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[miningthearchive]

[miningthearchive]

Curatorial Statement

The work as it stands is an attempt hinged upon what is possible considering the current moment. While we dreamed of sitting across one another at a candle-lit wooden table with laughter and a cat meowing in the corner, what we have been left with are video calls squeezed into a day filled with preparing food, grocery shopping, sweeping lounges, taking care of the people around us, and surviving a global pandemic. Curation often happens in precarious conditions, however, a Collective is often born in relationality and intimacy that is made less tangible in digital interactions. What we have here is not a finished project, but a well-intentioned shot in the dark. What we hope is that while it doesn’t reflect the candle-lit dream, that it sheds enough light on our curiosities.

This curatorial gesture, through a re-articulation of Fred Wilson’s “Mining the Museum” (1994), is an attempt to generate a pedagogical oscillation between the institution and its students, proposing an investigation into the digital archive of past projects hosted by the Centre for Curating the Archive (CCA). By mining already existing archival references offered in these projects, new lenses seek to engage the discursive powers of archival legacies in an introspective way through a synthesis of what we’ve learned from the institution and our own ideas.

This project’s central question asks: What can we do with what has already been done? Our response emerges from a recognition of our responsibility to engage with the projects that precede us so as to take seriously what it means to build knowledge.

Knowledge is temporal, situated, context-specific, permeable, and ever-changing. As curatorial initiates, ours is not to simply assume the position of ‘knowledge-bearer’, ‘knowledge-caretaker’, or even ‘knowledge-maker’. Instead, we are Knowledge Conversationalists who seek to move in and out of epistemological and methodological registers so as to do justice to our curiosities and the histories that underpin them. We hope to open a dialog by using the archive - what has already been done - to speak to the present, and to provide a framework for future exchanges. This is a way of reframing, repositioning and (re)curating the things left unsaid, overlooked or ignored. Why revisit the past? Perhaps to reconnect with a spark that was once ignited, to inform our present, and to grow from what has already been planted.

Mining the Archive, will showcase personal reflections and creative responses ranging across visual and audio formats. Our restrictions to engage the physical archive in this time-frame has allowed for the forging of new landscapes upon which we may traverse, or in this instance, interrogate, individually and as a group. This is our way of articulating our own ideas about representation - while problematising representation itself - through a re-articulation of CCA’s digital archive.

/ Projects mined /  Movie Snaps: Cape Town Remembers Differently ; Promises and Lies: The ANC in Exile ; Spring Queen: The Staging of Glittering of Proletariat ; Sophia Klaase: Extraordinary Lives ; the Story-Telling project ; Lunchtime lectures by Professor Anthony Bogues: Art & Historiography and Black Intellectuals, Critical Theory, Archives and Freedom / are projects held for public viewing on the CCA’s website. 

Nair and Fisher’s approach to the ‘Movie Snaps’ archive places it in a dialogue with that of Jurgen Schadeberg’s housed in UCT Libraries Digital Collections by using the medium of collage. Greyson will be responding to the archive of Sophia Klaase’s pictures via a podcast-like form where they can speak (rather literally) to auto-ethnography, participant photography, and voice. Using black-self-articulation as a narrative lens, Greyson - along with 2 fellow black-queer visual artists - continues a much larger conversation about the implications of the Native-as-archivist as a counter-canon/counter-hegemony praxis. Panis-Jones will respond to the Spring Queen archive by expanding the dialogue around it via the format of a quiz; in the hope of connecting to a broader audience and involving people who might not understand the implications and intricacies of working in the textile and clothing industry today, and the role that we, as consumers, indirectly play in it. Jones and Mabe’s response to Professor Anthony Bogue’s lectures, ‘Art & Historiography’ and ‘Black Intellectuals, Critical theory, Archives and Freedom’ is an audio-visual experiment in line with the film essay title, ‘Talking Black to the archive’. These lectures are ‘resurrected’ from their quietude in the CCA project archive and realised in a collage and short film that responds to the source as a living force. Kanyane's response is to the exhibition Promises and Lies: The ANC in Exile curated by Siona O’Connell through the format of a music playlist. Mlwandle will be responding to the Story-telling project, a selection of texts from a book published in 1911 by George Allen and edited by Lucy Lloyd, containing a small selection of the many thousands of pages of |xam and !kun texts that were recorded in the 1870s and 1880s in Cape Town. In response to this archive of stories Mlwandle shares visuals of contemporary Khoi descendants, she is responding to the idea of a dying language and tries to intensify the power of the Khoi narrative through storytelling and creating a space for continuous learning by bringing forth contemporary voices. 

Ultimately, our project engages the archive beyond the scope of academia. In many ways, this project is an invitation - an invitation to talk to the past as experienced in the present, to explore our epistemological ancestry, to look to our creative selves as thinking selves, and to join our virtual candle-lit wooden table as we try to make sense of the power curation holds in the precarious worlds we live in.

