The Long Read

The Parliament of Bodies: Some Thoughts

I felt that these were the moments to grab, in which the connections- sexual, economic, cultural and political- could be made between current anti-immigration fueled hyper-nationalism, and the history of global colonialism including slavery, and the continued exploitation of the global south. As Kilombo stated, we need not look for new information, but rather opportunities to weave together a widely contextualised understanding of what we have to see as a global crisis.

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Bloed Trek

Contemplative, each bowed in their own peculiar world, their mind’s eye drinking in a green escarpment bedecked by a mountain cocked like a jauntily crumpled hat. The scene is benign. Not all of this is man-made, nature is not always unforgiving, and Burchell should have plucked that mote from his jaundiced eye.

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Concerning Museums

On Thursday 15 December 2016, Iziko National Art Gallery, and the New Church Museum were forced to create a space for voices to respond and react to the recent show ‘Our Lady’ (since taken down) in a public discussion forum. The discussion included the curators of the show from both museums, activists from SWEAT and Sisonke, artists included in the exhibition, observers, and those wishing to share their thoughts.

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A South African Horror Story

Google Nokuphila Kumalo’s name and you’ll find no photographs of her. Instead you will find repeated images of the photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa, who stands accused of her murder. Mthethwa doesn’t like having his picture taken. Photographers rarely do. They prefer being on the other side of the lens, taking images of others.

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A Tally of Culture Making

In late October, around the time finance minister Pravin Gordhan delivered his mid-term budget speech in parliament and student protestors used brick paving to register their anger on the streets outside, a group of University of Cape Town students were planning something. I don’t know whether to call that something a party or an exhibition. Actually, it was both, and neither.

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Black Portraiture[s]: Day II

As the poet’s grandmother said, ‘When you take off the school blazer so do you take off the language’, for South Africa’s cultures remained opposed, bi-polar, essential yet in transit.

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Black Portraiture[s]: Day I

Nothing feels good right now, nothing is wholesome, equitable, reasonable, or honest. Self-hatred and the hatred of others is omnipresent worldwide.

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Darkness Visible

In a society ground down by conviction, protest, anger, outrage, hurt, misery, frustration, confusion, despair, and worst of all, nihilism, a society unnervingly determined by a death instinct, Botha chooses to give us life.

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Fatally prejudiced

Who is his teddy bear cocking a finger to? Why are his dwarves, dressed in blue and red short-sleeved t-shirts and white jockey underpants – a favoured dress code – hating and loving each other so? As for the artist dangling from a nail? The piece is called My Gallerist Made Me Do It. Really?

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