UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
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“What is it to be a man?” Rites, hashtags, outrage
Full text linkThis article aims to understand the outrage caused by Inxeba (2017) set within the context of ulwaluko, the Xhosa traditional rite of passage. The scale of the outrage showed deep rejection by many South Africans of the very ideas that the film puts across. This outrage must be understood in relation to the sensitivity of the film’s content: masculine identity; the question of what it is to be a man; the multiple interlinked issues of who has power to determine what a Xhosa man is; the justification of heteronormative masculinity; and the construction of multiple masculinities. Assuming that such questions and issues raised by the film cannot be discussed in depth without sufficient contextual knowledge of what the ulwaluko practice involves, the article begins with an account of this practice. Turning to an attempt to understand the outrage caused by the film, it is argued that the most cited reason for this outrage – namely that it challenges the power base of traditional cultural leaders by opening private rites to general public scrutiny – covers over a more pressing concern: that the film depicts an entrenched cultural tradition in a way that subjects its heteronormative ideal of manliness to controversial critique from the perspective of more diverse masculinities
A nation under our feet: Black Panther, Afrofuturism and the potential of thinking through political structures
Full text linkIn this article, the focus is on Black Panther: a nation under our feet, a comic book series written by American public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates. The point of departure is Coates’s idea of ‘the Mecca’, a term he uses in his earlier nonfiction. It refers to a space in which black culture is created in the shadow of collective traumas and memories. We argue that in a nation under our feet the fictional African country of Wakanda functions as a metaphorical Mecca. This version of Wakanda is contextualised in terms of the aesthetics of Afrofuturism and theories on the influence of ideology in comic books. The central focus of the article is how this representation of Wakanda questions the idea of a unified black people and how Wakanda, like the real world Meccas described by Coates, display internal ideological and political struggles among its people. We argue that the various characters in a nation under our feet represent different and conflicting ideological positions. These positions are metaphors for real world political views and in playing out the consequences of these ideologies, Coates explores African and global political structures without didactically providing conclusive answers to complex issues
You act like a th’owed away child: Black Panther, Killmonger, and Pan-Africanist African-American identity
Full text linkThis article proposes to theorise the role of reception and the ways in which it interacts with the sensibilities of a type of Pan-Africanist African-American identity. The romanticising of African feudalism (even the “special” feudalism of Wakanda) is highly problematic. Likewise, the celebration of kings and the reification of things like “traditional courts”. The graphic novel of the same name problematises the celebratory mood of the film by highlighting social fissures in Wakanda. In the same ways that notions of royalty and (neo)traditionalism in the real world can be grindingly unfair to working masses and particularly to women, the film Black Panther runs the danger of making such issues invisible. The interaction with and reception of the film, however, by black people around the world adds to the meaning and fact of this film and has elevated the screenings to a cultural event. As such, these various screenings add to the text of the film, shaping the Afrofuturist resonance of this text. Ostensibly, Black Panther is a super hero film centred on romanticised fictional Pan-African nation and culture. However, it is also an allegory about the place of Africans in the Diaspora in the postcolonial liberation of Africa
The importance of context-relative knowledge for illustrating wordless picture books
Full text linkThis study investigated the role of signs in wordless picture books and their influence on meaning making. The article’s main aim is to highlight the impor tance of using culturally appropriate signs to foster narrative comprehension in wordless picture books. This genre of books can be a useful method and tool for translating cultural knowledge into images, but their production can be a difficult process because skilful execution is required for successful communication. Wordless picture books can serve as a medium that encourages storytelling and fosters a love of reading. This research involved the creation and semiotic analysis – through participant reactions – of three wordless picture books whose stories are situated within the Xhosa culture. Theoretical perspectives of social semiotics and narratology were used as lenses through which to inform the research. The findings include evidence of the importance of understanding context-relative knowledge and of using appropriate signs, symbols, and signifiers when translating and portraying narratives in wordless picture books
From the physical to the digital: Encounters in the KKNK online gallery: Corporeality / Sensoriality / Materiality: Body-centered interpretations of South African art
No full textThis study explores the processes and curatorial techniques that support corporeal engagements with online exhibitions. Exhibitions, physical and otherwise, are a complex interplay between spaces – real and imagined – audiences, and tangible or intangible objects. This is a guiding notion of this article, supported by Merleau-Ponty’s perspective of the relation between internal human experiences and the external bodily encounters that shape them. I maintain that differing digital curatorial presentations can enhance or subdue the embodied interaction of visitors. By relying on my lived experience of navigating the transfer of the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival’s visual arts programme of 2020 to the online sphere, I discuss various strategies deployed to encourage embodied engagement. Amongst other findings, the study underscores the need to consider audience preferences and allowing visitors a sense of agency to choose how they want to engage artwork online. Even though the arena of exchange might differ, I argue that all exhibitions, whether online or brick-and-mortar, provide audiences with the possibility of an engaging experience. In addition to the exhibition itself, viewers embody another energy – and it is the viewer’s deliberate performance and choice to interact that produces the distinctive experience of an exhibition
Health, hospital(ity) and hegemony: Artistic agencies of two women weavers at Ceza, 1962
Full text linkArt history has yet to accord recognition to two women for their pivotal roles at a small tapestry-weaving project at Ceza Mission Hospital in rural South Africa in 1962. As I argue below, it was largely the agencies of Allina Ndebele from rural KwaZulu-Natal and Ulla Gowenius from Sweden that laid the groundwork for what would later evolve into a renowned tapestry centre at Rorke’s Drift. Although representations depicted Ceza as idyllic, the women pursued this venture in what was a coercive environment, in which a rural black community was marginalised not merely by disease, but forms of power that included racial oppression, doctrine, patriarchy, social convention and biomedicine.
