Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed - 07 Sep
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Categories
Dear friends of the UFC,
The Urban Futures Centre (DUT) is pleased to invite you to its 21th seminar of the year! Join us for a presentation entitled ‘Sesfikile’: Opening up the Future for Generations of Africans’, delivered by Thokozani Mhlambi
PRESENTER: Thokozani Mhlambi
TOPIC: ” Sesfikile’: Opening up the Future for Generations of Africans’”,
DATE: Wednesday, 7 September 2016.
TIME: 12H00-13H30
VENUE: Steve Biko Campus – DUT, UFC Centre,S2 Block, Level 4, Room DP4.01B(UFC Common room). Entrance Gate 1 & 2. 79 Steve Biko Road.
Abstract – In 2015, Afropolitan Explosiv curated a sound & visual installation, called ‘No Longer Beautiful’, which is about affirming beauty in the minds of young township dwellers in order to unmask the lie of racism. It begins by demonstrating how beauty can be eroded in a young black girls mind by society and the psychology of oppression, such that they come to believe that they are ugly.
‘No Longer Beautiful’ was shown at Constitutional Hill, for the Archival Platform & Nelson Mandela Foundation. It is also scheduled to be shown at the Maboneng Arts Township Festival in Alexandra and Gugulethu.
In 2014 and 2015, Afropolitan Explosiv convened a series of Sound Workshops with township youth. The target for the workshops was out-of-school youth, who were trained in a weekly session to find their inner voice, through sonic expression, in so doing also enabling them to mature leadership-wise and attain life-changing socioeconomic habits. Mhlambi chose to invite specifically those who believed they couldn’t sing, or were unmusical, out of the belief that when a person learns to make noise, to scream, it can change them. They can be healed from past failures, and given the ability to persevere.
United States’ feminist scholar, Anne Cvetkovich’s work, in ‘An Archive of Feelings’ demonstrates how active participation through performance and literature promote public cultures that work through trauma and transform its conditions of possibility. Mhlambi’s intention is to use some of the graduates of the Sound Workshops in his own compositional work.
Afropolitan Explosiv has presented music & panel discussions at Gallery MoMo in Johannesburg, and Goethe Institute, to mention a few, plus campaigns and the BornToLead Seminar Series in Newcastle, KZN.
Biography: Thokozani Mhlambi (Phd) is a cultural theorist and composer of music based in South Africa. He is the creative director of Afropolitan Explosiv, an initiative aiming to create a culture of public deliberation. This is done through weekly email newsletters, website, print publication and live events.
Currently, Mhlambi is an NRF Postdoctoral Fellow in Innovation at the Archive & Public Culture Research Initiative, University of Cape Town, where is preparing his book manuscript on ‘Technology & the Fear of Wrong Ideas: Early Broadcasting in SA’, as well as his large-scale performance-curation on the same topic.
Kindly take note of the change of venue.
Please feel free to share this invitation to others who might be interested.
Kindly RSVP your attendance to fathimaa1@dut.ac.za