south-africa

South Africa

Wielding scissors

Asher Gamedze on his new single ‘Wynter Time,' and the struggle of oppressed peoples against dispossession, exploitation and alienation.

Biko’s children

In their debut EP, the Johannesburg-based experimental jazz group iPhupho L’ka Biko offer a message of hope, resilience and solidarity while drawing from South Africa’s black jazz heritage.

Memory and forgetting

Almost 30 years since South Africa’s first democratic elections, apartheid can sometimes seem like a distant past. However, three new films interrupt both the temptation to forget and to selectively remember.

Projecting radicalism

Noni Jabavu was one of South Africa’s most trailblazing writers. Her commitment to elite ambivalence makes it difficult to hail her as a black feminist icon.

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.

Paradise forgotten

While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.

The lesson of the turtle and the dove

The South African musician known as Madosini passed away in 2022. She was one of the last of a generation who learnt to play traditional Xhosa instruments, in so doing sharing the spirituality, dignity, and joy of Xhosa culture through her inimitable song.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film 'No Place But Here' uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.