Live From The Echo Chamber

What I have done with the tools of music, graffiti and urban practice, tools that may be read as ‘not originating on the continent’, is to inform them with my own heritage as a black Zimbabwean, and as an African. One of my long-term projects links my passion for modern anti-establishment expressions such as hip hop, punk, reggae and jazz to the poetry, healing traditions and travails of my Lemba/ black Jewish ancestry. 

Urban Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” arguing in his book that these third places are important in urban environments to establish feelings of a sense of place. Citing the home as the first place, and the second place as the workplace, he argued that the third place would then be the community anchor, a space that facilitates broader, more creative interaction. 

Psychogeography, and other ideas coined by the Situationist International, is a key philosophy from which much of my current work and focus lies. Specifically focusing on my country of origin I have seen glimpses of psychogeography, detournement and other Situationist ideas in the works of writers Dambudzo Marechera, Yvonne Vera and sculptor Tapfuma Gutsa to name only a few.

The idea of a Third Place is hardly anything new in African society, examples appear throughout black history, and particularly in the colonial and apartheid eras when there was a necessity to organize, to strategize, places like barber shops, unsanctioned spaces such as shebeens, ‘blues’ parties in 1970s London, rent parties in the US, and even the salons created by the Nardal sisters that provided spaces for scholars and intellectuals from across Africa and the diaspora to congregate. 

Oldenburg’s writings, compounded with my research into third place in African history forms the entry point for my residency at LAPA. It creates a sonic experience of the thoughts and movements of Brixton and its residents. This non-narrative and non-linear audio documents the lives of Brixton residents, explored by the use of field recordings that capture the atmospherics and traffic sounds, with the long term and new residents of Brixton. Brixton, not unlike all other parts of post-apartheid South Africa, is a sophisticated mix of multiple communities existing separately and yet together within a single geographic setting. The recordings and sounds connect this multilayered community into a single audio experience, allowing for spaces and individuals that are disconnected by resources, ethnicity, gender or religion. With a specific focus on “mom and pop” stores as they are sometimes referred to, that is, heritage stores throughout the neighbourhood. Many of these stores are run by expatriate families, from around the African continent, Europe, the Middle East or Asia. The local store is where one is transported via the store owner's references to home via sound of the radio, unfamiliar languages, visual references such as images of Shiva, a laughing Buddha or an image of a universally recognized figure.

Brixton life is not unlike every area, particularly in the Johannesburg CBD. One gets a sense of Pan African cultures, in local stores, at corners, in taxis, and multiple languages are always present as one walks through and experiences the area. These cultural idiosyncrasies are what I feel we must find ways to document and celebrate.
© Thabo Mthombeni 2+2=5 AKA Brixton No Jazz Society Image Gallery

Read Haarare by Tinofireyi Zhou, in collaboration with Njelele Art Station
Extract from the publication, THAT, AROUND WHICH THE UNIVERSE REVOLVES On Rhythmanalysis of Memory, Times, Bodies in Space. A Research and Exhibition Project by SAVVY Contemporary with Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, Q-Dance, Njelele Art Station, Hebbel am Ufer, FFT Düsseldorf and Kampnagel