Oware/ Aware Freedom to Create Workshop
In October Greatmore Studios had the honor of being chosen by Durban based curator Carol Brown to participate in the Oware/Aware Project by Art Works for Change and the Freedom to Create. Each of the six groups given this opportunity workshopped ideas and to create a pair of artworks on the theme of ‘Women’s Empowerment’ by applying images to giant carved wooden platters. Each group was given a specific sub-theme; Greatmores’ was ‘Human Rights’.
Facilitators Igshaan Adams and Janet Ranson worked with women from Philani - a women’s development project in Khayelitsha – over three days, workshopping and painting the bowls. Once the project was completed, the team submitted their work and saw Oware in action at Kirstenbosch Gardens when all the bowls were brought together – as members of the public played the game. Art Works for Change had adapted the game (dating back 7000 years) so that ‘each person or team collects knowledge, resources, and capabilities on their journey to empowerment in the game play.’
"Working with other emerging women artists on a human rights theme was as challenging as it was fun. We explored different ways to convey our message and workshopped our personal feelings and associations to the message into the Oware boards we were given. I hope we have this opportunity again, or at least to do something similar," Sane Mateta.
PACKED: A WORKSHOP ON ART AND ACCESS
Artists Misheck Masamvu and Cinga Samson deliberated over issues they have encountered in their early careers and after many such conversations with other young emerging artists decided to design a workshop aimed at addressing these issues and assisting their peers through the challenges they would face. The main objective of the workshop was to develop channels that may help mid- emerging Artist to access key information that may aid them in engaging with a wider audience.
The two invited gallerist Jonathan Garnham of Blank Projects, artists Dathini Mzayiya and Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi to speak on the various themes they would present and unpack over three day sessions. Jonathan helped break the ice on the first day of the workshop by asking all artists to define what 'a successful art career' means to each of them. Having been an educator and based on having established Blank Art Projects as a space for young artists to exhibit their work without fear of censorship, Jonathan was a valuable member of the panel. Dathini Mzayiya a member of Gugulective, was invited to speak on the theme 'creating alternative platforms.' Dathini challenged the idea that artists have to fit a pre-existing mould in order to succeed in the South African visual arts landscape. He offered examples of other arts collectives around the world who initiate movements from so-called 'marginal' spaces and not only manage to create and sustain audiences but also succefully insert themselves into a mainstream that would otherwise would have been hard for each artist to penetrate individually. Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi was able to speak on the need for dedication, to ones work, vision and objectives as an artist. As an artist known for having applied himself with single minded determination he was able to remind all participants that all the support in world does not a successful artist make.
The workshop was intended as an open forum, a discussion with a panel of peers and experts and the participants found themselves coming up with resolutions to what they had previously held as problems or inconqurable issues.
Documenting Woodstock - a project by Emalie Bingham
That we all have a story is a 'for granted' and Emalie knew that approaching Woodstock residents, business owners and people who come through the area because of work with the proposal to document their lives would be harder in practice than in planning. Her aim was to interact with a small select group of locals, who were not necessarily connected in any way except by living or working in the neighbourhood she chose to explore. The objective was to interview a range of community members all living or working within a small neighbourhood (just across main road from the studio). Emalie and her project subjects chatted about their lives –where they have come from and where they are headed –and a bit about living in Woodstock and how the current development and increase in the creative industry has affected them, their families and neighbours.
She then created a book in collaboration with seven members of the local community, which attempted to tell their stories through text (their own words), and sketchy portraits of them in their home or work environment. The idea was to put everybody ‘on the same page’ as it were, no matter who they were, what they had done, or where they had come from. It was to celebrate the value of each individual in the community and to encourage these individuals to take pride in themselves and what they do. The hope was also that they would get to know their neighbours a little better and perhaps continue some of the conversations that have been initiated in these pages.