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Talking Black to the Archive: Responding to Prof Anthony Bogue

This film seeks to map out forms of acts, actions, political movements, acts of resistance and those that have produced fundamental shifts in the status of subordinated, subaltern and marginalised groups (Tina Campt, A New Black Gaze, 2017).

It attempts to capture black interiority from various manifestations of black cultural production. Black interiority, as the inner aliveness of a people against the dominant economy of the gaze (Ladi’Sasha Jones, Black Interiority, 2019).

By making visible and palpable all that is held in reserve - all that power, love, brilliance, labor, and care. All that beauty... that exists outside the white gaze (Saidiya Hartman, Venus in Two Acts, 2008).

I look to artists, writers, and makers that have already started evolving black subjectivity beyond the representation of otherness to inform this offering.

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The collage above features next to the film as a visual regime of the lecture, ‘Black Intellectuals, Critical Theory, Archive and Freedom’ (Anthony Bogue, 2012).

The visuals speak to multiple notions of language and time solidified through historiography, and the representation of African and African Diasporic culture through constructed Western traditions.

As the film penetrates the white gaze capturing ‘fundamental shifts in the status of subordinated, subaltern and marginalised groups’ (Campt, 2017), the collage speaks to the acquisition of the gaze - a thought process questioning the sensory associations one makes with an image, and further, “what critical gaze do you have?” developing an understanding of this life.

Responding to a critical theory that questions the grounds of ‘the source’ / archive in repossession of history (Amilcar Cabral, The Weapon of Theory, 1966), manipulating sources serves to outline the gaps between the image and temporality; space and representation.

Having the human figure encountering black culture and Western representation while countering reality as fiberglass mannequins, the viewer’s ‘critical’ subjective gaze is unknowingly linked to how history has solidified objective ‘facts’ out of fiction. Specifically these dichotomies of culture and power are exposed as controlling barriers to thought - language as a tool of ‘othering’  in the intersectionalities of society (Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Moving the Centre, 1993).

Free to critique the archive’s aspiring power and epistemic displacement of blackness and otherness, the collage and film essay seek within the archive that our history has been placed into and talk black to what exists outside of it.

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Curated by Sibu Mabe and Roxy Jones

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Gif Credit: Nelisiwe Xaba, They Look at Me and That’s All They Think, 2006-date, performance piece.

Image Credits for collage: Yinka Shonibare’s ‘figures’:

Boy Sitting Beside Hibiscus Flower, 2015, Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, fibreglass, resin, globe, leather and steel baseplate.

Planets in my Head (French Horn), 2019,  Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, french horn, leather and steel baseplate.

Clementia, 2019, Fiberglass mannequin, hand-painted with Batik pattern textile, and steelbase plate or plinth.

Champagne Kid (Fallen), 2013, Unique life-size mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, leather, resin, chair, globe and Cristal champagne bottle.

Revolution Kid (Fox girl), 2012,  Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, Blackberry, 24 carat gold gilded gun, taxidermy fox head, leather and steel baseplate.    

Yinka Shonibare: Bunch of Migrants, 2016, screen print with gold-leaf on hand-deckled Somerset tub sized 410 gsm paper ; Bronze, 2019, Bronze sculpture hand-painted with Dutch wax Batik  pattern.

"Slavery” image (no credit available, on The Patriot publication, 14 February 2019)

Film Credits: (in order of appearance)

Kara Walker, I am an Unreliable Narrator ; Toni Morrison, The White Gaze ; swimming scene from Moonlight ; Matana Roberts, I Am ; Petite Noir, Blamefire ; Bell Hooks, Moving from Pain to Power ; Max Roach, Prayer, Protest, Peace ; Sethembile Msezane, Excerpts from the Past ; Nina Simone, That Blackness, Four Women ; Arthur Jafa discussing his cinema ‘Festac 77′ ; Elizabeth Colomba, Four Seasons series ; Neliswe Xaba, They Look At Me and That’s All They See ; Carrie Mae Weems, People of a Darker Hue.

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The Story-Telling Project

The Story-Telling Project is a selection of texts from a book published in 1911 by George Allen and Company, London. It was edited by Lucy Lloyd and contained a small selection of the many thousands of pages of |xam and !kun texts that were recorded in the 1870s and 1880s in Cape Town, South Africa. The languages have since become extinct. Telling these stories is ||kabbo, who was a prisoner from the Breakwater Convict Station, he sacrificed the freedom of his final years to teach Bleek and Lloyd his language and tell them his stories. The aim of the project was to create a digital archive of stories that honours ||kabbo’s legacy.

