Bombay Imagination Room extends the visual arts scene in Soweto
by Chris Thurman,
2013-11-21 05:30:43.0
IF THERE is a single phenomenon that best indicates simultaneously how far South Africa has come and how far the country still has to go in terms of racial transformation and integration, it must be White People Going To Soweto.
Of course, white people have been going to the place we now call Soweto for over a century, both to enforce and to challenge formal segregation. And "township tourists" have been bussed in on a regular basis for almost two decades. But as a Capital Letter Thing — worthy of an acronym — White People Going To Soweto really took off during and after the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
White people, it turns out, will go anywhere to see sport and rock concerts.
They’ll even venture beyond the safe confines of The Calabash and go to Orlando Stadium. When they do, they thrill at the excitement of taking "public transport" (shuttle buses). They marvel at how safe they feel, how "friendly" the "locals" are — as if they are intrepid explorers who have come across a race of noble savages dressed like them and using the same smartphones.
The problem, of course, is that the theme-park novelty of Soweto to white South Africans is one side of a coin; the other side is the continuing ghettoisation of our cities, the unspoken assumption that different races "belong" in different areas. Watching a Bulls game in Orlando once a year does not magically cause white privilege and prejudice to evaporate, even if you buy a Black Label quart from an entrepreneurial resident’s driveway en route to the stadium. If anything, such trivial and contrived encounters can act as temporary pressure release valves that in fact increase the inertia of social change.
White People Going To Soweto is just a brief suspension of neo-apartheid life as usual, a carnivalesque inversion of roles that ultimately reinforces those roles. But it’s not only whites who are to blame. Black South Africans, too, have a case to answer if we are to normalise transracial movement across our urban spaces. Why, for instance, do some denizens of Soweto find it risible that white people should be in Soweto at all outside the ordained periods of major sporting and musical events? The segregationist mentality so deeply entrenched in South Africa has various corollaries that have also been inherited from the race-based legislation and social programming of our past. One of these is the paucity of art galleries in historically black areas — a canny and cruel strategy of neglect by the apartheid state and its white government precursors. As a result, notes Zanele Mashumi of Mashumi Art Projects: "There is not a strong culture of appreciating the visual arts in Soweto."
This is something that Mashumi is determined to change. Her latest project is the Bombay Imagination Room (1394 Vundla Drive, Rockville), a pop-up gallery that is part of Bombay Sapphire’s international "Imagination" campaign. The Imagination Room, formerly a vacant building — and, prior to that, a chisa nyama site — — is open until the first week of December.
Each week will see new works, grouped according to medium, displayed on the walls. The first instalment is print: David Koloane’s drypoint and lithography, Bambo Sibiya’s linocuts and Lehlogonolo Mashaba’s silkscreen "Markings of Belonging" series. Painting, collage, photography, performance art and videography are to follow. If the opening trio is anything to go by, there will be some interesting works of art on show; to my mind, however, the Imagination Room itself — both as an idea and as a physical entity — holds the primary appeal.
Whatever your feelings about alcoholic beverage company sponsorships, it’s difficult to be cynical about Bombay Sapphire’s "Imagination" series — especially if it makes art more prominent in this little corner of Soweto. Aesthetically, the brand’s cool blue works well: matched with the white walls and the thatched lounge area at the entrance to the gallery, it makes the Imagination Room a modest but nonetheless visually pleasing landmark on an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Vundla Drive.
According to Mashumi, many Sowetans have already visited this quietly innovative exhibition space; one hopes many more will do so over the next fortnight.
Heck, it might even draw a few new White People Going To Soweto.
FIRST INSTALMENT: Bambo Sibiya, Swankers come out to play.
IF THERE is a single phenomenon that best indicates simultaneously how far South Africa has come and how far the country still has to go in terms of racial transformation and integration, it must be White People Going To Soweto.
Of course, white people have been going to the place we now call Soweto for over a century, both to enforce and to challenge formal segregation. And "township tourists" have been bussed in on a regular basis for almost two decades. But as a Capital Letter Thing — worthy of an acronym — White People Going To Soweto really took off during and after the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
White people, it turns out, will go anywhere to see sport and rock concerts.
They’ll even venture beyond the safe confines of The Calabash and go to Orlando Stadium. When they do, they thrill at the excitement of taking "public transport" (shuttle buses). They marvel at how safe they feel, how "friendly" the "locals" are — as if they are intrepid explorers who have come across a race of noble savages dressed like them and using the same smartphones.
The problem, of course, is that the theme-park novelty of Soweto to white South Africans is one side of a coin; the other side is the continuing ghettoisation of our cities, the unspoken assumption that different races "belong" in different areas. Watching a Bulls game in Orlando once a year does not magically cause white privilege and prejudice to evaporate, even if you buy a Black Label quart from an entrepreneurial resident’s driveway en route to the stadium. If anything, such trivial and contrived encounters can act as temporary pressure release valves that in fact increase the inertia of social change.
White People Going To Soweto is just a brief suspension of neo-apartheid life as usual, a carnivalesque inversion of roles that ultimately reinforces those roles. But it’s not only whites who are to blame. Black South Africans, too, have a case to answer if we are to normalise transracial movement across our urban spaces. Why, for instance, do some denizens of Soweto find it risible that white people should be in Soweto at all outside the ordained periods of major sporting and musical events? The segregationist mentality so deeply entrenched in South Africa has various corollaries that have also been inherited from the race-based legislation and social programming of our past. One of these is the paucity of art galleries in historically black areas — a canny and cruel strategy of neglect by the apartheid state and its white government precursors. As a result, notes Zanele Mashumi of Mashumi Art Projects: "There is not a strong culture of appreciating the visual arts in Soweto."
This is something that Mashumi is determined to change. Her latest project is the Bombay Imagination Room (1394 Vundla Drive, Rockville), a pop-up gallery that is part of Bombay Sapphire’s international "Imagination" campaign. The Imagination Room, formerly a vacant building — and, prior to that, a chisa nyama site — — is open until the first week of December.
Each week will see new works, grouped according to medium, displayed on the walls. The first instalment is print: David Koloane’s drypoint and lithography, Bambo Sibiya’s linocuts and Lehlogonolo Mashaba’s silkscreen "Markings of Belonging" series. Painting, collage, photography, performance art and videography are to follow. If the opening trio is anything to go by, there will be some interesting works of art on show; to my mind, however, the Imagination Room itself — both as an idea and as a physical entity — holds the primary appeal.
Whatever your feelings about alcoholic beverage company sponsorships, it’s difficult to be cynical about Bombay Sapphire’s "Imagination" series — especially if it makes art more prominent in this little corner of Soweto. Aesthetically, the brand’s cool blue works well: matched with the white walls and the thatched lounge area at the entrance to the gallery, it makes the Imagination Room a modest but nonetheless visually pleasing landmark on an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Vundla Drive.
According to Mashumi, many Sowetans have already visited this quietly innovative exhibition space; one hopes many more will do so over the next fortnight.
Heck, it might even draw a few new White People Going To Soweto.
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