My new home - www.mzansipreneur.com

I have been blogging here since 2005. My posts have been sporadic but I have had lots of fun and learnt a little bit about blogging. I will be away from these parts of the internets for some time to come, as I pay more attention to mzansipreneur, an online/offline project focused on entrepreneurship and economic development.

So if you'll looking for me, come and say hello at:

blog - http://www.mzansipreneur.com/

twitter - @trudimakhaya (http://twitter.com/#!/trudimakhaya)

linkedin - http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=4252390&trk=tab_pro

e-mail - mzansipreneur@gmail.com

(I'll let you know if I move to Stellenbosch *wink*)

Starting as a blog, mzansipreneur aims to create a space, away from the hysterical headlines, to have a genuine conversation about innovation, creativity, wealth creation, social enterprise and life in this beautiful and intoxicating country.

We’ve heard all about the tenderpreneurs, those fat cats living off government contracts and easy money. The trade union federation Cosatu talks about the emergence of a predatory class in South Africa, a class made up of unproductive individuals who use their skin colour and political connections to appropriate wealth without contributing to its creation. Reminds one of The Wretched of the Earth, where Fanon makes some startling remarks about the middle class in a newly decolonised country; it tends to follow the Western middle class in its “decadence without ever having emulated it in its first stages of exploration and invention…it is in fact beginning at the end. It is already senile before it has come to know the petulance, the fearlessness or the will to succeed of youth.”

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum, we are warned of big, bad white capital; which resists efforts towards inclusivity and equal opportunity in the economy. Affirmative action, black economic empowerment, redistribution – these policies are said to be failing. The economy, the real economy, remains in white hands. Frustrated black professionals languish in corporate bureaucracies, unable to rise above tokenism to contribute meaningfully to the economy.

These are the narratives that we are fed every day. It seems as though we live in a society that is so absorbed in finger-pointing and sloganeering that it is losing its ability to seek and celebrate achievement and leadership. We are entertained by tales of incompetence and infidelity, of buffoonery, of a nation at a loss of what to do with itself. Meanwhile, unemployment is at heart-breaking rates, communities take to the streets and the economy stagnates.

Young South Africans are fed negative images about who they are and what they can expect of themselves. The media represents success as the "high life" constituting of throwing endless parties, speeding in imported cars and enjoying the charms of beweaved women. Entrepreneurship is being obscured by politically-tinged deal-making, emptiness and superficiality.

At mzansipreneur, we believe that this is not the full story. We believe that South Africa, like the rest of Africa, is on the cusp of a fundamental economic transformation. But first, the citizens’ productive and entrepreneurial capacity needs to be unleashed. Our daring mzansipreneurs deserve to be celebrated and supported as they develop products and services that will respectfully and profitably serve the needs of the continent’s growing consumer base. They also need to be criticised, in a constructive manner, when they do not rise to the moment.

Economic freedom, biting denigration and SANTACO

This Sunday I have an opinion piece in the City Press, which can be accessed here: http://www.citypress.co.za/Columnists/Lets-support-taxi-industry-in-taking-flight-20110924

Growing up, I often (and sadly) heard the phrase: setlhare sa Mosotho ke lekgowa – the black person’s remedy is a white person. The ailment that needed curing was never specifically and explicitly mentioned. It was assumed to be a general malady of blackness: a lack of capacity, a state of incompetence. It has been said that Tata Mandela was advised by other leaders in southern Africa, before he became president, to keep the whites in the country. Because who will run the trains and the airplanes?


Some audacious people in a black-controlled industry have dared to suggest that they could learn to fly the planes. To people who have become thoroughly convinced of their economic dependence on everyone but their own, this idea seems ridiculous, in spite of the fact that the taxi industry already controls the country’s movements on land. In this article, I argue for a more constructive approach to debating the merits of SANTACO's move into the airline industry, rather than resorting to the "pulling down syndrome."