In response to this archive of stories I share visuals of contemporary Khoi decedents, the videos shown here are responding to the idea of a dying language and are amplifying the power of the Khoi narrative through story telling and creating a space for continuous learning. By use of the images I am highlighting the hidden presences, the ones deemed controversial and who somehow must fight for their voices to be heard. This confronts the audience complacency, forcing them to reconsider basic assumptions about language and dominant narratives.

My intent is to re-look at the colonial epistemological process and lens these stories have been translated, which forgets to embrace diversity by not offering a visual representation of the original |xam and !kun texts. I strongly believe in the view that there needs to multi-lingual interpretations to overcome cultural barriers, to educate, as well as appreciate which is possible through the attempts by those who claim Khoe descent to revive their languages. In a society with entrenched notions of class and race hierarchies, how do we maintain the multiplicity and diversity of cultures where the burden and dominant lexicon of languages continues to exclude and control indigenous cultures who have existed for many years. By juxtaposing voices of the N/UU, I intend to effectively decolonise and re-stablish our understanding of indigenous languages. 

I invite the viewer to question if it is possible to decolonise our way of thinking and knowledge assimilation through looking by re-centering and allowing these voices to take up space. I invite the viewer to imagine the voice speaking here being able to exist without mediation and scrutiny. 

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Curated by Xola Mlwandle

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Video credits:  www.thelinguists.com and EWN 

Image credits for collage:  

Portrait of ouma Griet Seekoei shot by Hammond Robin for NatGeo Magazine. 

Screenshot of notebook page in the Bleek and Lloyd collection and process of translation from Translating Handwritten Bushman Texts by Kyle Williams and Hussein Suleman, UCT.

Khoegowab translations; screenshots by Denver Toroga Breda.   

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Spring Queen, Staging of the Glittering Proletariat

“The Spring Queen pageant is one of the largest and longest standing pageants in history. It is a unique annual event in which female factory workers from the clothing and textile industry in the Western Cape take to the ramp and model. They showcase not only beauty, but also personality and style. The pageant began in the late 1970s and was at its height in the late 1980s. Even though its apotheosis may have waned, it remains a highlight on the Cape Town social calendar. There are up to 10 000 excited and jubilant supporters attending the final event which is hosted by the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town. Spring Queen fever begins around June/July each year. Thousands of women participate in in-house factory pageants. A factory Queen is then chosen along with a first and second princess. The factory Queens represent their factories and participate in the semi finals held at the SACTWU hall at its head offices in Salt River. The women who make it through the semi finals, anything between 40 and 60 women, go on to compete in the grand affair that is the SACTWU Spring Queen competition held in November. The coveted title of the SACTWU Spring Queen, the Queen of Queens, is awarded, along with a first and second Princess, as well as a Miss Personality and a Miss Best Dressed.” (From Sequins, Self and Struggle website).

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The CCA’s Archive comprises documentation on the exhibition itself, featuring gowns and of photographs of the Spring Queen winners from the past years; a Spring Queen Documentary that Premiered at Encounters South African International Documentary Festival 2014; an interview of Dr Siona O’Connell who curated the exhibition; and press coverage. All of these elements speak to the camaraderie, pride, craftsmanship and celebration of these women factory workers.

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In Dr O’Connell’s interview, she frames the exhibition’s ultimate aim to pay homage to women factory workers. Spring Queen is a way of honouring these workers, who have been overlooked in many ways, and inviting them to join UCT’s academic setting; she says “This project is for us to rethink what it means for an academic institution to engage with the ordinary, what does it mean to partner with people out there, not merely to use them as academic subjects or as an informant”.

In my view, the exhibition accomplishes what the curatorial statement sets out: it is an exhibition for these women, and representing these women. Their work and achievements are highlighted in an academic setting; the exhibition is an occasion to focus attention on and celebrate their humanity, beauty and creativity. As Dr O’Connell says, the pageant makes the participants feel like they could do anything in the world. It is a snapshot of their moment in the sun, and the exhibition aims to showcase their time in the spotlight.

Through my response, I am acknowledging the exhibitions’ aims and what it does - it’s meant to be fun and lighthearted; it is a place to acknowledge overlooked individuals, to celebrate them and the cathartic aspect of the Spring Queen show.

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By using the “yes, and” technique of improv - acknowledging, understanding and building on what has been done - I would like to reflect on the exhibition’s tougher underlying questions. This exhibition doesn’t present a hard-hitting dive into the context in which the Spring Queen pageant was born; it doesn’t dwell on the strikes, the unions, the workers' conditions, the underlying problematic foundations of beauty pageants and fashion shows, and how these translate in their work today.

These tough questions are present only on a surface level, because they don’t speak to the ultimate curatorial aims of this project. Dr O’Connell acknowledged this, by saying that she hoped this exhibition would raise questions and perhaps be a starting point for discussion and dialogue around these issues.

