Uhambo Lomhambi

ARTISTS' DICTIONARY OF MIGRATION

[yallashoola]

i am a woman that walks in fear at nights through dark streets that are named after men

- a poem by Adi Keissar loosely translated for the sake of sharing widely beyond hebrew speaking folk because its an inspiring piece of public art that is relevant alright

[homeaffairs]

hardened in translation

[yallashoola]

Towards Artistic Greatness in Five Movements

The ten year journey to ‘The Great Exodus’, a new solo exhibition by Ronald Muchatuta. By Valeria Geselev

Movement I

If you ask Ronald Muchatuta for his bio, it will begin with a movement. “Muchatuta is a Zimbabwean-born contemporary artist currently residing in Cape Town. He specializes in drawing, painting and mosaic. He began his career at the age of 16 as a pottery decorator at Ros Byrne Pottery in Harare, Zimbabwe. After being mentored at Gallery Delta in Harare and finishing his fine art exams through National Gallery of Zimbabwe, he relocated to South Africa in 2007 to pursue a career as an artist.”

Movement II

Ronald’s first solo exhibition in Cape Town was held in 2014 at Greatmore Studios in Woodstock suburb, the home of his artistic self in the past three years. Tall, dark and quiet Ronald could be found at his Greatmore studio at all hours. 

During the weekend or late at night you could hear Nina Simone blasting from the speakers in his tiny clustered studio. His fine tunes were competing only with the sounds of hip hop in the yard, where Khaya Witbooi worked. If Greatmore were giving away an award to the most hard-working resident artist, the two would have to share the trophy.

Keep reading

[homeaffairs]

artists’ dictionary of migration: (M) Moving by Koleka Putuma This current native land act Tells us toMove, if we can’t afford it Move, if the neighbourhood is hostile Move, because our guests are too loud Move, because the neighbours have been complaining Move, because the three dogs on a leash need more space on the pavement Move, because I will bump you out of the way because I do not see colour Move the last two syllables of your name off your ID, so I can swallow who you are Move your child to another school, ours is full (we have reached the quota for never mind) Move if you did not make a reservation, there aren’t any more tables, no those ones are reserved Move if you don’t get along with the Landlord The self-appointed Lords of this land Are asking of you to move

(from Koleka Putuma’s poem ‘Montain’. full version: https://cocoputuma.wordpress.com)

[homeaffairs]

Yalla Shoola! is a laboratory of social construction, activating arts projects in constant collaborations. Curated by Valeria Geselev since 2014

One evening in a small jazz club of an eclectic port city, a random group of artists, poets and musicians has gathered to discuss the most frequently asked question in the area: Where are you from? This is the collection of their answers

[homeaffairs]

by Know Hope

[homeaffairs]

Mobi reading community

Artists’ Dictionary of Migration: (R) Rush Hour weed smoking in the morning train, frozen meat and the fear of unemployment. a beautiful short story by Oswald Kucherera on the the surreal joys of public transport in Cape Town

I was beginning to get frustrated. Three trains had been cancelled. I had waited for forty minutes at Mandalay station without any sign of the lights of a train from Khayelitsha to Cape Town. When the train finally arrived the platform was packed with people. We shoved and pushed each other for seats but unfortunately the seats ran out before I could get one.

I stood next to the door. And finally, on this day, I was in the ganja smoking carriage. I had wanted to experience this for a long time.

The entire coach was filled with clouds of smoke. The smoke rushed into my nostrils and it choked me. I tried to suppress the choking sounds but without success. I did not want to raise eyebrows, lest commuters would know that it was my first time in the coach. When I eventually got used to the smoke I browsed through the faces of the commuters.

I was surprised to see women and children in school uniforms amongst the commuters. What surprised me most was how they seemed to enjoy the smell coming from the smoke of burning ganja. Most people in that carriage looked much older than their actual age, especially men. Their bodies were galleries of cheap and poorly crafted tattoos with railway lines across their faces.

