PLAY AND DISPLAY @ SEIPPEL GALLERY, ArtsonMain

Play and Display has come along way since the first meeting and conversations in early 2009. Part of the process and integral to its aestheitics, this project has manifested at Supreme College, Wits University and Pimville. It now moves to arts on main at the Seipple Gallery.

See http://playanddisplay-seippelgallery.blogspot.com/ for more info!!

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES

The Tilburg Cowboys are set for South African shores in mid February 2010. A series of projects, exchages and an exhibition are set for the week they are here.
Some of the projects include:

Book to Be: A book writing workshop with the youth at Leeuwkop Prison and another with local kids at the Keleketla! Library at the drill hall. A colab between Tilburg Cowboys, Khulisa Services, Keleketla!, Slaghuis and Molemo Moiloa.

A Poetry X-change: Afrikaans meets dutch in a colab between Hans of the Tilburg Cowboys and Quaz of Likwid tongues.

Sound Scapes: the launch of the Keleketla! listening sessions at the drill hall.

Photo/Cheque/Photo: The postcards from the 2009 work in the netherlands will be on show at the drill hall.

The opening of the exhibition will be on the 18th of Febrary at the Drill Hall, 18:30 for 19:00.
Bring art books/magazines, furniture or your time to donate to the library.

GAZART

Gazat is a loxion term (location/township slang) which refers to a communal spirit of living whereby everyone contributes whatever they can to achieve a common goal. The term is most often used by black youth as a call for everyone to gather all their coins to collectively buy spaai-kos/bunnychow to be shared amongst a group. The term follows after other popular black South African philosophies and practices such as Ubuntu and stokvels. In an art context the term alludes to a DIY ethos which promotes independence and self-sufficiency on the part of artists. Too many a time artists pressured into the demands of their art communities and those communities' museum practices which often suppress true artistic experimentation and expression in favour of work for commercial consumption.

GAZART is a template of exhibitonary practice in which a multi-diciplinary team of Gazaters bring together their various skills and resources to make shit happen.

Be there!
BROUGHT TO YOU BY MADE YOU LOOK

SERMON ON THE TRAIN - Revelations

Please contact Made You Look for more info.
See http://sermononthetrain.blogspot.com

Sermon on the Train: the second testament

The Second Testament took place on the 13th of August 2009. The crowd that had gethered bought their tickets at parkstation and headed down to platform 1 to catch the train. The throng of people on the platform made it difficult to find space to stand. Each train that came before our own was packed, and people pushed and shoved to get on or off the train before it set off again.When our train to Vereeniging eventually arrived we jostled to claim our space on the train and to make sure we weren't left behind. After some mic difficulties, the lecture started.

Kirsten Doermann, lecturer at Wits University School of Architecture and Planning and one half of the collective, Black Lines on White Paper, read from Elia Zenghelis' Seminal lecture "The 'immeuble-cité' a strategy for Architecture ". See http://www.iabr.nl/2007/PowerNotes_06/top/140 for the original lecture.Zenghelis' lecture presented challenging and controversial critiques on pluralism and democracy, urbanisation and the city and architecture's role in constructing futures within current globalised, market driven and individualist anxieties. Kirsten's choice of text is particularly interesting in relation to The Sermon, which largely denies the principles of Form set out in Zenghelis' lecture and provides a challenge (though focused on architecture) to all creative and intellectual post-modern practices.

Zenghelis states,
"Meanwhile the fate of cities today, is in the hands of those who maintain that our current status (Liberal Democracy) is the end-of-(city)-history and who claim that this hybrid process has finally had the conclusiveness of reconciling the individual with the collective, arguing that what works for one person works for everybody: a process where anything goes and where the possibility of judgment is denied."

The Sermon stopped off at Orlando Station, were we set back on the train to Parkstation, Johannesburg. An particularly engaged and critical discussion took place on the journey back, with input from students, lecturers and member's of the public alike. This was particularly exciting for the artists as it made evident the discourse that such a work can encourage. Soon after the discussion ended, a group of Zulu Dance performers took to the 'stage' til the train stopped. "I'm too sexy for my Beshu!"Thank you to Blacklinesonwhitepaper and to everyone for attending. A big thank you and much respect to Andrew Bells who took some incredible photographs!

Samson's House - Sermon on the Train Workshop

"Samson's House" was the first Sermon on the Train Workshop, kindly funded by Wits University. The workshop, open to students and public alike, was held by blacklinesonwhitepaper, an Architects Collective (Solam Mkhabela and Kirsten Doermann).

The workshop taught basic skills in architecture planning. The workshop was constructed on the basis of aiding people who might want to build their own homes sometime in the future.

Scroll through the slideshow to see photographs from the workshop.