(Left: Russel Hlongwane)
Emerging from the Creative Producers
International programme run by Bristol based Watershed, is the project Umongo wedolobha, loosely translated to
The Marrow of the City.
The project looks to insert a history of early
black migrant workers in the city of Durban. The project uses the ideas of the
flaneur (or the drifter), deep mapping, psychogeography, and cartography,
whilst placing these alongside the experiences and histories of black bodies
who traversed the city under apartheid and colonialism. Umongo wedolobha therefore connect the memories of this generation
with the present generation of urban practitioners who place-make in the same
city, although under a different dispensation. The project questions how black
bodies have existed in the city, and how they occupy and influence space in a
contemporary society. Part of the aim of the project is to create a vocabulary
of urban praxis outside of the established academic modalities of urban
discourse. This work will culminate in a structure installation at the Durban
Workshop Amphitheatre.
The project is conceived and led by Durban based
cultural producer, Russel Hlongwane, with the support of Mary-Anne McAllister.
The project is made possible by Watershed under the Playable Cities programme,
as well as a list of secondary partners such as Arts Council England, Lagos
Urban Network British Council, University of West England, Royal Shakespeare
Company, Rhizomatiks, Somerset House, and Laboratorio Para La Cuidad.
The project was installed on August 10, 2019,
and was preceded by a number of preliminary interventions. These included a
performance lecture in the Architecture Department of the Durban University of
Technology, a series of ‘epistemic walks’ in the city centre with Hlongwane,
and a screening of a film about black labour under apartheid South Africa.
Hlongwane is a cultural producer and creative
industries consultant based in Durban, South Africa. His work is located at the
intersection of Heritage/Modernity and Culture/Tradition, as it applies to
various disciplines of artistic practice. His said practice includes cultural
research, creative producing, design, curatorship, and the creative economy.
He is part of a number of collectives, working
groups, and programmes spread across the SADC region, the continent, and global
community. Hlongwane operates as a curator, writer, producer, researcher,
theorist, and consultant. His work has been showcased in Munich, Marrakech,
London, Maputo, Karlsruhe, Harare, Bristol, Tokyo, and South Africa.
(Mary-Anne McAllister)
Mary-Anne McAllister is an artist, curator, and
producer living in Durban. She has recently been involved in various creative
projects producing and collaborating with local creative people. McAllister
curated and organised the Alter Egos
Illustrative exhibition at Open Plan Studio for First Thursdays Station
Drive in 2019. She curated the African Art Centre’s shop and First Thursday
Sale Exhibition in March.
McAllister was assistant curator and exhibiting
artist at Fixations, Obsessions &
Preoccupations in 2015 at The Rickshaw in Durban. She edited Avi Sooful’s
video work for Between Democracies,
1989-2014: Commemoration and Memory, which was exhibited at Constitution
Hill. McAllister has participated in various group exhibitions, which include Abxiom (2015), Parabilis (2017), Revolutionary
Ink Exhibition (2017), For Sale Group
Exhibition (2017) and The Collective
(2019).
For more information contact Niamh Walsh-Vorster
on 083 716 3827 or niamhwv@gmail.com
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