I spotted a young man with unruly hair seated far left from where I was standing. His T shirt was of Bob Marley, standing on the stage, strumming the strings of his guitar, his mouth close to the mounted microphone belting out one of his songs from his repertoire. An image of me drowned in a sea of bodies at a Bob Marley concert floated into my head.

I was dancing to his song with the lyrics “None but ourselves can free our minds’, jumping more than dancing, my whole body drenched in sweat. Standing next to me was a woman with a snotty-nosed baby strapped on her back, her head moving in synchrony with the rhythm.

“Moya! Moya! Moya! Swazi here! Swazi here!” shouted a touting ganja dealer.

It was only then that I woke up from this dream. A dreadlocked Rasta seated next to the young man with the unruly hair was waving his hand motioning the ganja dealer to go to him. He was sermonizing on the repercussions of eating genetically modified food. At this point he was pointing out the tastelessness of frozen meat.

“When you arrive home take the frozen meat, boil it and you will see that the pot will be filled with froth as if you have added washing powder to it. This meat is not good I am telling you”, he concluded.

He sent the whole carriage into uproarious laughter, the man next to him shedding some tears of laughter. I watched him wiping off his teary eyes. Even the group of football fanatics standing on the passage broke into raucous laughter though they did not join in the conversation.

They were engaging in the endless debate of who is the better player between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.Their debate was like the endless struggle between darkness and light.

By now the dreadlocked man was rolling a joint. After finishing, he fished out a box of Lion matches from his jacket pocket and lit it. He took a long drag and another again and again before passing it to the young man. The young man hesitated a little but went on to take it. He could not turn down this generous gesture. He took a short drag and then a long one but the smoke went straight to his youthful lungs.

He coughed and coughed. He spat out a blob of saliva through the window without the windowpane. And once again the train broke into thunderous laughter. The train stopped at each and every station dropping and picking up people waiting impatiently on the platforms. When it arrived at Bonteheuwel station, a lot of people disembarked, most of them in work suits, possibly factory workers in the Epping industries.

A motley group of people got into the train and among them four heavily armed police officers, two male and two female. Suddenly the carriage plunged into dead silence. The police officers marched around the carriage browsing through the faces of the commuters.

They spotted three suspects and commanded them to raise their hands into the air, whilst male police busied themselves searching them. The suspects put their hands up but not without putting on a show of resistance. They threw a barrage of insults at the police. The officers of the law could not find anything so when the train stopped at the next station they jumped off and rushed to the next carriage.

No sooner had the police left than the Rastaman commenced commenting on Zimbabwe, raining praises on the revolutionaries who took back the black peoples land from the rapacious and racist white colonialists. He was optimistic that the phase that Zimbabwe is going through will pass and that it will become the land of milk and honey once more. He took pride in black people being the architects of their own futures.

“Zimbabwe will rise from the ashes”, he bellowed concluding his remarks. “But Zimbabweans are scattered all over the world. Do you want to turn South Africa into Zimbabwe?” gushed out the young man with the unkempt hair.

“Yes that’s exactly what we want. Zimbabweans are all over the world because they are educated. Educated people have options and they can adapt in any environment. And that’s what we want. We want black people to be in full control of our means of production. We do not own anything in this country. We are only selling our labour to these whites”, explained the Rastaman..

The young man was left with mixed-doubts. He was impressed by the conviction of the Rastaman to the black struggle, yet found him controversial at the same time. Was he being short-sighted? He was confused how someone with so much political education would advocate for something disastrous that would lead to the downfall of his country.

It was crystal clear considering what he had heard and read about Zimbabwe. The train had already arrived at Cape Town station and people were disembarking, rushing to their various destinations. He rose and started for the door but then he quickly remembered that he had forgotten the bag he had shoved underneath the bench where he was seated.

He had more questions for the dreadlocked man but they had to wait for another day. He checked the time on his wrist watch, which read past nine, confirming that he was late again for work. The train had stopped twice in the middle of nowhere and no one had bothered to inform the commuters the cause for the delays.

He became worried because he had just signed a warning for late coming. He faced the uncertainty of the shouting waiting for him or signing another warning or even dismissal. He quickened his pace on his way to work.

