Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category
by Amy on May 8th, 2012
Slow Motion author Andie Miller‘s short work of non-fiction, “From the Margins”, has been published in Itch. Read the piece in which Miller speaks to two domestic workers about the great lengths they (literally) go to using the dysfunctional Cape Town public transport system to reach their place of employment:
I have been wondering where Lovey got her name. A nickname, I assume, from an English-speaking person; perhaps an employer of her mother’s when she was a child. No, she enlightens me, it is short for her real name: Lovedalia. I hear ‘Lovedahlia’. After a flower, I think. How beautiful. Again, I couldn’t be further from the truth.
‘My mum was at Lovedale College in the Eastern Cape,’ she tells me. ‘And then my father proposed to her. And she didn’t want to get married because she wanted to study. She wanted to be a teacher. But in the old days, you know, if the man came and proposed marriage and went to your parents, you could never say no. And then she got married to my father, when she was in her second year of college. And then she was expecting a girl, me, and she called me Lovedalia.’
Lovedale has produced some famous names, including Thabo Mbeki and Chris Hani. Mbeki’s father Govan was named after William Govan, the Scottish missionary who was the first headmaster of the Lovedale Institute, as it was originally called. ‘But they would never allow you to study when you got married,’ says Lovey. ‘They would think that, when you married and then you study, you would be over your husband. Your knowledge… you would be brighter than your husband.’ Consequently Lovey’s mother never taught. She followed her husband to Cape Town, where he ‘was working at Lever Brothers, in Salt River, who make the Sunlight soap. He worked there from 1944 and he retired in 1986; at the same firm all his life.’ Lovey has been working as a domestic worker for forty-four years.
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by Amy on May 4th, 2012
Jacana has released a spine-chilling trailer for James Whyle’s debut novel, The Book of War. The novel, based on first-hand accounts of the 8th Xhosa War, tells the story of a boy who comes to manhood in the bloody cauldron of war:
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by Amy on Apr 30th, 2012
Award-winning photographer Jodi Bieber has been announced as one of fifteen finalists in the Johannesburg leg of TED‘s Worldwide Talent Search. The finalists will audition to take part in TED2013 – “The Young, The Wise, The Undiscovered” – at the MIAGI Centre for Music in Soweto on 3 May.
The legendary non-profit TED speaking platform has teamed up with TEDxSoweto to see which of 15 South African finalists will make the grade for TED2013. The candidates range from tech editor Toby Shapshak to photojournalist Jodi Bieber.
TED, the non-profit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading,” and the organisers of TEDx Soweto take pride in announcing today the finalists for TED’s Johannesburg Worldwide Talent Search event. Fifteen speakers, selected from applicants who submitted videos for consideration, will take the stage on 3rd May 2012 at MIAGI Music Centre in Soweto, Johannesburg to deliver 3-6 minutes talks before an audience comprised of the local TED community and TED directors.
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by Amy on Apr 30th, 2012
Joanne Fedler returns with her latest book, The Reunion:
Joanne Fedler, the bestselling author of Secret Mothers’ Business and When Hungry, Eat, is back to dazzle you with her latest offering.
Picking up where the international bestseller Secret Mothers’ Business left off, The Reunion is an insightful, funny and often biting read about the challenges women face as their bodies change, dreams fade and kids grow up. Ultimately, it explores what it means to be a good friend, a good person and a good mother, and suggests that all love is about learning to let go.
It’s been a long time since Jo, Helen, Ereka and CJ became friends through a mothers’ group, and some new faces have also been invited to their reunion. Over two days of eating and drinking intimacies are shared, marriage and motherhood discussed, and friendships – both old and new – are tested.
Many of the conversations in this book are adaptations of real conversations Joanne has had with her girlfriends or ones she’s overheard women having with each other in parks and hunched over shopping trolleys – examines how mothers face new challenges in their lives and change as their children grow up.
