Thinking Through, Talking Back: Creative Theorisation as Sites of Praxis-Theory
Creative Theorisation Panel from left: Dr Betty Govinden, Prof Neelika Jayawardene, Dr Sharlene Khan, Dr Yvette Abrams, Prof Pumla Dineo Gqola.
Art on our Mind panel discussion with Dr Sharlene Khan, Prof Pumla Dineo Gqola, Dr Yvette Abrahams, Prof Neelika Jayawardane and Dr Betty Govinden held as part of the the Colloquium ‘Six Mountains on her back’ (Re)reading African Feminisms at Rhodes University, 21-22 July 2017
An excerpt of the panel discussion was published by Dr Sharlene Khan in Agenda – Empowering women for gender equity 32:3, 2018 entitled: “Thinking Through, Talking Back: Creative Theorisation as Sites of Praxis-Theory” – A creative dialogue between Sharlene Khan, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Yvette Abrahams, Neelika Jayawardane and Betty Govinden. [pdf]
Curating as World-Making panel (from left): Sharlene Khan, Nomusa Makhubu, Nontobeko Ntombela, Same Mdluli, Nkule Mabaso and Zodwa Skeyi-Tutani.
Art on our Mind creative dialogue: Curating as World-Making
Sharlene Khan in conversation with curators Nkule Mabaso, Nomusa Makhubu, Same Mdluli, Nontobeko Ntombela, Zodwa Tutani on the possibilities and challenges in visual arts curation in South Africa (panelists’ biographies below). The discssuion took place in context of Afems 2018 conference ‘The Mute Always Speak’: (Re) imagining and re-imaging feminist futures on 28 September 2018.
VIDEO: Curating as World-Making panel discussion
AUDIO: Curating as World-Making panel discussion
TRANSCRIPT: Curating as World-Making panel discussion
Vuyile C Voyiya; Julie L McGee (2003) The luggage is still labeled : blackness in South African art. Documentary film, 60 mins.
Smithonian Libraries Modern African Art: A Basic Reading List “For South African artists of color the demise of apartheid did not radically change access or attitudes. Separateness and difference still divide the contemporary art world into black and white. Black artists are beginning to take on some of these issues – – access, recognition, education. Despite initiatives such as Vakalisa (“Awake”), the Community Arts Project, or BLAC art project, South African artists of color are still disadvantaged. Formal art education, which was not available to artists of color in the apartheid days, remains an elitist enterprise with little collegial support. Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town has not yet shaken off its institutional racism in terms of student intake, faculty recruitment, or Eurocentric curriculum. Art criticism is similarly biased against artists of color. Old paradigms persist, e.g., “township art” or “black art.” Artists are still pigeon-holed. Freedom of artistic expression has not really arrived. Where are the black art critics? The South African National Gallery (SANG), formidable, unwelcoming, admits to huge gaps in its collections. Artists of color perceive SANG as another white bastion not yet breached. They feel that SANG is not interested in them and their work. To explore these issues of race and access the filmmakers conducted interviews with several South African artists and players on the art scene. Among those on camera are Peter E. Clarke, Garth Erasmus, Thembinkosi Goniwe, Zayd Minty, Gavin Younge, David Koloane, Mgcineni Sobopha, Berni Searle, Lallitha Jawahirilal, Gabisile Ngcobo, Moshekwa Langa, Graham Faulken, Marilyn Martin, the director of SANG, and writer Lionel Davis.”
Publications and interviews featuring Reshma Chhiba
Screaming, walk-in vagina at a former women’s prison
AFP news agency, 30 August 2013
A walk-in vagina has been installed at Johannesburg’s old women’s jail, to celebrate women’s month. Visitors are invited to enter the art work to a soundtrack of screaming and laughter, which represents the Hindu Goddess Kali.
Press articles and interviews featuring Senzeni Marasela
Khan, S. (2017) Under the influence of … ‘Covering Sarah’: exorcising the trauma of colonialism and racism. The Conversation, 9 March.
[download pdf here]
Passchier, Shmerah (2021) The Portfolio: Virtual-reality filmmaker Shelley Barry. Mail & Guardian 2 April 2021. Available online here [download pdf here]
Motsa, Sihle (2020) ‘Scars Should also be Crowned’: reflecting on Shelley Barry’s cinematic oeuvre. Africa South Art Initiative(ASAI). Available online here [dowload pdf here]
Staff Writer (2018) Paralysed by gangs. Fighting back with film. Beautiful News [download pdf here]
Staff Writer (2018) How Barry’s disability never stopped her from making wonderful films. TimesLive, 28 March 2018. Available online here [download pdf here]
O’Reilly, Athina (2018) Film industry honour for ex-PE women. The Herald, 27 March 2018. Available online here [download pdf here]
Staff Writer (2015) Cape Town’s fearless females. A look at six trailblazing Mother City ladies.Cape Town Magazine [download pdf here]
Staff Writer (2015) Feminist Filmmaker Meets Boss Bitch Rapper. The Journalist, 16 June 2015. Available online here [download pdf here]
Staff Writer (2015) Reader Profile – Scars, the body, survival…love for life. Rolling Inspiration. [download pdf here]
Against All Odds. Award winning film-maker Shelly Barry reaches remarkable heights. ENCA 21 August 2013. Watch here, or here.
