Cape Africa Platform Young Curators Programme - Sessions Luandaby Bongani Mkhonza
The 'Sessions Luanda' project brief held in August this year was an exciting project, where Cape Africa outlined specific responsibilities that I had to realize and implement on site. It appeared quite relatively straightforward and simple; however, there were obvious challenges, those of cultural differences, local languages and geographical familiarity. Regardless of these, I had to realize the project at hand and was looking forward to these challenges against the background of being 'black South African male', which implied a possible threat to the negative xenophobic violence that had just been experienced in SA.
Luanda, Angola
From OR Tambo International to Quatro de Fervereira airport was an exciting but a challenging experience. Luanda has a smaller central business district or rather condensed setting, in comparison to similar cities of South Africa. It is easily accessible from the surrounding townships, like 'Chikala City'.
The main objective of this assignment was to research the current state of affairs in the arts in Angola (particularly Luanda, as it is the capital city), and thereby organize a mini-conference as a form of establishing networks while highlighting issues relevant not only to Angolan artists, but to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as well.
Coming from the Durban art scene, I had my expectations as I am familiar with structures in art curatorship. I was impressed to see artists producing under challenging conditions. Luanda is a city of stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots. Regardless of those challenges, there is a national union of arts called Uniao Nacional de Artistas Plasticos (UNAP), an 'Os Nacionalistas' collective of independent artists, Triennial de Luanda, and a few commercial art galleries.
Educationally, there is also Instituto Nacional de Formacao Artistica (INFA), which offers visual arts, performing arts and music. The UNAP is the oldest body. It has assisted the younger generation to establish their career as artists, while one of the founding members, Marcela Costa, now has opened her own gallery 'Celamare' with exchange studios, residency, as well as workshop facilities. The UNAP also hosts individuals and collectives like the 'Os Nacionalistas'.
The 'Os Nacionalistas' consists of artists who graduated from INFA and elsewhere, as well as self-taught artists. This group has communal studio spaces in the same building as the UNAP building, where the ground floor is the UNAP gallery and just above that are all the artists' studios, and a few artists have private studio spaces elsewhere.
Triennial de Luanda made its debut in 2007 since the initial process began around 2003. It is one of the significant aspects that characterises arts events in Angola. The triennial is managed by a company called Soso, which is also a partner to the Sindika Dokolo - African Contemporary Art Collection which is one of the few major collections of the continent.
Sessions Luanda
Basically, the overall project is 'Sessions Luanda', but it also had to have a specific contextual theme around which we could discuss relevant issues. I had to curate an exhibition with Loyiso Quanya (one of the Cape Young Curators) and I delivered a paper on Contemporary African Art. Based on individual and group interviews, we managed to mediate common issues into a collective voice and looked at that against the CAPE objectives, so as to pronounce a sound theme that is in line with both our brief and Luanda.
Forging Networks Without Borders
Loyiso who is one of the Cape Africa Curators came up with this title as the final working title for 'Sessions Luanda'. It was meant to forground issues around formation of partnership, infrastructure, facilities and a collective knowledge and database development.
Conclusions
It has been a worthwhile exercise to realize 'Sessions Luanda' not only for my benefit, but all parties involved in the process: the city of Durban, Cape Africa and the city of Luanda (Angola). Intellectually, both CAPE and Angolan artists have gained invaluable information. Angola has responded in a very strong and meaningful way to forge long-term networks and sustainable partnership through collective efforts between CAPE and Angola.
Bongani Mkhonza is Education Officer at the Durban Art Gallery
