeds” (Bakhtin 1984:293).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Rise and fall of apartheid: photography and the bureaucracy of everyday life
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147604 , vital:38653 , DOI: 10.1080/02533952.2014.998052
- Description: The exhibition catalogue Rise and Fall of Apartheid is a valuable collection of photographic images that create, according to Enwezor, “a critical visualization and interrogation of […] [apartheid’s] normative symbols, signs and representation” (18). The catalogue focuses on African subjects as “agents of their own emancipation” (18), and contextualises South Africa’s anticipation of the end of apartheid within broader global changes in the late 1980s. Essays by Okwui Enwezor, Michael Godby, Achille Mbembe, Darren Newbury, Colin Richards, Patricia Hayes, Andries Walter Olifant, Rory Bester and Khwezi Gule are included in the catalogue, and are interspersed between photographic images that are grouped in chronological clusters: 1948–1959; 1960–1969; 1970–1979; 1980–1989; and 1990–1995.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147604 , vital:38653 , DOI: 10.1080/02533952.2014.998052
- Description: The exhibition catalogue Rise and Fall of Apartheid is a valuable collection of photographic images that create, according to Enwezor, “a critical visualization and interrogation of […] [apartheid’s] normative symbols, signs and representation” (18). The catalogue focuses on African subjects as “agents of their own emancipation” (18), and contextualises South Africa’s anticipation of the end of apartheid within broader global changes in the late 1980s. Essays by Okwui Enwezor, Michael Godby, Achille Mbembe, Darren Newbury, Colin Richards, Patricia Hayes, Andries Walter Olifant, Rory Bester and Khwezi Gule are included in the catalogue, and are interspersed between photographic images that are grouped in chronological clusters: 1948–1959; 1960–1969; 1970–1979; 1980–1989; and 1990–1995.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Situating Africa: an alter-geopolitics of knowledge, or Chapungu rises
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146112 , vital:38496 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1162/AFAR_a_00340
- Description: This journal issue marks the beginning of a new partnership with African Arts as Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, joins the editorial consortium. As the National Research Foundation Chair in Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa, I will work with collaborators based largely on the African continent to produce one issue of African Arts per year. This first issue has grown out of conversations with artists, curators, and writers based in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa at a publishing workshop organized by Rhodes University, as well as an institutional collaboration with Makerere University in Uganda. It also includes a dialogue with colleagues in Tanzania, Zambia, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, the US, Uganda, and Angola/Portugal. A core goal of our work is to significantly increase the participation of authors based on the African continent as a way of strengthening our discipline with a scholarly approach that takes seriously an alter-geopolitics of knowledge as a decolonial concept (Koopman 2011; Mignolo 2002).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146112 , vital:38496 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1162/AFAR_a_00340
- Description: This journal issue marks the beginning of a new partnership with African Arts as Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, joins the editorial consortium. As the National Research Foundation Chair in Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa, I will work with collaborators based largely on the African continent to produce one issue of African Arts per year. This first issue has grown out of conversations with artists, curators, and writers based in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa at a publishing workshop organized by Rhodes University, as well as an institutional collaboration with Makerere University in Uganda. It also includes a dialogue with colleagues in Tanzania, Zambia, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, the US, Uganda, and Angola/Portugal. A core goal of our work is to significantly increase the participation of authors based on the African continent as a way of strengthening our discipline with a scholarly approach that takes seriously an alter-geopolitics of knowledge as a decolonial concept (Koopman 2011; Mignolo 2002).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The art of change: perspectives on transformation in South Africa
- Makhubu, Nomusa, Simbao, Ruth K
- Authors: Makhubu, Nomusa , Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147642 , vital:38657 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1080/09528822.2013.798180
- Description: There have been almost two decades of democracy in South Africa, yet rising anger and violent discontent lay bare continuing inequity. It is timely to ask the question: can South Africans really be frank about how meaningful the transformation from oppressive political and economic structures has been? Does the inclination towards neo-liberalism and capitalism in South Africa’s post-Apartheid democracy allow real change? Where economic inequality and spatial divisions still persist and, indeed, are actively reproduced by current market forces, can South Africans really create inclusive and integrative spaces? The Art of Change: Perspectives on Transformation in South Africa confronts some of these issues, reopening debates and encouraging reflection on cultural dynamics in South Africa during the past two decades.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Makhubu, Nomusa , Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147642 , vital:38657 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1080/09528822.2013.798180
- Description: There have been almost two decades of democracy in South Africa, yet rising anger and violent discontent lay bare continuing inequity. It is timely to ask the question: can South Africans really be frank about how meaningful the transformation from oppressive political and economic structures has been? Does the inclination towards neo-liberalism and capitalism in South Africa’s post-Apartheid democracy allow real change? Where economic inequality and spatial divisions still persist and, indeed, are actively reproduced by current market forces, can South Africans really create inclusive and integrative spaces? The Art of Change: Perspectives on Transformation in South Africa confronts some of these issues, reopening debates and encouraging reflection on cultural dynamics in South Africa during the past two decades.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
The thirtieth anniversary of the Soweto uprisings: reading the shadow in Sam Nzima's iconic photograph of Hector Pieterson
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147536 , vital:38647 , https://doi.org/10.1162/afar.2007.40.2.52
- Description: This haunting photograph (Fig. 1) from the 1976 Soweto Uprisings in South Africa is often referred to as the single most important photograph to emerge from the struggle against apartheid (Purtilo 1999:22). According to South African film director Feizel Mamdoo, there are particular moments in history that are defined by photographic, celluloid, or television images, such as the world famous photograph of the Saigon girl, naked and burning from napalm (Worsdale 1998; see also Richards 2001). He argues that the iconic photograph by Sam Nzima depicting Hector Pieterson being carried in the arms of Mbuyisa Makhubu, with his distraught sister Antionette1 running alongside, is comparable in the way that “it marks history, both social and personal” (Worsdale 1998).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147536 , vital:38647 , https://doi.org/10.1162/afar.2007.40.2.52
