Ndebele Wall Paintings and Community Murals in South Africa

As I prepare to leave for South Africa, I'm finding that past academic work is quite relevant to the direction I'm heading now!

In April 2009 I wrote a final paper for a class at Johns Hopkins called "The African City: Art and the Politics of Place."
I explored how South Africa's multi-layered culture is conveyed through wall paintings.

You can view the slide presentation here!:
http://drop.io/durbanstudyabroad

Kentridge and South African Political Art

Stephanie McKee
African Cities Course
Johns Hopkins University
April 2009

In his political artwork, William Kentridge takes on the difficult task of "making sense of South Africa." Until recently, scholars have failed to describe the complex order of the past and chaos of the present South Africa, which changes daily with the human experience. Using Kentridge's work as evidence, I would argue that such a "completely heterogeneous cocktail of discord, assemblage, bricolage, metamorphosis, and epistemological erasure" (Boris, 36) can only be successfully described through the arts and humanities.

Form and content go hand in hand in Kentridge's work. His interest in process and change is reflected in both the erasing/remarking technique of charcoal animation and his description of South Africa. He uses a media of transition to describe the "shifting character of the (East Rand) landscape and the ephemeral nature of memory" (Boris, 31). His use of symbolism, extended metaphor, and crude, colorless markings all seem appropriate for a political art that "is to say, an art of ambiguity...in which optimism is kept at bay" (Godby, 83)

Kentridge's critique of the apartheid state is similar to the second half of "Writing the World from an African Metropolis." His work shows South Africa's spatial dislocation (focusing more on natural landscapes then the urban metropolis in the film Felix in Exile), racial polarization, and class differentiation, which, in its most current form, results from the new socioeconomic formation of capitalism. Because of the time period in which his films were created, they don't include specific modern developments of post-apartheid South Africa, like the rise of the black suburban middle class or the "architecture of hysteria" discussed in Mbembe's "Aesthetics of Superfluity." Exact details however, have never been Kentridge's main focus. In fact, another reason for the success of his work is the worldwide relevance of his themes (Godby, 85). In "The Process of Change," Boris describes how the dead bodies in "Felix in Exile" might recall the Holocaust, or even a Romanian situation. Kentridge's work is insistent on open-endedness, and can be associated with any moment in history.

Mbembe states that the modern South African metropolis is "fundamentally fragmented and kaleidoscopic - not as an art form but as a compositional process that is theatrical and marked by polyphonic dissonances." Kentridge's charcoal animations are less like traditionally static art and more like theater - able to capture those varied dissonances. The form and content of his films speak of transition, ambiguity, spatial dislocation, racial polarization, class differentiation, and universal themes, making Kentridge's work a more successful description of modern South Africa than those offered by scholars of his time.

"Reach the World" Travel Correspondent Application

http://www.reachtheworld.org/

A video introducing myself to a young student:

Clubs, Hobbies, Extracurricular Activities:

Service and Volunteerism Program Manager for MICA, Community Arts Internship teaching elementary schoolers in inner city Baltimore, Workstidy position: teacher's assistant at Mt. Royal Elementary-Middle School in Baltimore, Painting department representative in Student Voice Association, Member of MICA's Christian Fellowship, as well as the Breakdancing and Running clubs.

Courses to be taken abroad:

Social and Political Transformation Seminar, Introductory Language Study: Zulu, Field Study Seminar, Independent Study Project

Extracurricular activities to be conducted abroad:

Community service, a community arts internship, and excursions to Johannesburg (including the Apartheid Museum, the Constitutional Court, and Soweto), rural KwaZulu-Natal (where I will stay with a family on the Amacabini Reserve and engage in a project with a rural high school), Umfolozi-Hluhluwe Game Reserve, and Cape Town (including Robben Island).


