Lessons on Power, Art, and Language from Gqeberha and Bhisho
by Olwam Mnqwazi
After a series of intriguing dialogues, exhibitions and music events staged in Bhisho and Gqeberha as part of the Power Talks Programme between August and September 2022, I was tasked with writing my reflections on what I heard, saw, and experienced. This is the first of a series of articles that attempts to come to grips with this task.
Ambiguities and Questions
"We don't have all the power, but we are not powerless."
Linda Mputa
From the outset we needed to grapple with the naming of this German-funded social programme, while simultaneously confronting the complexities of executing a foreign-funded programme on African soil, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa to be more specific. Ordinarily, cultural programmes of this nature are confined to Gauteng, the Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa’s major provinces, in which economic activity is concentrated, and where there is the starkest contrast between the haves and the have-nots.
Personally, I was excited that such a programme was taking place in the Eastern Cape, and even more so that I has been asked to collaborate in my capacity as a writer. My excitement emanated from knowing very well that I, together with my peers and co-labourers in the community space, had tried all we could to solicit funding and support for the programmes we implemented between 2013 and 2022 – a good ten years, as I write this report in 2023. So long that I no longer have any reservations nor expectations where the funding of cultural programmes is concerned. We have received substantial support from a handful of public entities, for which I am grateful. However, with its population of less than a million people, Gqeberha is a relatively small metropolitan city. Big business, government departments and the lion’s share of the country’s annual national budgetary allocations are concentrated in South Africa’s three most populous provinces – Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal – with their respective metros (Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban) being the focal points of most internationally funded projects. This, at least, is my perception and that of most of my collaborators. The situation is exacerbated by the disproportionate media coverage received by these provinces.
The absence of adequate institutional or resource support in the Eastern Cape is the first thing I would like draw attention to as an example of how power works, and dictates, in our lives. This absence leads to a precarious, frustrating reality in which the success or failure of our cultural projects is not necessarily linked to the quality of the talent prevailing in the province. Our receptiveness to foreign-funded programmes is rooted in that frustration.
Our first predicament as the Eastern Cape Power Talks team was the ambiguity of the name given to the programme. Power Talks can mean simply that power speaks, to assert its own position on a given matter. However, the phrase can also signify a conversation, or conversations, on the nature, substance, and characteristics of power. We chose to foreground our agency as a powerful collective of creatives, practitioners, and social agents in the Eastern Cape, and to highlight how we consistently circumvent the many constraints we face to ensure that our region contributes to the country’s cultural innovation and expression, despite the odds. There is no better expression of this position than that made by independent filmmaker Linda Mputa, who moderated a panel discussion in Bhisho on the role of women in the Eastern Cape’s creative economy, who stated: ‘We may not have all the power, but we are not powerless.’ This statement resounded throughout the programmes implemented in the two sites of Bhisho and Gqeberha, where the following are some of the questions posed by participants:
Whose validation are we after?
What is so unrealistic about living in a society where everyone is respected?
How do space, people, politics, and art influence dynamics in the local creative sector?
Who decides what is realistic?
Who decides what is common sense?
What is duty? What is power? What is wealth?
What kind of help do we need?
To what end do we need this help?
What are the intentions of both the beneficiary and the benefactor?
All the music, art, and conversations that were a feature of Power Talks Eastern Cape reinforced an enduring and resilient constellation of provincial agents from varying backgrounds, people who individually and collectively punch their clenched fists in the air by carving out cultural careers without the infrastructure and material support enjoyed by their counterparts in other parts of the country.
The remainder of my contribution will cover some of the resonating themes that emerged from the two Power Talks sessions held in the Eastern Cape, supported by quotes from contributors and people who attended the discussions and exhibitions. While it is not possible to do justice to all the passion, wisdom, and intelligence the participants expressed, hopefully these pieces will provide those who were not able to join us physically with a textured sense of the programmes.
POWER AND LANGUAGE IN ART
"Art is an act of disclosure, a language that people can use to emancipate themselves."
Litha Ncokazi
Many of us have experienced how power can be exerted on us to our disadvantage. Similarly, we have an appreciation of the power we ourselves exert through the crafts we choose as means of self-expression. This is why the language of power, whether exerted on us or exerted by us on others, needs to be interrogated. For example, a vocalist can bring to their audience a deep sense of sadness as much as they can drive away a bad day through song and rhythmic movement.
When discussing the concept of power, we often don’t mean the same thing. In isiXhosa, for example, one can translate the English word ‘power’ as amandla, broadly understood as the potential of the masses to exert force. But ‘power’ can also be interpreted as ubungangamsha, which refers to the magnanimous or dominating essence of power. One finds an example of the latter usage in how people refer to the government as ‘people in power’ (Abantu abasemandleni / abantu abasemagunyeni): people who retain the forms of power, not accessible to most ordinary people, that allow them to bring about material change in their own lives. In this sense, social entrepreneur Litha Ncokazi argues that ‘art is an act of disclosure, a language that people can use to emancipate themselves’. Ncokazi also asserts that the work of creatives has a place in the hearts and minds of people; therefore, creatives need to be afforded the space to be who they need to be, because they represent the conscience of society. This is a way in which artists seeks to claim their power, ubungangamsha, in society, and also protect their power, amandla abo, power exerted on the surrounding world.
American social reformer Frederick Douglass asserted in 1857 that ‘the general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is
just…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, it never will.’ I understand this to mean that there is no shame in demanding and protecting one’s power to remain fully engaged with society, and to ensure the fulfilment of one’s needs and the full realisation of one’s experiences.
Gqeberha-based photographer Lonwabo Ngcwayi grapples with the reality of his power to claim ubungangamsha with his work. Speaking of one of his photographs, he explains, ‘This is not a picture that I have created, it’s just something I was part of. The fact that it was something that created itself, it just felt more powerful.’ To me, these words show an artist acutely aware of the power of his craft, and the need to concede his contingent subjectivity with respect to his photography and his place within the broader community. Ngcwayi understands that his technical ability to capture images of the rural world in which he grew up confers on him a form of power he can use to do some social good, in addition to simply capitalising on it commercially. He has the humility to acknowledge that his involvement in capturing an image is, in fact, ‘something that creates itself’. This level of respect for the creative ecosystem involved in sustaining an individual’s creative practice demonstrates a level of self-awareness not usually observed in an emerging artist, who must be commended and encouraged to amplify this message.
Another form of power that was addressed at the Eastern Cape Power Talks sessions was the way in which women creatives in this region demand, experience and express their power, both amandla and ubungangamsha, and this will be explored in a separate contribution (hyperlink)
