Imagination is a rainy place: A Reflection

Published 31 August 2022 in News from Javett-UP

24 September marks South Africa’s National Heritage Day. Initially the day was known as ‘Shaka’s Day’, marking the death date of the legendary Zulu King who died in 1828. Every year Zulu people from Kwa-Zulu Natal and beyond would gather at the Shaka Memorial to honour him. Post 1996, this day was recognised as ‘Heritage Day’ and embraced the concept of a more unified nation with diverse cultural, racial, and ethnic groups.

 

The Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP) opened its doors on 24 September 2019 to give access, provide platforms for multidisciplinary dialogues, and discourses to various visitors in and around the City of Tshwane. As Curator: Education Mediation, I have observed over the years how Javett-UP has become a space that prides itself on critical approaches to education around our exhibitions and artworks to engage different communities.  As such, each exhibition and artwork has become a starting point to unpack various entry points of knowledge.

 

In the past three years the Javett-UP, the Education Mediation Department has accomplished a substantial number of programmes. We have reached over thousands of learners, students and teachers and established multiple educational partners and networks. In 2020, the National lockdown was put in place as a means to manage the Covid-19 pandemic, Javett-UP continued to organise virtual public and education programmes and collaborated widely with schools and institutions of higher learning in South Africa and beyond.  Our educational processes are fundamental to our Curatorial projects. They encompass dialogical pedagogies and intergenerational dialogues with language being the core stand that holds these elements together.

 

During Women’s Month 2022, we hosted the Mapula Embroideries Activation Programme which included an artwork titled ‘Women of the Winterveld: Hands Become Voices for our Planet’. It depicts Umlando and issues around climate change.  On the 13th of August we invited the Mapula Embroideries artists (abomama), their children (abantwana) and grandchildren (abazukulu) for an educational workshop. We held a two-session process that included an intergenerational dialogue conducted in IsiZulu, SeSotho, SeTswana, SePedi and SePetori languages, where we unpacked the artwork followed by a tour of exhibitions currently showing at the Javett-UP.

 

In these workshops I was no longer Curator: Education Mediation, but rather the daughter of many mothers, also, the mother of many children. The space allowed for izinganekwane where, through storytelling, we organically learned about the process of embroidery, and how abomama work collaboratively to achieve a beautiful and colourful outcome. Part of this process entailed Angela, a seven-year-old, who spontaneously recited a Women’s Day poem. The insistence that, during the serving of lunch, abantwana should eat before abomama nullifyied the hierarchy that often happens in intergenerational spaces.

 

As we facilitated a tour of the Yakhali’Inkomo: The Bongi Dhlomo Collection currently at the Javett-UP, abomama noticed a work labelled ‘Mapula Embroideries’ which they identified as a work whose creation was facilitated by Doreen Mabuse, who passed away in 2008. That particular moment allowed us to give ode to mam’Doreen as an artist, grandparent, parent, friend, sibling, and daughter.

 

What does it mean to write this on Heritage month from an educational perspective? I am consistently reminded of Javett-UP’s Curatorial Vision which includes positioning ourselves as a living school and an institution committed to creating spaces of unexpected learning, collective learning and unlearning. It further outlines our pedagogical initiatives as self-reflective rather than illustrative. This is an example of the pedagogical moments and processes which the curatorial aims to explore through our programmes.

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg; we invite you to journey and grow with us as we reimagine our futures. 

 

Glossary

Inganekwane – An indigenous folk tale which not only tells a story but is a learning tool, probing questions and allowing for interaction and engagement.

Umlando – History.

abomama - mothers

abantwana – children

abazukulu – grandchildren

Mapula– Mother of rain or rain queen

Puleng – In the rain

 

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