Friday News brought to you by South Africa's best read!

Review: ‘Ikhaya Likamoya’ by Sethembiso Zulu — Ties that bind us all

Friday Robyn Sassen - 1 Aug 2020

Multimedia journalist and healer Sethembiso Zulu’s debut solo show embraces a fierce, raw and broken timelessness that encapsulates what it means to be human

The list: Athi-Patra Ruga’s constant reinvention

Friday Athi-Patra Ruga - 1 Aug 2020

Characters have been a central part to Athi-Patra Ruga’s practice since the early days of his artistic career. Here he lets us in on their backstories

Athi-Patra Ruga’s new exhibition: The stain at the end of rainbow

Friday Kwanele Sosibo - 31 Jul 2020

Athi-Patra Ruga’s latest exhibition, ‘Interior/Exterior/ Dramatis Personae’, takes his characters on transformative journeys

Review: Biodun Olumuyiwa’s ‘In a Journey of Dreams’ is both timely and timeless

Friday Idowu Omoyele - 30 Jul 2020

Biodun Olumuyiwa has been writing since the late 1980s, but has only recently published his debut poetry collection

The Portfolio: Naftali

Friday Naftali - 28 Jul 2020

Naftali has just released his debut single, ‘Kea Shwa’. He tells us a bit about his music-making journey.

Excerpt: Akurakuda by Olalekan Jeyifous and Wale Lawal

Friday Mpho Matsipa - 28 Jul 2020

‘Akurakuda’, a graphic novel by Olalekan Jeyifous and Wale Lawal is set in a futuristic Lagos that acknowledges the resilience of dispossessed people

On bioclimatic architecture: ‘We have our own science, but we have forgotten how to transmit it’

Friday Mpho Matsipa - 23 Jul 2020

This conversation between Mpho Matsipa and Mamadou Jean-Charles Tall, focusing on bio-climatic architecture in Senegal, is part of the larger African Mobilities project

The Portfolio: Global Africa Lab

Friday Global Africa Lab - 22 Jul 2020

A project by Global Africa Lab explores the future of Black neighbourhoods affected by gentrification in New York City

Extractive histories and a waste-laden present: On Sammy Baloji’s Essay on Urban Planning

Friday Mpho Matsipa & Sindi-Leigh McBride - 21 Jul 2020

Congolese photographer Sammy Baloji’s Essay on Urban Planning interrogates the links between colonialism, extractive practices and environmental catastrophes in Urban Africa

The art of the virtual experience

Friday Niren Tolsi - 17 Jul 2020

The live magic may be gone, but the National Arts Festival showcases some exhilarating work

Extract: Trying to grasp something unfathomable

Friday Dionne Brand - 16 Jul 2020

In ‘A Map to the Door of No Return’ Dionne Brand reads VS Naipaul as a sorrowfully spiteful narrator, full of the despair of exile

The Portfolio: Lebogang Tlhako

Friday Lebogang Tlhako - 16 Jul 2020

Photographer Lebogang Tlhako uses collage to explore making up something that isn’t there

The List: Live and direct selections by Thandi Ntuli

Friday Thandi Ntuli - 16 Jul 2020

The recently released Live at Jazzwerkstatt album finds pianist and composer Thandi Ntuli rearranging her material for a live, large ensemble performance. Here, she meditates on her favourite live albums over the years

Review: Thandi Ntuli’s double consciousness on ‘Live at Jazzwerkstatt’

Friday Kwanele Sosibo - 15 Jul 2020

Thandi Ntuli’s new album, ‘Live at Jazzwerkstatt’, is a radiant turn, with dark a darker meta-narrative

Linton Kwesi Johnson gave poetry back to the people

Friday Percy Zvomuya - 12 Jul 2020

The 2020 winner of the PEN Pinter Prize, LKJ’s poetry puts the ignominy and hardship of the black experience in Britain front and centre in words that echo across the decades

George Hallett: Nomad, raconteur and photographer who ‘became the camera’

Friday M Neelika Jayawardane - 8 Jul 2020

The renowned South African photographer understood how to look for the tucked-away spaces that were the sources of both light and dark

A place called home: Jazz and the new normal at the National Arts Festival

Friday Gwen Ansell - 8 Jul 2020

Several jazz offerings at the virtual festival focus on journeys and identity

Extract: Gunning for Bessie’s head, from ‘The Terrorist Album’

Friday Jacob Dlamini - 7 Jul 2020

Jacob Dlamini’s new book, The Terrorist Album, tells the stories of people saddled with that catch-all phrase during apartheid and how their presence on that list made them fair game

MAIL & GUARDIAN: Friday

press releases