I would like take this opportunity to build on Dr O’Connell’s aims, to open the discussion to larger issues, in the hope of connecting to a broader audience than that of the original Spring Queen exhibition, and involving people who might not understand the implications and intricacies of working in the textile and clothing industry today, and the role that we, as consumers, indirectly play in it.

I began thinking about how to transmit more serious or educational information to people who aren’t necessarily prepared to hear it - who are expecting to engage with light-hearted content and feel-good narratives and don’t want to think about more difficult truths. I decided to use the format of a quiz, which is seen as a fun, lighthearted way of learning, and has become a big part of socialising under lockdown in many places; it speaks to popular culture in this moment.

The quiz format allows us to ask questions about the harder issues at hand (touching on labourer’s working conditions and wages, union rights, local manufacturers in South Africa, and the darker side of the fashion and textile industry, etc) and involve the participant in a more hands-on approach. With the quiz comes the notion of “winning”, which is itself a nod to the nature of the Spring Queen pageant, where one individual is crowned a winner.

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Spring Queen speaks to us about the people who make our clothes. As consumers of fashion, we should learn more about the lives of the people we are impacting though our consumer choices and actions.

Click here to see if you’re a winner.

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Curated by Lucie Panis-Jones

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Image Reference: Spring Queen pageant, ca 1995. Photo courtesy of the Centre for Curating the Archive and the SACTWU (South African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union) archive.

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The curated playlist is a response to the PROMISES AND LIES: THE ANC IN EXILE exhibition curated by Siona O’Connell. The exhibition featured photographs of the ANC by Laurie Sparham taken between 1989 – 1990 in Tanzania and Zambia. It was a reflection of the dream of a South Africa that could be, during those transitional years for the ANC and the maladministration, corruption and inequality reality that is today. The exhibition used the Freedom Charter as its critique foundation. This playlist is a response using Frantz Fanon’s essay The Pitfalls of National Consciousness as its frame of reference. It responds to the same issues raised in the exhibition and the Freedom Charter itself. Although the Freedom Charter is a progressive document, it however does not provide clarity on antagonisms such as imperialism, capitalism and land dispossession. Consequently, it has been used as a bible to liberation by the same black bourgeoisie who are politically connected with ties to the ruling party. They have become the conveyor belt of global and settler colonial capital in South Africa, with their sole mission being to assimilate into the white bourgeoisie and maintain the same economic contradictions of apartheid

click title ‘Promises and Lies’ to access.

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Curated by Thabang Kanyane

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Siv Greyson is responding to the archive of Sophia Klaase’s pictures via a podcast-like form where they can speak (rather literally) to auto-ethnography, participant photography, and voice. Using black-self-articulation as a narrative lens, Greyson - along with 2 fellow black-queer visual artists - continues a much larger conversation about the implications of the Native-as-archivist as a counter-canon/counter-hegemony praxis.

click title ‘When We See Us’ to access.

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in collaboration with: Liyema (IG @llspeelman), Shiraz (IG @shiraz.the.alien), and ‘Mom’.

featured voices: Andy Mkosi, Zanele Muholi, and Santu Mofokeng.

music by: Siv Greyson on electric guitar, Zim Ngqawana featuring UT Faculty Ensemble, Hugh Masekela & Sibongile Khumalo, and the Wits SDASM Choir.

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link to youtube archive used: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCzbo9dRa8paA23tQ1_aKR3WG9G2IOjDu

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Movie Snaps

The Movie Snaps archive of photographs presents a very specific image of a place and time, Cape Town in the 1950’s. It is an image of glamour and social cohesion that, at first, does not appear to acknowledge the lived reality of many South Africans of that era. This depiction of glamour and beauty is, perhaps, in itself an act of defiance- against the brutality of the apartheid regime; the dust and rubble of forced removals; and the pain and violence of institutionalised racism. The Schaderberg archive is brought in here as an external reference for visual contrast to create context.

By repositioning these figures “catwalking” down Cape Town’s sidewalks into a marching line of protestors, we consider their alternate lived realities under apartheid and acknowledge their pain, fear and struggle.

The response, articulated in the medium of collage is prompted by the concept of “re-curating” existing memory and reimagined worlds. The juxtaposition of the everyday past and everyday present is contrasted by the feelings of nostalgia, which are developed through the engagement of the Schaderberg, and Movie Snapsarchives which function as collective memory archives.

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Curated by Kay’leigh Fisher and Jade Nair

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Image Credits

“We won’t move!”, Sophiatown in defiance (1955) by Jurgen Schaderberg (UCT Libraries Digital Collections)

Selection of Movie Snaps photographs from Centre for Curating the Archive collection.