Pippa Skotnes Celebrates Bleek and Lloyd with New Exhibition: The Courage of ||Kabbo

A new exhibition curated by artist and academic Pippa Skotnes opens 10 February at the Wits Origins Centre. The exhibition celebrates 100 years since the publication of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd’s seminal book, Specimens of Bushman ­Folklore, from which Skotnes has drawn much of the inspiration for her own work, including the 2007 book Claim to the Country.

Titled The Courage of ||Kabbo: Landscape to Literature, the exhibition consists of photographs, notebooks, maps, and other articles in honour of Bleek and Lloyd and their Xam teacher, ||Kabbo.

It is just over a century since Lucy Lloyd, on behalf of herself and Wilhelm Bleek, published the book Specimens of Bushman Folklore, the realisation of a lifetime’s work in the study of |xam and !kun, two Bushman languages of Southern Africa.

In the preface to the book, published by George Allen and Company and sold at a price of £1.1s, Lucy Lloyd, then 76 years old, wrote: “With all its shortcomings, after many and great difficulties, this volume of specimens of Bushman folklore is laid before the public … the selections which have been made for it form but a very small portion of the Bushman native literature collected.”

• Complete press release: Origins Centre

Event details

• Time: Mon-Fri 9.00 AM to 15.00 PM;
  Sat 9.00 AM to 1.00 PM
• Date: 10 February to 10 April 2012
• Venue: The Gallery, Origins Centre
  University of the Witwatersrand,
  corner Yale Road and Enoch Sontonga Avenue,
  Braamfontein, Johannesburg | Map
• Cost: R45 (exhibition only), R50 (walkabouts),
  R75 (Origins Centre access)
• Queries: 011 717 4700, ask@origins.org.za
  www.origins.org.za

Book details

• Rock Art Made in Translation: Framing Images from and of the Landscape edited by Pippa Skotnes
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  EAN: 9781431400805
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• Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow’s History Paintings of the San by Pippa Skotnes
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  EAN: 9781770095991
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• Claim to the Country: The archive of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek by Pippa Skotnes
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  EAN: 9781770093379
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Rediscovering a Passion for Books at the Launch of Richard de Nooy’s The Big Stick

In an article for Gauteng blog, Colin Ford describes how his passion for print books (as opposed to eBooks) was reignited when he attended the Johannesburg launch of Richard de Nooy‘s latest, The Big Stick, at Love Books.

He says that beautiful and welcoming bookstores like Love Books do well to encourage the demand for print media, and that the pleasures of reading a paper book can’t be matched by an eBook. Says Ford, “I bought a copy of The Big Stick at the launch and had it signed by the author. Last weekend I read it, remembering how much I enjoyed the feel of paper between my fingers, the faint smell of dust as pages are turned, the physical sense of how much I’ve read versus how much of the book is left…”

Last year I got a Kindle for my birthday and I fell in love with the convenience of being able to download any book from anywhere in the world. As a result it’s been months since I’ve actually bought a book in a bookshop.

Back in the “paper days” I would often wander into a bookshop and find myself a little nervous to pick anything up in case I messed up the perfect display. Under the glare of the hovering shop assistants, I would casually glance at the book covers and, if something really appealed, I would dare to turn it over and read the synopsis.

• Complete article: Gauteng

Book details

• The Big Stick by Richard de Nooy
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  EAN: 9781431402687
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