Great Texts: Shelley Barry. GIPCA Projects 2010 (Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts, now ICA) at UCT, 14 October 2010.
Filmmaker Shelley Barry will speak about her experiences and experiments in making films from a wheelchair and screen extracts of several short films in different genres reflecting on her process of creativity and production: Extracts will include, among others, a trilogy – Whole-A Trinity of Being, a documentary recounting survival of one of South Africa’s lesser-known wars, namely the ‘taxi wars’; Inclinations – a writer struggles to write erotica and deal with her personal life; Where are my heels? – a tribute to the spirit of a young girl child and Str/oll – a wheelchair user navigates the streets of Manhattan. Find the content online: http://www.ica.uct.ac.za/GIPCA/projects/2010/GTBQSBarry
Listen to the presentation here:
Kgaboesele, Kitso (2006) Triumph. Shelley Barry – Trauma: Paralysed in a taxi shooting. Passion: Making real-life movies. Femina Issues 2517-2520.
You know that saying ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?’ Look at what these three women made from their traumatic experiences
Lallitha Jawahirilal at the Matri Sadan Ashram Ganga Ghat, south Haridwar, India in 2019. Image courtesy of the artist
Lallitha Jawahirilal (b. 1955, Ladysmith) is a South African visual artist, who enrolled at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London in 1984 and graduated with a BA Degree in 1987. She continued to study at the Royal College of Art London where she graduated with an MA degree in 1989. She collaborated with South African exile writers, musicians, sculptors, painters and photographers in the UK and engaged in fundraising efforts for to support the anti-apartheid movement, and participated in group exhibitions, including the ‘Artists Against Apartheid’ exhibition in the Upper Street Gallery. She held solo exhibitions at the Africa Centre in Stockholm, Gallery 21 in Johannesburg and the Galerie Trapez in Berlin. In 1990, she was awarded a residency by the Delfina Studios Trust in London. Jawahirilal won the Discerning Eye Award in 1991 and the Pollack Krasner Award in 1992.
Her work deals with space as a deeply embedded construct in one’s psyche during exile. Jawahirilal fled apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and went into self-imposed exile in London where she then took up her art studies, continuously engaging her contradictory feelings towards her home country (and especially her home town of Ladysmith) which wavers between deep loving emotion, on-going conflict and in some senses, a feeling of spiritual entanglement with her place of birth. Using her own poetry and mixed media (painting and collage), Jawahirilal’s Oh South Africa(1980, 2011) series reflects her longing for her home during her time away in London, but also since 2004 when she took up permanent residence in India.
Career Fine Art Lecturer at the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa (1994-2000) Master Degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (1989) Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honours at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London (1987)
Selected Awards
1994 Elizabeth Foundation Award, United States of America [view pdf here] 1992 Pollock Krasner Award, United States of America [view pdf here] 1991 Discerning Eye Award, Mall Galleries, London 1989-90 African Education Trust Award, London
CREATIVE DIALOGUE
Art on Mind Creative Dialogue with Lallitha Jawahirilal on 10 October 2019 at The Point of Order Project Space, Wits School of the Arts, Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa (sponsored by the NRF Thutuka Fund and Wits University).
AUDIO: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Lallitha Jawahirilal
TRANSCRIPT: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Lallitha Jawahirilal
Artist photo provided on website lebohangkganye.co.za
Lebohang Kganye is an artist living and working in Johannesburg. Kganye received her introduction to photography at the Market Photo Workshop in 2009 and completed the Advanced Photography Programme in 2011. She also completed her Fine Arts studies at the University of Johannesburg in 2016. Kganye forms a new generation of contemporary South African photographers.
Although primarily a photographer, Kganye’s photography often incorporates her interest in sculpture and performance. Over the past seven years she has participated in photography masterclasses and group exhibitions locally and internationally. Kganye was the recipient of the Tierney Fellowship Award in 2012, leading to her exhibition Ke Lefa Laka. She created an animation from the series, which was launched on Mandela Day 2014 in Scotland, entitled Pied Piper’s Voyage. Kganye was selected as the Featured Artist for the 17th Business and Arts South Africa Awards in 2014. She was also awarded the Jury Prize at the Bamako Encounters Biennale of African Photography in 2015 and was the recipient of the CAP Prize 2016 in Basel. Kganye received the coveted award for the Sasol New Signatures Competition 2017, leading to a solo show in 2018. Kganye’s work forms part of several private and public collections, most notably the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pennsylvania and the Walther Collection in Ulm.
CREATIVE DIALOGUE
Lebohang Kganye and Sharlene Khan at The Point of Order, Johannesburg on 9 May 2019.
AUDIO: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Lebohang Kganye
TRANSCRIPT: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Lebohang Kganye
Mamela Nyamza was born and bred in Gugulethu township, near Cape Town in South Africa. From a tender age of 8 years whilst learning Ballet at the Zama Dance School in Gugulethu, Nyamza, knew from the onset that, her love of body movement will eventually bring both prejudice and prestige to her career as a dance-theatre performing artist. Consistently ridiculed by her childhood peers for her athletic built toned body, to the ultimate rebuke and rejection of her natural body structure by her classical Ballet Teachers at tertiary level, Nyamza inevitably was drawn to the politics of the body.