About the author
Joanne Fedler grew up in the heart of Joburg, studied law at Wits, set up Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to end violence against women and worked on the Law Commission that drafted the Domestic Violence Act. She lived in Cape Town for three years before making the heart-wrenching decision to leave her homeland. After eleven years in Sydney with her husband and two children, she still speaks like a japie, eats biltong and boerewors and supports SA against Australia in rugby (to the extent that she supports rugby).
She teaches life-writing classes and takes women on writing adventures with Women’s Own Adventure. She is also a motivational speaker and has worked to raise money for abused women, breast cancer research, post-natal depression and children with special needs.
Her books have sold over 400 000 copies worldwide.
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by Amy on Feb 7th, 2012
Jodi Bieber, last year’s winner of the World Press Photo of the Year Award, will be presenting a masterclass and conversations as part of the Iziko Museum’s exhibition series, Negotiating Reality: The Photographic image in a virtual, conceptual and actual environment. Bieber will be critiquing and reviewing the portfolios of 15 participants in a 3-day session from 13-15 February, and will be hosting conversations from 11-17 February.
Here are the event details:
Masterclass C5
Jodi Bieber – Established photographer – Overall Winner World Press Photo 2011- Bieber will critique and review portfolios. Up to 15 participants will be accepted.
- Date:13-15 February
- Time: 09h30–17h00
- Venue Castle of Good Hope
Castle Street, Cape Town | Map
- Fee: R600 (full 3 days)
Conversations with Jodi Bieber C6
- Date: 11-17 February
- Time: 13h00–14h00
- Venue: Castle of Good Hope: Recruitment Centre
- Fee: R30
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- Date: 13 February
- Time: 13h00–14h00
- Venue: Castle of Good Hope
- Fee: R40
- More information at Iziko
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Photo courtesy Peanut Butter Thoughts
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by Amy on Feb 2nd, 2012
Richard de Nooy completed the South African tour for his new book, The Big Stick, with a stop at Love Books in Johannesburg, where he was joined by funnyman Ndumiso Ngcobo, author of Some of My Best Friends are White and Is It Coz I’m Black?.
Ngcobo kept de Nooy on a short leash with the sharp crack of his wit, joking that he “hated” de Nooy when he first read the book because his fiction was “too good”, and asking him whether or not he had to watch a lot of gay porn in order to write the scenes that he did. De Nooy proved the force of his imagination by saying that he made it all up.
On the topic of characterisation and the diffculty of inhabiting different perspectives, de Nooy noted that relying chiefly on dialogue allowed him to present varying views without endorsing a particular one. He said that the character Staal could easily have been him if he were a gay man. He is quite methodical in his approach – emphasising what he calls “the three S’s” – “structure, structure, structure”. He explained that having three different storylines and eight different character perspectives demands a very tight structure.
De Nooy and Ngcobo also spoke about his popular walk tweets, which de Nooy said enable him to make sense of the world through a poetic lense. He argued that, by describing an experience, you lend it importance. Hamilton Wende was in the audience that evening and asked de Nooy about coming back and experiencing the new South Africa after he left during apartheid – to which de Nooy responded that he felt he couldn’t start publishing books until South Africa had been freed.
Fiona Snyckers tweeted from the launch using the hashtag livebooks. Unfortunately, her tweets are locked so you will have to find her on Twitter to view them.
Snaps from the Joburg launch
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Arja Salafranca, Sipho Hlongwane and ATKV also fired off some tweets from the launch:
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Photo courtesy MVZPhoto
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by Amy on Jan 9th, 2012
Photographer Jodi Bieber’s vivid portrayal of Sowetan life be on display during the Goodman Gallery‘s Summer Show, which runs until the 14th of January in their Cape Town gallery. The series of photographs are collected in her book, Soweto, which celebrates the way in which Sowetans are continually re-inventing their urban space. Bieber, who has won numerous awards, including last year’s World Press Photo of the Year Award for her portrait of “Aisha”, will feature in the exhibition alongside other artists, including Kudzanai Chiurai, one of the artists whose work is examined in the book Positions:
Bieber’s Soweto also made the cover of Gateway‘s January Issue, which features a delectable spread from the collection. Catch Bieber and Chiurai in the Goodman Gallery’s Summer Show in Cape Town, at 176 Sir Lowry road, Woodstock.