For the love of God/Joburg Art Fair

Image: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/01/for-the-love-of-god-its-damien-hirst/

Let’s start with the numbers. This sculpture, produced in 2007, is the platinum cast of a real skull, encrusted with 8 601 diamonds. It cost 14 million British pounds to produce and the artist expected 50 million for its sale. This is Damien Hirst’s work of art – titled ‘For the Love of God’.

I came upon it at an exhibition at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence earlier this year. The Palazzo Vecchio serves as Florence’s town hall. In another era, it was home to one of the most famous families in history – the Medici – those financiers of the Italian Renaissance. It’s hard to think of a more appropriate place to exhibit this spectacular skull than in the home that the Medici lorded over.

Image: Trudi Makhaya

Damien Hirst came into prominence as one the Young British Artists, or the YBAs, patronised by the Saatchi Gallery. This was a moment in British contemporary art when that island seemed to have found its place in the world again; this time as an edgy, cosmopolitan and diverse society. Cool Britannia. The 90’s!

Cool Britannia was, like the Italian Renaissance, funded by commerce, particularly banking. Saatchi was an ad-man, but the real money that can support a very robust secondary art market came from the City of London and other banking capitals.

By the time 'For the Love of God' was made, Damien Hirst was a rare thing – a millionaire artist, represented in New York by billionaire art dealer and gallerist Larry Gagosian. Dirty sexy money you might say.

Where Hirst intersects with the Medici, there has got to be ammunition. A grand palace that symbolises ruthless material accumulation, Florentine decadence and papal corruption; hosting one of the most blinged-up objects on earth…such a display of riches, in that atmosphere, requires a show of force. Being South African, I get that. And so calmly I walked through the Medici corridors, past heavily armed security, to enter the small completely blacked-up room to view this piece of art.

What did I think when I laid my eyes on the skull? I was already struck by the grandeur of the palace, the ceremony of accessing that room, the fabulosity of it all. I just stared and stared at the diamonds – what else to do?

Image: Friendly stranger outside Palazzo Vecchio.

And I couldn’t help but wonder - who are the Medicis of South Africa? I’m talking about those shamelessly making paper, living it up, defining the nation and breaking some rules along the way. Who and where? Fourways, Morningside, Hyde Park, Irene, Stellenbosch, Polokwane, Nelspruit, Graaf Reinet....I'm talking about you!
More relevant to me, entry-level art collector, who is the Damien Hirst of South Africa? I put the latter question to a prominent Jozi gallerist. He laughed.
The Joburg Art Fair is on this weekend. I can’t wait – I have been told to “diversify” my budding collection by the amused gallerist. I’m not certain about the economics of the matter, but I suspect prices might be a little inflated during the art fair. Or not – perhaps on the last day the galleries go all flea-market-at-3pm, cut their losses and reduce prices. There’s a “global” economic crisis out there, you know. I love art so I’m trying to be not too economisty about it, but I can’t pretend I am oblivious to its value as investment.
Happy Joburg Art Fair to those attending!

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Love_of_God

http://joburgartfair.co.za/

Passive social investment - MySchool card

For years, possibly a decade, I have been asked by Woolworths cashiers whether I have a MySchool card. It sounded like a scheme for rich housewives to channel some funds to their childrens' schools and I always replied in the negative without thinking much about it. But a bit of digging on the net has revealed that this is one of the largest (retail) fundraising drives in the country.

Anyone (even wage-slave singletons) can apply for this range of cards and select a range of beneficiaries; these institutions will then receive a fraction of the proceeds. It's not clear what the fraction is, but the programme raises R2.2m per month and it costs nothing for shoppers to join it. And it's not just a Woolies thing, there are various other retailers that support the scheme.

For more information: http://www.myschool.co.za/about-myschool and application form: https://www.myschool.co.za/supporter/apply/. I was pleased to see that St. Barnabas College (my almer mater) and LEAP Maths and Science School (a school producing great matric results for the Alexandra community) are both beneficiaries.