[homeaffairs]

Artists’ Dictionary of Migration: (C): Cul de Sac

TO WALK OUT TO SAIL AWAY TO RUN AWAY FROM HERE IS LONG  AGO NOT POSSIBLE

by Ukrainian artist Hamlet Zinkovskyi

last night i had a nice conversation on skype with my father. he mentioned something about being lucky to emigrate from ukraine, which now suffers a bad war. - it’s funny - i replied sharply into his patriotic bubble - you say that from israel, which is in constant war as far as it looks from ukraine. he than answered in the sweetest and most honest way a 67 years old can answer his daughter on a computer talk between israel and south africa   - we are here already

[homeaffairs]

‘Regardless and by all means’ a pretty good answer to the frequently asked question ‘how is it in Israel?’  an exhibition in the making image by Know Hope 

[yallashoola]

How to surface issues with street art by Burning Museum collective

[homeaffairs]

Artists’ dictionary of Migration: (M) Memory

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Artists’ dictionary of Migration: (B) Borders Know Hope is a poetic street artist based in Tel Aviv. His practice is a good example of crossing the invented border between public art and commercial art-world. In both cases, his social commentaries are strong combinations of visual imagery and text.  ‘The logic of borders’ (2015. this 58x73cm piece is from his gallery-minded work )  'We used our scars as maps' (2014. street art piece in Djerba, Tunisia. a part of an international street-artists project djerbahood.com. There Know Hope is introduced as an American)

[homeaffairs]

Project MAMA WATCH is on its way: Youth from Khayelitsha Cape Town (in the first image) will exhibit portraits of Mamas on the streets to promote a feeling of community and safety (in the second image is a sister-project from Venezuela by artist JR) More on the project yallashoola.wix.com/mamawatch

[homeaffairs]

a project in the making

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TO HOME AFFAIRS WITH LOVE - Yalla Gallery

One evening in a small jazz club of an eclectic port city, a random group of artists, poets and musicians has gathered to discuss the most frequently asked question in the area: Where are you from? This is the collection of their answers

[yallashoola]

“Anyone seeing me pour out milk, tells me, why, isn’t it a shame? Instead of just spilling it, they told me, why not send the milk to Gaza, they need milk. I told them: by the time the milk gets to Gaza, it’ll be sour […]”

from Anisa Ashkar work Barbur 24000, performed at 2004, reflecting on her identity as an ‘Israeli-Arab’ with all its colonial power structures. A beautiful and strong insight into the reality in the Middle East. 

Thanks to my experience of South Africa, I am seeing her political message more clearly. Thanks to the idea of curating Anisa in Cape Town, I'm finding more and more insights into the mutual lines of the two realities. 

The performance transcript at Anisa’s site: http://anisaashkar.com/works/barbur-24000/

[homeaffairs]

Artists’ Dictionary of Migration: Home - Upon her home-coming visit to Germany, photographer Xtina Magwaza noticed and documented the names of her neighbors. - she tagged the post with  ‪#‎berlin‬ ‪#‎mitte‬ ‪#‎international‬ ‪#‎germany‬ ‪#‎names‬ ‪#‎stories‬ ‪#‎migration‬‪#‎immigration‬ ‪#‎nohumanisforeign‬ - one of the commentators wrote “5 of them are turkish” - immigrants who ‘bother’ to write their name for visitors or the postman - while just two weeks back, upon my visit to the well-off side of Johannesburg, a friend pointed for me the intercom of a ‘town-houses complex’. No names, just a word ‘house’ or ‘staff’ added to a  number of the unit - Is it a home when you put your name on a house?

[homeaffairs]

Artists’ Dictionary of Migration: Emigrant Supermarket bags   an oil painting on paper (size 70/110cm) by Anna Lukashevsky, an ex-Soviet immigrant artist leaving in Israel and documenting the every day life moments around her casually. Beautiful window into the Israeli society and its inhabitants. She works as part of NEW BARBIZON collective and often shares her work as virtual postcards on various social media platforms, like facebook or her blog annalook.wordpress.com