/ 28 May 2014

The Creative Showcase by 10and5 – May 28

Suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli is set to again face criminal charges and disciplinary proceedings after a high court ruling.
Suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli is set to again face criminal charges and disciplinary proceedings after a high court ruling.

Cape Town’s collaborative printmaking studio, Warren Editions
Warren Editions is a professional printmaking studio in the heart of Cape Town’s Fringe District. Owned by master printer Zhané Warren, the studio is famous for its collaborations with local and international artists publishing fine art prints. It’s also home to the “she-monster”, the biggest printing press in the southern hemisphere. 

Over the years Warren has come to count the success of their internship programme, their partnership with the Spier Arts Trust and the launching of the Warren Editions Project as some of her personal highlights. 

Current projects include collaborations with artists Jody Paulsen, Georgina Gratrix and Christian Nerf.

Beach Party I Want To Music Video
The new music video for Beach Party’s track I Want To (from their upcoming album Ribs or Death) is just as enchanting as the song itself. 

Cape Town-based photographer, curator and artist Dylan Culhane directed and shot the video while the band’s own Xander van Der edited the final piece. 

“Everyone in the video is either in the band or a friend of the band,” says Culhane, “so it hovers somewhere between fantasy and familiarity as these factual people enact fictitious scenes out in the middle of some psychedelic landscape.”

Con/Struct by Justin Plunkett
Over a career that spans two decades, designer Justin Plunkett has been a creative director at agencies all over the world and worked for many well-known local brands. 

Not one to get stuck in a box, however, Plunkett is ever restless for new creative challenges and to this end he has just released a new series of digitally manipulated photographs titled Con/Struct.

Reworking his photographs into dystopian landscapes, Plunkett explores empowerment and imagination in the collection of images. These, he hopes, will “invite the debate around how marketing-induced aspirations and perceived value can empower but also corrupt.”

Artist and cartoonist Roberto Millan
The extensive portfolio of Roberto Millan contains everything from miniature neck pendant comic books to scientific illustrations and children’s books. 

An illustrator, cartoonist and picture book artist based in Cape Town, Millan has been drawing for as long as he can remember. Primarily inspired by social issues, he finds topics of personal and collective identity fascinating. 

This could be what indirectly led to his collaboration with master cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) as a colourist – the most recent example of which appeared in the Mail & Guardian‘s Freedom special edition.

Twenty journey – documenting the pulse of a democratic South Africa
Midway through 2014, the year that signifies 20 years of democracy, many South Africans are reflecting on the past, the present and where to from here. Actively pursuing answers to the questions about the current state of our nation from the people who call it home are three young photographers embarking on a journey they’re simply calling Twenty.  

Sipho Mpongo, a 20-year-old Xhosa from Langa; Wikus de Wet, a 23-year-old Afrikaner from Bloemfontein; and Sean Metelerkamp, a 29-year-old Englishman from Knysna plan to travel together in a campervan over six months from the Mother City to Musina, the City of Gold to Oudtshoorn, the Garden Route to the Eastern Cape, across to the Kalahari and beyond to meet their fellow South Africans and document their findings. 

The portfolios of each reveal distinct and subtle differences in their photography styles and the subjects they choose. These different focuses, as well as their contrasting backgrounds, will bring multiple layers to the results of the project, which will be presented regularly through an online visual journey consisting of audio, video and photography.  

Mpongo, the youngest of the group born just a year too soon to technically be labelled a born-free, will use the Twenty journey to focus on his peers – the first generation growing up free from apartheid rule. 

He says, “The born-frees make up about 40% of the population, and the critics among older South Africans contend that they are apathetic and apolitical, unaware of the history of the struggle that made their lives better. Will they allow themselves to be defined by the scars of apartheid, or will they embrace freedom, choice and opportunity? Taking responsibility for being exactly where you are gives you the power to be exactly where you want to be. They are the future. I will focus on the future.” 

A freelance photographer at Photo24, De Wet will be dedicating the trip to investigating the cultural, historical and commercial value of land and the relationship it has to the people who inhabit the space. 

“A plan was set in place at the birth of democracy to repossess land and return it to those from whom it was taken, but it doesn’t seem that anything has been done about it. Land is still a contentious issue among most South Africans. My goal is to understand the relationship that land has to the people who occupy it,” he says.

Metelerkamp, known and awarded for his work with controversial rap-rave outfit Die Antwoord, has had his work shown at festivals and exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Australia, Britain and at home. He hopes to highlight the absurdity of life in this magnificently puzzled country through photographs made with point-and-shoot 35mm cameras and the making of short films. 

“I am South African. I retain the good, the bad, the weird and the wonderful within my blood and I see the hope, superstition, desire, regret, persistence and anger of this nation … I recognise the problematic nature of racial realities that afflict all South Africans and have been a part of the change, before and after,” he says.

The culmination of this expedition, using select material from the visual journal, will hopefully result in a collaborative book as well as what should be an insightful exhibition. The trio is running a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter. For more information, visit www.twentyjourney.com.

For more local creativity, go to Between 10and5.