(image sourced from: http://www.myschool.co.za/about-myschool).

Art and About - S’ Phara Phara by Chris Saunders

Walking through the Parkwood art strip to an opening at Resolution Gallery this past Saturday afternoon, I was struck by the thought that I may be about to witness another case of a white South African who has just discovered black people. You know the type: they have lived in South Africa for most of their lives but don’t seem to have registered anything significant about the black community until well into their adulthood, then some Damascene moment happens and they ditch Melville for Vilakazi Street, write a book/take pictures/make a documentary about their new-found spiritual home, amass a group of poor black friends but keep a healthy distance from black creators in their field; then they win the fellowships and awards, rhapsodise about township life in South Africa and build a career translating blackness (especially of the difficult, South African type) to the world.

But this was all in my head. Back to reality – the event was an opening at Resolution Gallery, the artist Chris Saunders, the work a series of photographs centred on The Real Actions Pantsula Dance Crew from Orange Farm, Johannesburg. The pantsula movement lives on. Though that petty, drug-free, gun-free almost naive tsotsism that it evokes is long behind us; pantsula dancing has made it into the new South Africa. It is still mostly practised in townships and by young black people, but calling someone lepantsula has become a mostly value-free statement. Mapantsula are a bit rough-and-ready, vigorous and agile, but also quite harmless. Pantsula dance takes us back to a time when traditional forms were moulded to new urban settings, when plaas-jappies were becoming kleva.

I arrived at the opening late (nothing to do with my punctuality issues – I was coming from a motivational session with girls at LEAP school in Linbro Park) and so I missed a performance by the dancers captured in the photographs and a speech by veteran photo-journalist Alf Khumalo. The dancers literally stopped the traffic on Jan Smuts Avenue for their performance. I would have loved to see the reaction of Jozi drivers to such audacity. And I have never really heard Alf Khumalo speak (his appearance in The Bang Bang Club is rather muted) so I was quite disappointed to have missed his speech.

The exhibition is essentially collaboration between photography and dance, a blurring of the lines between these art forms, and also a blurring between different worlds, as the artist explained to me.

The title of the exhibition, S'phara Phara is said to be onomatopoeia taken from the constant, rhythmic sound that trains make when riding over railway sleepers. The word then evolved to describe the sound of dancers’ feet as they dance in the pantsula style. As someone capable of executing exactly one pantsula move, it is not surprising that this is all news to me.

The dancers are shown practicing their art in various settings. They are shown dancing in the streets, competing, showing off but also relaxing in their homes. They are treated as artists, not mere objects. A sense of mutual trust radiates through the images. Saunders’ background as a fashion photographer is evident in this work. He captures style, clothes and body language. His Benettonesque approach (he has actually published some of these photos in Colors magazine) reminds me of Nontsikelelo (Lolo) Veleko.

Many authors and commentators have noted that photography, as a fine art form, is often about artists looking down the class scale and documenting the lives of the poor and the marginalised. This is undeniably the case here though considerable effort has been put into undoing the inequalities that are often inherent in these relationships. Bringing the documented into the gallery space and revealing to them the context in which their images are shown, sharing a percentage of sales proceeds with them; these moves suggest a way of tipping the scales towards collaboration and not exploitation.

I must admit that the charming and observant owner of Resolution Gallery got a sale out of me. I was drawn to a lone dance, caught mid-air, set against a spiritless, unremarkable township backdrop. The visual effect is that of a proud, well-clad dancer soaring above his surroundings. I am looking forward to receiving the latest addition to my collezione, which is becoming dangerously biased towards “modern” media. I will try to remedy this at the Joburg Art Fair, thought that gathering (and most like it, to be just) is not known for being kind to art collectors on a budget.

Poster by Ricardo Fornino, Resolution Gallery.

Resolution Gallery link: http://www.resolutiongallery.com/web//component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,94/?g2_itemId=2920