Goldsmiths Fine Art graduate Sebastian Sochan holds an instinct for emotion and material acting pivotal to praxis. Intuition becomes a response to space and emotion. “I associate certain objects, human behaviours, personality traits and qualities to specific colours, shapes, textures, and forms. I have my own language where I strongly feel about certain materials corresponding…
The Cape Town based clothing brand Brahsse’s creator Shakoer Baderoen uses fashion as a means of “looking for a way forward”. Having attended Stellenbosch to study transport, economics and logistics, there was a lot of racial tension during his undergraduate years from 2014. He was a part of the house committee at his residence and…
We write our stories with the medium of the body, unearth a beginning, middle and end through movement and infuse them with raw emotions and explosive live percussion – Lua Shayenne The beauty and strength of black women expressed through dance is explored in Ronan Mckenzie’s solo exhibition MOVE. The exhibition is a development of…
A statement on the political responsibility of the critic: the critic must attempt to fully realize, and take responsibility for, the unspoken, unrepresented pasts that haunt the historical present. ― Homi K. Bhabha Upright and poised, the uniformed gaze of Keyala Soldiers stands at attention, peppered throughout the central exhibition space, their cut-out forms are largely…
Vast Creatives describe themselves as stylists, curators and creatives brought together through friendship. By adding photographer Seve Maslamoney to the mix a fully-fledged creative expression emerged. Describing their journey to finding their collective, the team tells me that it all began through their love of thrift with people often commenting that they should be stylists,…
The settler makes history and is conscious of making it. And because he constantly refers to the history of his mother country, he clearly indicates that he himself is the extension of that mother-country. Thus the history which he writes is not the history of the country which he plunders but the history of his…
My queer African body is not an apology! – Kieron Jina Internationally renowned South African Performance Artist, Activist and Academic Kieron Jina collaborated with a number of artists from both Germany and South Africa to create the theatre performance piece ‘The Rise of the African Queer’. A creative force consisting of performance artists, sound…
Faced with the collective forgetting, we must strive to remember – Reni Eddo-Lodge Scents that saunter from the kitchen as an embracing invitation. Calling to commune over bubbling broths dosed with handfuls of herbs. The rich hues of curry concoctions and turmeric tinges. The taste of Sunday afternoon. Cape Town-based artist Lemeeze Davids explores notion,…
You are guardian of a treasure, Oh, just like a sleeping serpent And you shall see, I shall make you Spin around like that sleepy snake. ― Rumi Blue pigment stains the surface of ghostly white shadows. Empty sockets witness while tongues are tied in unspoken secrets. Things Left Unsaid is Olivia Botha’s solo show…
A Black Aesthetic: A view of South African Artists (1970 -1990) presented by Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg revisits the art collection of the University of Fort Hare. Exhibited for the first time since 1992 outside of the Eastern Cape, the collection holds one of the country’s most expansive assemblages of Black South African artists working…
In the Yoruba language, Dúdús, means “negro, black or dark”—black as the complete absence or complete absorption of light—transcendental and ineffable. It is also the name from which the digital platform Projeto Dúdús takes its title. A creation of visual artist and activist Gabriel Hilair, Projeto Dúdús (now a collective with members Guilherme Teixeira, Mayara…
What is the colonial wound you have to heal from? These are all the wounds infringed by patriarchy and racism, in all walks of life. Patriarchy and racism are two pillars of Eurocentric knowing, sensing, and believing. – Walter Mignolo Decolonial theorist Walter Mignolo speaks to the importance of having decolonial options as a means…