- Description: This haunting photograph (Fig. 1) from the 1976 Soweto Uprisings in South Africa is often referred to as the single most important photograph to emerge from the struggle against apartheid (Purtilo 1999:22). According to South African film director Feizel Mamdoo, there are particular moments in history that are defined by photographic, celluloid, or television images, such as the world famous photograph of the Saigon girl, naked and burning from napalm (Worsdale 1998; see also Richards 2001). He argues that the iconic photograph by Sam Nzima depicting Hector Pieterson being carried in the arms of Mbuyisa Makhubu, with his distraught sister Antionette1 running alongside, is comparable in the way that “it marks history, both social and personal” (Worsdale 1998).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Walking The Other Side: Doung Anwar Jahangeer
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147681 , vital:38660 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1080/09528822.2013.796204
- Description: While certain forms of mobility are romanticized in the privileged worlds of art and academia, the need to move is often triggered by vulnerability, and literal pathways on the ground reveal much about human engagement with place. This article considers the work of Mauritian-born architect/artist/performer Doung Anwar Jahangeer who is based in Durban, South Africa. Inspired by Michel de Certeau, Jahangeer argues that pathways reveal the characteristics of society and uses the act of walking to question the degree to which meaningful transformation has taken place in South Africa. His City Walk performances disclose to audiences how grounded ways of engaging with movement can challenge the metaphoric blindness that handicaps privileged movement. Focusing on his performances from the 2012 ‘Making Way’ exhibition the author interprets Jahangeer's work as challenging blind spots with regard to space, particularly partial spaces still marred by Apartheid. Through performative walking he encourages his audiences to read between the lines of road markings, cracks and signs, and to experience the power of corporeally engaging with the road by thoughtfully placing one foot in front of the other as a mode of seeing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147681 , vital:38660 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1080/09528822.2013.796204
- Description: While certain forms of mobility are romanticized in the privileged worlds of art and academia, the need to move is often triggered by vulnerability, and literal pathways on the ground reveal much about human engagement with place. This article considers the work of Mauritian-born architect/artist/performer Doung Anwar Jahangeer who is based in Durban, South Africa. Inspired by Michel de Certeau, Jahangeer argues that pathways reveal the characteristics of society and uses the act of walking to question the degree to which meaningful transformation has taken place in South Africa. His City Walk performances disclose to audiences how grounded ways of engaging with movement can challenge the metaphoric blindness that handicaps privileged movement. Focusing on his performances from the 2012 ‘Making Way’ exhibition the author interprets Jahangeer's work as challenging blind spots with regard to space, particularly partial spaces still marred by Apartheid. Through performative walking he encourages his audiences to read between the lines of road markings, cracks and signs, and to experience the power of corporeally engaging with the road by thoughtfully placing one foot in front of the other as a mode of seeing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
What "global art" and current (re)turns fail to see: a modest counter-narrative of "not-another-biennial"
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147314 , vital:38625 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC176315
- Description: What is the scope of "global art" and who drives its framing within the current climate of 'corporate globalization' (Demos 2009 : 7, emphasis in original)? In what ways do the recent global turn and curatorial turn underwrite meaningful global inclusivity and visibility, and to what degree does this globally shared art constitute mutuality? Does "global art", including the accompanying process of biennialisation, allow for local narratives in a way that seriously accounts for a geopolitical view of contemporary art in the twenty-first century? While the inclusion of "new art worlds" in what Belting, Buddensieg and Weibel (2013) term "global art" is framed as a democratisation of contemporary art and the demise of the western art canon, it is important to raise questions regarding the blind spots of this supposedly global, post-1989 expansion.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147314 , vital:38625 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC176315
- Description: What is the scope of "global art" and who drives its framing within the current climate of 'corporate globalization' (Demos 2009 : 7, emphasis in original)? In what ways do the recent global turn and curatorial turn underwrite meaningful global inclusivity and visibility, and to what degree does this globally shared art constitute mutuality? Does "global art", including the accompanying process of biennialisation, allow for local narratives in a way that seriously accounts for a geopolitical view of contemporary art in the twenty-first century? While the inclusion of "new art worlds" in what Belting, Buddensieg and Weibel (2013) term "global art" is framed as a democratisation of contemporary art and the demise of the western art canon, it is important to raise questions regarding the blind spots of this supposedly global, post-1989 expansion.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Zimbabwe mobilizes: ICAC's shift from Coup de Grăce to Cultural Coup
- Simbao, Ruth K, Chikukwa, Raphael, Ogonga. Jimmy, Bickle, Berry, Pereira, Marie H, Altass, Dulcie A, Chikowero, Mhoze, Fall, N'Goné
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K , Chikukwa, Raphael , Ogonga. Jimmy , Bickle, Berry , Pereira, Marie H , Altass, Dulcie A , Chikowero, Mhoze , Fall, N'Goné
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145665 , vital:38456 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1162/afar_a_00399
- Description: The International Conference on African Cultures (ICAC) was held at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare from September 11–13, 2017. Eight delegates write their reflections on the importance of this Africa-based event.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Simbao, Ruth K , Chikukwa, Raphael , Ogonga. Jimmy , Bickle, Berry , Pereira, Marie H , Altass, Dulcie A , Chikowero, Mhoze , Fall, N'Goné
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145665 , vital:38456 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1162/afar_a_00399
- Description: The International Conference on African Cultures (ICAC) was held at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare from September 11–13, 2017. Eight delegates write their reflections on the importance of this Africa-based event.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018