Itinerary (When and where you will be traveling, in chronological order):

August 27: Program opens in Johannesburg 5.00 pm. Meeting point
International Arrivals Hall, OR Tambo (Jo’burg) Airport
August 28 - 29: Orientation plus excursions to Apartheid Museum,
Constitutional Court and SOWETO
August 30: Travel to Durban
August 31 – Sept 3: Orientation plus beginning of Zulu language course and start
Cato Manor homestay
Sept 6 --10: Start of Social and Political Transformation seminar plus Zulu
Sept 10 – 12: South Coast Eco-tourism excursion
Sept 13 – 24: Social and Political Seminar and Zulu continued
Sept 25 – Oct 4: Rural homestay plus attachment to rural high school plus
game park excursion
Oct 5 – 8: Zulu revision plus rural methodology oral presentations (Oct
6) plus Zulu exam (Oct 8)
Oct 11: Cato Manor homestay ends
Oct 11 – 22: Field Study Seminar plus Reconciliation Focus Study plus
Chatsworth homestay (Oct 12 – 19)
Oct 23 – 25: Field excursion – details to be finalized
Oct 26 – 29: ISP proposal preparation time. Proposal due Oct 29
Oct 30 – Dec 3: ISP/independent living
Nov 5-6: Diwali Festival
Dec 3 – 5: ISP due plus ISP presentations
Dec 4 and 5 in Drakensberg
Dec 6: Last day in Durban
Dec 7-9: Cape Town excursion including Robben Island visit
Dec 9: Program ends

Write about one of your favorite travel experiences in the past, within or outside of the U.S. What did you like most about the trip?

One evening in the summer of 2007, I stood in a rural church outside of Maputo, Mozambique. As the preacher finished speaking, I thought the service was coming to a close, but I was wrong. Everyone broke out in song, and I happily joined in. As dancing broke out, young and old women from the village led us out of the small concrete building into the red dust, where the night surrounded us. I will never forget their beautifully patterned skirts and head-wraps, and the way they stomped their strong legs together. Being able to sing and dance with them was one of my favorite parts of that trip.

What activities are you most excited about doing during your time studying abroad?

I can't wait to meet my homestay families! I'll be living with one family in Durban for two months and one in rural KwaZulu-Natal for two weeks. I don't know who they are yet, but I look forward to conversations, maybe over games, chores or meals, where we learn more about each other's lives. I'm also excited about the possibility of working with a community arts organization as a part of my independent study project. I may be able to help people make art, or make some myself, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Give some examples of topics that you might write about the country you are in for the Reachtheworld.org website:

My main area of interest is the arts, so I will write about South African dance, music, theater, storytelling, and visual arts (especially murals) as I experience them. Food, language and interpersonal relationships also interest me, as well as South Africa's rich political history. These are all possible topics.

What was your favorite subject when you were nine years old (4th grade)? What did you like about it?

In fourth grade, I loved writing. Unfortunately, Florida standardized testing told us that there were only two ways to write: expository or narrative, always five paragraphs. Our gracious teacher did, however, allow for one writing assignment outside of our test conditioning: a novella. I experienced creative freedom as I developed a mysterious kidnapping in a society of wolves who lived on a stormy island. I also enjoyed drawing my own illustrations and reading a section to my class.

Write 5-7 sentences describing the Taj Mahal as you would to a 4th grader:

Many people have heard of Romeo's love for Juliet, but have you heard of Emperor Shah Jahan's love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal? Shah Jahan was the emperor of the Mughal Empire in India from 1628 until 1658. When his wife died in 1631, Emperor Shah Jahan spent twenty-one years building her a beautiful mausoleum, or burial chamber, out of white marble. Today, the building is called the Taj Mahal, and is visited by people from all around the world. It is an important example of Muslim art and Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles.

What do you hope to gain from writing for the RTW website?

As an artist studying abroad, written, photo and video documentation can be used as source material for future projects. Journals and logbooks can help me sort out and articulate themes I'm interested in abroad. The RTW website will also allow me to get feedback on art projects I'll work on over in Durban. If I'm working on a mural about, let's say sports, with fourth graders in Durban, maybe fourth graders in New York could contribute their ideas too! In my opinion, intercultural collaboration makes for better artwork!

What do you hope that students will gain from following your Journey online?

By following my Journey online, I hope students are able to see two big pictures. One is, obviously, a new world outside of their city. I've worked and volunteered in Baltimore public schools for three years, and most students have no idea what really exists outside of that city. Many elementary schoolers have never heard of college because they have no college graduates in their family. That is why I want students to also see a picture of a real college student. If I procrastinate on my homework, I want them to see the consequences. If I work hard on a paper, I want them to know how much research I had to do, and how long I sat in a library for. I want them to see how important it is to be creative, because the public school system sends a different message when art programs are the first to go with budget cuts. I believe that my Journey will help ignite in students not only a passion for exploring the world, but also a passion for the arts and creative thinking, which are essential to education.