The iQhiya collective is a group of 11 young black women artists from Cape Town and Johannesburg, formed in 2015 following the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa. The name iQhiya refers to the traditional Xhosa headscarf representing togetherness. The collective provides a space for shared experiences and exploring vulnerabilities. As black women, iQhiya members acknowledge the violence they face and vow to create work addressing this issue. Their varied art forms including performance, photography, and video offer a window into the often hidden imagination of black women.
At Rollins College, Julian Chambliss led a project that used community-based research to promote faculty dialogue and enhance student learning. Using former Rollins College faculty member Zora Neale Hurston as an orienting subject, this project brought multiple departments together under the banner of the Africa and African-American Studies (AAAS) Program to examine local history and culture. The project facilitated the inclusion of African-American content into participating classes using details of Hurston’s work as author, anthropologist, and her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, as a vehicle to delve deeper into the disciplinary focus of each the participating class. Culminating in an online repository of material, this project leveraged technology, archival research, and community resources to promote greater engagement.
At Rollins College, Julian Chambliss led a project that used community-based research to promote faculty dialogue and enhance student learning. Using former Rollins College faculty member Zora Neale Hurston as an orienting subject, this project brought multiple departments together under the banner of the Africa and African-American Studies (AAAS) Program to examine local history and culture. The project facilitated the inclusion of African-American content into participating classes using details of Hurston’s work as author, anthropologist, and her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, as a vehicle to delve deeper into the disciplinary focus of each the participating class. Culminating in an online repository of material, this project leveraged technology, archival research, and community resources to promote greater engagement.
Re-imagining inter-cultural collaborations: perspectives from India, Canada a...Victoria Durrer
Ruhi Jhunjhunwala, MA Goldsmiths, University of London and Amy Walker, Executive Director of Highlight Arts, shared their perspectives on collaborating in international arts and cultural projects at Intercultural Relations in Arts and Cultural Management Practice, the fourth seminar of an AHRC funded research network, Brokering Intercultural Exchange: Interrogating the Role of Arts and Cultural Management. The network is based at Queen's University Belfast (PI Victoria Durrer) in partnership with Heilbronn University (Co-I Raphaela Henze) www.managingculture.net
Photography project in which girls and young women who have been rescued from sexual slavery and forced labor are taught about the importance of images as a way of expressing oneself, as well as several techniques and styles of photography. At the end of the workshop, participants will collaborate with professional photographers in order to portray the feelings, ideas, or stories that the young women have developed during the workshop.
World Bridge Project - Electronic Press KitVan Jazmin
West Coast visual artists journey to Senegal on a mission to spread the joys of midwifery, art, music and education.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1837630429/1597096128?token=59590d86
Remebering the Role of Women in South Africa through DialogueDr Lendy Spires
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, hosted the Malibongwe dialogue to highlight the continuing struggle for gender equality and to act as a catalyst to encourage action on issues raised. It was also an opportunity to salute all women who have struggled against inequality. We need to ensure that the struggles of the past were not waged in vain. The organisers were spurred by a call by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on International Women’s Day, March 8 2007. The dialogue featured some of the valiant women from the struggle alongside a new generation of women engaged in continuing the struggle for justice today. Those brave efforts by South African women remain fresh in our memory, giving rationale to the Centre of Memory and Dialogue’s proposition to host both an exhibition (initially displayed at the Apartheid Museum) depicting women’s struggles, and to share these experiences with the generations after them. This exhibition and dialogue established a connection between those past struggles and the efforts of women today, while not forgetting the role of men. It is hoped that the dialogue gave a renewed sense of urgency to various initiatives aimed at bringing the country closer to gender equality. FOREWORD ACHMAT DANGOR The Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) seeks to contribute to a just society by promoting the vision and work of its Founder and convening dialogue around critical social issues. Our Founder, Nelson Mandela, based his entire life on the principle of dialogue, the art of listening and speaking to others; it is also the art of getting others to listen and speak to each other.
Re-imagining inter-cultural collaborations: perspectives from India, Canada a...Victoria Durrer
Ruhi Jhunjhunwala, MA Goldsmiths, University of London and Amy Walker, Executive Director of Highlight Arts, shared their perspectives on collaborating in international arts and cultural projects at Intercultural Relations in Arts and Cultural Management Practice, the fourth seminar of an AHRC funded research network, Brokering Intercultural Exchange: Interrogating the Role of Arts and Cultural Management. The network is based at Queen's University Belfast (PI Victoria Durrer) in partnership with Heilbronn University (Co-I Raphaela Henze) www.managingculture.net
Photography project in which girls and young women who have been rescued from sexual slavery and forced labor are taught about the importance of images as a way of expressing oneself, as well as several techniques and styles of photography. At the end of the workshop, participants will collaborate with professional photographers in order to portray the feelings, ideas, or stories that the young women have developed during the workshop.
World Bridge Project - Electronic Press KitVan Jazmin
West Coast visual artists journey to Senegal on a mission to spread the joys of midwifery, art, music and education.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1837630429/1597096128?token=59590d86
Remebering the Role of Women in South Africa through DialogueDr Lendy Spires
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, hosted the Malibongwe dialogue to highlight the continuing struggle for gender equality and to act as a catalyst to encourage action on issues raised. It was also an opportunity to salute all women who have struggled against inequality. We need to ensure that the struggles of the past were not waged in vain. The organisers were spurred by a call by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on International Women’s Day, March 8 2007. The dialogue featured some of the valiant women from the struggle alongside a new generation of women engaged in continuing the struggle for justice today. Those brave efforts by South African women remain fresh in our memory, giving rationale to the Centre of Memory and Dialogue’s proposition to host both an exhibition (initially displayed at the Apartheid Museum) depicting women’s struggles, and to share these experiences with the generations after them. This exhibition and dialogue established a connection between those past struggles and the efforts of women today, while not forgetting the role of men. It is hoped that the dialogue gave a renewed sense of urgency to various initiatives aimed at bringing the country closer to gender equality. FOREWORD ACHMAT DANGOR The Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) seeks to contribute to a just society by promoting the vision and work of its Founder and convening dialogue around critical social issues. Our Founder, Nelson Mandela, based his entire life on the principle of dialogue, the art of listening and speaking to others; it is also the art of getting others to listen and speak to each other.
1. BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS / iQHIYA (STAFF WRITER: MLR)
BYT
no.94
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
In the months following the launch of the
#RhodesMustFall movement (March 2015)
in South Africa, we’ve seen wave after wave
of student activism that has brought with it
a shift towards radical social and economic
change in the country. Established in May
2015, the iQhiya collective is a direct result
of these stirred-up conversations. With
roots in both Cape Town and Johannesburg,
iQhiya comprises of Asemahle Ntlonti,
Bonolo Kavula, Bronwyn Katz, Buhlebezwe
Siwani, Lungiswa Gqunta, Pinky Mayeng,
Sethembile Msezane, Sisipho Ngodwana,
Thandiwe Msebenzi, Thuli Gamedze and
Tlhogie Kelapile.
The moniker ‘iQhiya’ is a “signifier of
strength and burden,” referring to the
traditional headscarf worn by Xhosa women.
It is a potent symbol of togetherness, as
the corners of the doek (‘headscarf’) come
together to offer support to the headdress.
In the last year of their collaboration, iQhiya
has created a space where members are
able to find comfort in shared experiences,
as well as the opportunity to explore
personal vulnerabilities in a “welcoming
environment.”
Eschewing the stereotypes surrounding
an ‘all-girl’ collective, iQhiya members
acknowledge the complex and potent
violence enacted against black women
within the South African context, vowing
to take a stand. As much as it is a meeting
place of artistic minds, the collective is also
a utilitarian environment where members
come together to further each other in
an industry where black women are still
largely marginalised. According to them,
the work is “at once playful and sombre;
it is alive, and we’d do well not to deny
its anger.”
Members Sethembile Msezane and
Buhlebezwe Siwani engage with themes
of violence and anger through their
performance work. In Msezane’s ‘Public
Holiday’ series (2013-2014), she becomes
a figurative monument to women who
have been excluded from public spaces
and accepted historical narratives. Placing
herself on a plinth, she becomes the
antithesis to the prolific statuary presence
of figures like Cecil John Rhodes, opening
a dialogue about how this exclusionary
practice occurred and calling for an end
to it.
Siwani, on the other hand, takes inspiration
from her role as a sangoma (‘traditional
healer’). Her work engages with the
difficulty of revealing the inner self as
an artist whilst having to conceal the self
as a practicing sangoma. On this subject,
she says “as a sangoma, I don’t operate as
one person,” which is a poignant overlap
with her role in iQhiya and the need for
the member artists to operate together
to bring about significant social change.
Foreshadowing their goals as members of
iQhiya, in 2014 Thuli Gumedze, Bonolo
Kavula, Asemahle Ntloni and Thandiwe
Msebenzi contributed to an art workshop
outreach project at Umtha Welanga
Aftercare Centre in Khayelitsha (Cape
Town) while students at the University of
Cape Town .
Member Bronwyn Katz won the merit
award for her video piece Grond Herinnering
in the 2015 Sasol New Signatures art
competition. Her video reflects on the
nostalgia of childhood memories and the
attempt to preserve this subjective history.
Katz and Bonolo Kavula were both 2014
finalists in the same competition.
Photographer Thandiwe Msebenzi was
awarded the coveted Tierney Fellowship
for 2014/2015 on the merit of her portrait
series ‘OoBhuti abatsha.’ The series depicts
young Xhosa men dressed as ‘dandys’ in
“new variations of old tweed attire” – the
equivalent of Sapeurs – following their
sacred rites of initiation into manhood.
The project grapples with the discourse
of appropriation and black empowerment
in the post-colonial era. Lungiswa Gqunta
received the Simon Gerson Prize at the
Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2014 for
her burnt wood sculpture series, titled The
Home of Residue that explored themes of
melancholy, isolation and anxiety through
the renewal of memories in charred,
familiar objects.
Many of iQhiya’s members are also
freelance writers, building the narrative
of this generation of young black women
artists by contributing to the surrounding
discourse and interrogating contemporary
feminism that, for the most part, still
remains the domain of white, cisgender
women. Through their varied mediums,
including performance art, installation,
photography and video art, iQhiya offers a
window to the “often-veiled black female
imagination.”
Their first performance as a collective, titled
The Portrait, formed part of ‘#theopening’
exhibition at Greatmore Studios (Cape
Town) in February 2016. The performance
was inspired by a photograph of Lungiswa
Gqunta’s mother and aunts when they were
young women. The photo gives away none
of the hardships the women experienced
at the time and raises questions around the
societal expectations placed on women to be
seen as beautiful, composed and never vocal
when experiencing difficulties.
iQhiya:
A Window to the Often-Veiled
Black Female Imagination
150 151
01 Buhlebezwe Siwani, Zemk’inkomo Magwalandini, 2015. Performative installation, skulls, wooden poles, steel and imbhola.
02 Thandiwe Msebenzi, Indlela yam, 2015. Triptych. Photography Ink on cotton paper, 55 x 36 cm.
03 Bronwyn Katz, Oumagrootjie, 2015. Sunlight soap and cement bricks. Courtesy of iQhiya.
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