This account recovers details of Ndebele and Gowenius’s inventive interactions and accords subjectivity to convalescent weavers disenfranchised by modalities of social control, in turn disrupting homogenising notions of this pedagogic milieu as a duality of empowered trainers and those directed by them. Exposing the conditions in which the project was fostered, I situate the venture in a context of mid-century Swedish philanthropy, interrogating previous representations of Ceza as an outcome of benign modernity and the project as the fruits of foreign expertise
Breaking the ‘Law of the Father’: Linda Rademan’s transgressive engagements with Afrikaner patriarchy in the home: Hitting home: representations of the domestic milieu in feminist art
No full textArtist, Linda Rademan, was born in the mid-1950s in an Afrikaans home where ‘the law of the father’ pertained in all matters. She has professed ambivalence about her upbringing, which was circumscribed by an Afrikaner Nationalist ideology, underpinned by patriarchal dominance, and strictly conformed to the narrow Calvinistic precepts of the Dutch Reformed Church. In her work, memories of childhood and family dynamics are employed to expose the stranglehold of religious expectations, the permeation of male privilege, and the suppression of women’s voices in Afrikaner culture.
In this paper, I analyse selected works in which Rademan has intervened in photographic memorabilia by embroidering and sewing or ‘suturing’ areas of her work. The use of sewing and embroidery has been employed as a feminist strategy since the early 1970s, and I argue that its use here not only aims to overturn the patriarchal hierarchy of artmaking but is an attempt to visually mend (suture) the psychologically damaging aspects of Rademan’s childhood upbringing. In this way, her approach becomes a therapeutic means to engage with the painful process of self-integration, as well as a vehicle to redress the exclusion of women’s voices in her family and culture by presenting an alternative image of Afrikaans womanhood
Between memory & fantasy: Autofiction & worldbuilding in autobiographical comics: Stories Worth Telling - crafting stories through the art of design
No full textThis article locates the practice of creating autobiographical comics (autobiocomics) as products of autobiographical fiction (autofiction) and imaginary worlds. Autobiocomics is a comics genre characterised by imaginative and subjective representations of the autobiographical self. Autobiocomic stories attempt to convey an emotional truth by depicting the author’s authentic reactions to people, places, or events. With this research, we intend to contribute to the existing autobiocomic scholarship by demonstrating that autofiction and worldbuilding theories can deepen the analysis of specific autobiocomics when instrumentalised in tandem. This provides the oppor tunity to read autobiocomic texts for their shared characteristics and generate insights on the author’s relationship to their representations of self and the textual world wherein the self is revealed. In this article, we review autobiocomics, providing a brief chronological overview and identifying relevant concepts to position the analysis and discussion thereafter. The analysis suggests future research into the implications of the authors’ embodiment of their textual avatar and how they inhabit the textual world. Three autobiocomics are read, discussed, and analysed to demonstrate the characteristics of the medium as it pertains to both these theories: Drieman (2020) by Wide Vercnocke, La mer à boire (2022) by Blutch, and Fluctuat et Mergitur (2020) by Conrad Botes
Named after Nelson: Tracing the threads of graphic heritage in Gauteng, South Africa: Stories Worth Telling - crafting stories through the art of design
No full textPlaces named after prominent figures like Nelson Mandela symbolise their legacies and shared values, offering an opportunity to learn about their lives and impact on society. In this article, we explore the concept of “graphic heritage” – a term that extends beyond physical markers to include theoretical understandings that enhance our knowledge of and experience with these places. Employing a “constructionist” perspective, we view the meanings associated with these places as constructed through individual interpretations. Working alongside the Nelson Mandela Foundation, our research focuses on six locations named after Nelson Mandela in Gauteng, South Africa. These sites are part of the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s mission to promote a just society by preserving Mandela’s legacy and fostering dialogue on social issues. Using photographic documentation inspired by Zeisel’s “ Design by Inquiry” framework, we examine the dynamic interplay between graphic heritage, toponymy (the study of place names), and topophilia (the emotional bond between people and places). The narrative weaves through the historical contexts and temporal dimensions of these places, enriching our understanding of Mandela’s extensive influence. It identifies thematic threads that link graphic heritage with place names and emotional connections to places, concluding that an in-depth study of graphic heritage illuminates what is present and absent, revealing the profound layers of storytelling in design
Beschara Karam
Full text linkImage & Text expresses our deep sadness at the passing of Beschara Karam. Beschara served on our Editorial Board for over a decade and her contributions were instrumental in shaping the journal. As a scholar, Beschara published three articles in Image & Text and her research demonstrates her intellectual curiosity, as well as her masterful command of feminist theory, trauma studies and Afrofuturism