young, black and gifted womyn

By Muholi Z.

January 26, 2004: This past week, the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town exhibited the dynamic works of 8 womyn-artists born out of our diverse communities in South Africa The theme for the exhibition was called Worlds Beyond Words and it was coordinated with Writing African Women: the Poetics and Politics of African Gender Research, a Nordic African Institute and University of Western Cape sponsored conference. The aim of the exhibition was to give a voice to womyn-artists who contribute to a cultural and social redefinition of what it means to be an ‘African woman’ in the 21st century.

The artists featured were Ntsoaki Molefe(Gauteng); Payne Phalane (Gauteng), Gabi Ngcobo (Durban), Zanele Muholi (Gauteng), Bongi Bengu (Gauteng), Berni Searle (Cape Town), Cynthia Nair (Durban) and Gabrielle Le Roux (Cape Town).

The exhibition opened January 18th and was well-attended by over 50 intellectuals and friends. The artists were given a forum to speak about their works, motivations, and inspirations. The atmosphere was supposed to be one conducive to discussing artwork in ways that open up wide-ranging dialogue about issues related to black South African women’s challenges and triumphs as producers of meaning about art, identity and society.

But as the artists acknowledged, the voices of womyn artists are often silenced by sexism, homophobia, racism, or simply elitism. Their voices are muted, too, because their medium of communication is not through the spoken word. But these womyn-artists are at the forefront of the social and cultural changes taking place in the “new” South Africa, as their connection to multiple communities in our country gives them the vision to see beyond the mainstream. These womyn prove everyday that they are young, gifted, and black. And they were not shy to reclaim the right to define who they are with pride.

Powerful Voices

Many of the artists spoke about their work as inspired by their personal lives and experiences as African womyn, by their communities, and political struggles. They do not apologize for their subjects and they do not feel distant from the projects that they were working on.

Like Payne, the youngest artist in the show, who described her work in this way:
”As an artist across the spectra of colour, race, gender and creed, my purpose of art making is to deal with relevant issues affecting our society at present. I believe artists are in the forefront of liberating and healing ourselves, and the society we exist within. Through art, we need to make our past, present and future work because as artists we have transcended the ordinary and live in highest form of imagination.”

Explaining one of her pieces called Jubilee (2004), she talked about the need for women to celebrate themselves through out the globe across the spectra of color and creed. It is a representation of women as vibrant, free-spirited, and jubilant. She believes that it is time for women to claim what is rightfully theirs in all aspects of life.

Gabi’s work is inspired amongst other things, by South African sociologist Zimitri Erasmus’s utterance “The revolution is not on your head, it is in it.” Her focus on ‘hair pieces’ draws reference to the scientific racism of the late 19th century which made the body the sign of race. She states:

“More specifically, second to skin, black people’s hair has been historically devalued as the most visible stigmata of blackness. While formalized race science was not central to apartheid, ideas of racial hierarchy are central to South African history and experience.

In modern South African urban social circles, the way one keeps their hair has become a convenient way to categorize people, and, in our search for an African Identity that connects us to rest of the continent, we have become stuck on the notion that our hair makes us who we are.

My work therefore is prompting a release to our attachment our hair trends and pledges us to approach each other without assumptions that will open us to whatever the next human encounter will bring.”

Gabi’s work is multi-dimensional. In one of her instalments Growth, she politically challenges notions of constructed black womanhood and femininity by shaving her hair. As she says,

“The video performance shows me having my hair shorn in an atmosphere that glows in a dreamy red heightening my sense of woundedness forming a background for Etheridge Knight’s drone taken from one of his poems, ‘The Idea of Ancestry’ which, together with the sound of a hair clipper and a heartbeat forms part of the audio.By shaving my hair, I am reclaiming a sense of freedom and bemoaning all the historical burdens and the burdens we now subject ourselves to.”

Zanele’s photo project is along the same vein as Gabi’s, though her exhibitions exploit public spaces for what they often do not offer freely and openly to black womyn—the chance to reflect on our diverse sexualities as black womyn. Zanele explores some of the most silenced and taboo issue of black female sexuality, explaining:

“As womyn we are bombarded with issues that affect us globally and yet we tend to discuss a whole lot without putting focus on things like menstruation, our love for other women, and even caring for them proudly. We are ever scared and worried what our colleagues will say when they find out about our sexual orientation (lesbianism). That then leads to discrimination at workplace and exclusion in our communities.”

Other artists saw the exhibition as both a space to showcase art work, but also as a politically challenging, politically contested space. Ntsoaki reflected on the political challenges of creating meaning and art in a world that is stratified by hierarchies. She noted that as much as art is created to build communities and solidarities, is not always received “for the people.” Rather, anytime art speaks and challenges, there is the chance for it to be contested and exploited. It is consumed. She explains:

“I draw my inspiration from my dreams, visions and out-of-body experiences. I articulate issues of sexuality and spirituality through a journey of self discovery and self acceptance in my work.

Painting for me is a medium that I can express myself and reach out to other people and let them /or give them a platform to engage into. About the place in Cape Town, it has a good and bad experience for leisure purposes it was a very good seeing the beautiful city and its landscape but the co-ordination of the conference was academically centred, artists were used as puppets or window dressers to international delegates. The coordinators used the visual arts platform to create a sense of having passion for the arts which is n! ot the case. Artists were used as a vehicle to achieve the goals for the conference not linking both the visual arts and their work as coordinators or scholars”.

Of course, it was a womyn-friendly, women-centred space. And yet male-authority wanted to rear his ugly head by imposing his views by silencing the artists at the second opening, January 20th. A male academic urged other academics not to ask artists questions, arrogantly reminding them that we were artists, and not academics. One black womyn stood up and reminded him that as the artists, we were graduates and experts in our own fields and did not deserved such elitism from anyone.

What is noteworthy with such elitist thinking is that, in fact, thought-provoking creativity, what we know as ART does not need a luxurious environment or a degree. Rather, it takes talent, and the willingness to notice the world around you, and it is born by connecting with people, environments, and who we are.