More about the Goodman Gallery’s Summer Show:
Goodman Gallery Cape presents Summer Show – opening on 15 December and running until 14 January. The exhibition has been designed as a review, focusing on new and recent work by South Africans artists either represented by or associated with the gallery. Important works from series produced by the artists over the past year are showcased, and the show also features a selection of works recently shown at the gallery’s Johannesburg spaces.
The exhibition includes prints from Siemon Allen‘s Records series, in which the artist explores images of South Africa through the collection and archiving of music records from the beginning of the 20th Century to the present day. Photography is strongly represented, with works from Jodi Bieber’s vibrant, urban-denizen take in her Soweto series, in marked contrast with David Goldblatt’s large-scale colour prints of rural South Africa. Mikhael Subotzky (who recently won the 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art) and Patrick Waterhouse show recent work from their ongoing collaboration on the Ponte City project.
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by Amy on Dec 21st, 2011
Die titel van Stephen Francis en die illustreerder Rico se nuutste versameling Madam & Eve-strokies, The Pothole at the End of the Rainbow, is volgens hulle ‘n raak beskrywing van die nasionale psige op die oomblik.
Rico het aan Boeke24 gesê dat daar sedert 1992, toe hulle met die strokie begin het, ‘n wegbeweeg plaasgevind het “van die idealistiese, helder getekende Suid-Afrika na ‘n meer genuanseerde, meer siniese plek waar die hoop en ideale van die reënboognasie gevaar loop om deur ons vingers te glip”:
Jy teken en Stephen Francis skryf al sedert 1992 saam aan Madam & Eve. Wat is jul suksesresep?
Ek dink dit het te doen met die feit dat die strokie en karakters saam met ons en die land ontwikkel het.
Dit het als te doen met hoe relevant die humor is.
Boekbesonderhede
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by Amy on Nov 23rd, 2011
Photographer Jodi Bieber spoke to Sarah Phillips about her amazing portrait of Bibi Aisha, a photograph that featured on the cover of TIME magazine and won her the prestigious World Press Photo Award last year. Bieber explains how she tried to balance sensitivity with honesty when she took Aisha’s portrait. Aisha is an Afghani woman whose nose and ears were cut of by her husband when she tried to leave him:
Last year, I was asked by Time magazine to go to Kabul to take portraits of 18 different Afghan women, to accompany an article being written by Aryn Baker. She interviewed everyone prior to my arrival and told me their stories, including that of Bibi Aisha, whose husband had cut off her ears and nose. She had left him; he and a group of Taliban tracked her down.
We met Aisha at the Women for Afghan Women shelter, where the director told us more about her psychological state. She couldn’t determine how Aisha would respond to a photo-grapher: if at any point Aisha became uncomfortable, we would have to terminate the shoot.
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by Amy on Nov 17th, 2011
Edgar Pieterse, Director of the African Centre for Cities, will deliver one of three lectures in a course on urbanisation and sustainability for UCT’s Summer School. The three-part course, entitled “Sustaining Cape Town”, runs from 23-25 January 2012.
The popular press often projects the idea that urbanisation in Cape Town is out of control and is the cause of many of the ills the city faces. In this three-lecture course urbanisation experts will reconsider the argument on the basis of available evidence.
The first lecture will dwell on the problematics of sprawl and other inefficiencies. The case of Cape Town will be located within a broader African and international context in order to understand the real policy issues that surround the challenges of urbanisation. Because of the legacy of apartheid Cape Town still exhibits unsustainable spatial patterns along lines of economic privilege. The second lecture will focus on urban regeneration. It will examine the policy opportunities and institutional obstacles faced by the City of Cape Town in creating a more compact and vital central city.
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