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Valerie Kabov is the Director of First Floor Gallery Harare as well as the co-founder of the African Art Galleries Association.
She is an educator, writer and researcher whose international experience in teaching, training and implementing projects in the field of art; audience engagement and intercultural dialogue, has further burnished her impressive mission into an awe-inspiring one.
Valerie sits down with host Refiloe Mpakanyane to explain her approach toward supporting the artist; thriving in spite of the capitalist head-winds that Creativity faces; the need for unbowed and professional art criticism and the foundational need for art in every single person’s life.
Valerie brings forth some surprising and delightful elements of her upbringing in Belarus and Australia, which continue to inform her work and which along with experience, her studies and temperament, have coalesced into a delightful, invigorating and expansive world view.
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In this episode, Refiloe Mpakanyane speaks to award-winning writer Milisuthando Bongela. While her career began in fashion, her creative spirit has carried her into music, art, media and now film. Bongela has written and directed her first film: the self-titled: Milisuthando. The artfully edited and scored documentary is a personal essay spanning 30 years and was eight years in the making. Written as a portrait of the filmmaker and her country, South Africa, both growing up (as it were) in parallel and in the aftermath of apartheid. Told in a non-linear fashion: Milisuthando calls the film an invitation to viewers to excavate forgotten parts of themselves, their history their family. The film takes a feminist lens to questions about power, fear, intimacy and love as it relates to race. The conversation traverses on Bongela's decades-long path to writing and directing her debut film, as well as what finding her voice and perspective means to her and how she imagines it will ground her work going forward.
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In episode 10 of the Latitudes Podcast, host Refiloe Mpakanyane speaks with British-Ghanaian, curatorial powerhouse, Osei Bonsu. A sought-after curator of contemporary art, Osei’s work has taken him all over the world, advising museums, art fairs as well as private collections. Also a lecturer and writer, Osei has contributed to various arts publications and exhibition catalogues.
Before joining the Tate Modern as Curator of International Art, he had established the digital platform, Creative Africa Network, where he drew upon his experience to mentor artists and re-imagine more meaningful ways to create value for and among African artists on the continent. Osei shares why this mission to effect change abides in his current work and why a more textured and nuanced art space that grows the western canon, benefits us all. Osei’s expansive view on the purpose and potential of art moves our conversation to the importance of family as well as his take on professional recognition.
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In Episode 9 of the Latitudes Podcast, host Refiloe Mpakanyane talks to Ekow Eshun; a British writer, journalist, broadcaster and curator, about his abiding penchant for doing the difficult (and sometimes agonising) in order to spark meaningful conversations in audiences. A thoughtful and considered conversationalist, Ekow reflects on a multifaceted and impactful career that has spanned magazines, books, curating and broadcasting. He credits curiosity and a search for new ways of seeing and representation as the drive behind his work.
We explore Ekow’s career highlights, his most recent offerings – think In The Black Fantastic - and look ahead to what's to come.
Ekow Eshun is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, and the former Director of the ICA, London. He is the curator of exhibitions including the critically acclaimed In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery, London, and author of books including Africa State of Mind andBlack Gold of the Sun, shortlisted for the Orwell prize. He has contributed to books on artists including Mark Bradford, Chris Ofili, Kehinde Wiley, John Akomfrah and Wangechi Mutu.
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In episode 8 of the Latitudes Podcast, host Refiloe Mpakanyane talks to the dynamic New York born, South African-based, multi-media artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, who received the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2019 and the Phillippe Wamba Prize in African Studies in 2004. Nkosi has collaborated, exhibited and studied globally and is popularly known for her pastel-hued paintings of triumphant Black gymnasts as well as her series of portraits of influential Black figures.
In this conversation, Nkosi unpacks the genesis and process behind some of her pieces; she sheds light on her studio practice, as well as her emphatic belief that love can be a force for meaningful change. Nkosi explains how her vibrant heritage (South African father and Greek-American mother) and being born “in exile” have influenced much of the direction of her work. Be it synthesising the “disparate” elements of one’s identity; or looking critically at the seemingly benign conventions of our lives: Nkosi's art is deeply considered and grounded in thorough research that lays bare the workings and consequences of our shared imperial and colonial history, while also imagining an alternative and fascinating present.
*A quick note that the poem alluded to in the conversation is called First Petition by Divya Victor
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In episode 7 of the Latitudes Podcast, host Refiloe Mpakanyane talks to San Francisco based Charles 'Chuck' Collins. Whether working in law or sitting on the board of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Collins’ career has always bent toward improving the lived experiences of communities. This theme is baked into the conversation which focuses not only on what art and design tell us about ourselves (and our condition) but why art is so pivotal to our shared growth and humanity. Collins zooms in from the macro perspective of historic legacies that encourage the devaluing of African art (and artists) and takes us into an almost step-by-step process of how an intentional, global community of collectors, can elevate African art using their influence, their reach and one of Collins’ favourite things: “a good plan”. Humanity is at the heart of Collins’ championing of the visual arts and it shines through profoundly in this interview.
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In this episode, Alastair Meredith chats to Refiloe about his fascination with South African modernist art; where it all started and why the genre remains the gift that keeps on giving to the South African public and the world. Alastair lets us into the workings of the secondary art market and shares heartwarming anecdotes of unexpected encounters with forgotten art gems. His is a work of passion and a reminder of the wealth of talent, flair and history that South Africa's art industry embodies.
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In today's episode, host Refiloe Mpakanyane delves into why so many Gen-Z artists multi-task and produce at the intimidating rate they do. In conversation with dynamic young artists and ANNA Award finalists, Nindya Bucktowar and Alexandra-Naledi Holtman, she explores whether this is a necessary adaptation to contemporary demands or a simple extension of their innate, intellectual curiosity. And while wearing multiple hats might impress or draw admiration, how do artists do this without stifling their creative flame?
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Our guests on this episode of the Latitudes Podcast are South African-born, U.S-based friends of more than 30 years: Stefan Simchowitz and David Altman. Their wide-ranging conversation with Refiloe explores everything from walking the line between collector and dealer, what success means in the art world and the promotion of cultural production from Africa.
Touching on the political, spiritual and everything in between, we hope this discussion gives you greater insight into Altman and Simchowitz - the man The New York Times has dubbed the Patron Satan of the Art World.
Simchowitz is well known - some may say notorious - as an art collector, curator and advisor who owns gallery spaces in the Los Angeles area; and runs a number of art residencies in the U.S and South Africa.
Altman is a producer and businessman who has been involved in development and charitable work for decades. His work has taken him to the US, Italy, Kuwait and Kenya and, having travelled widely in over 75 countries, he maintains an extensive global network in both the private and public sector.
As a platform for critical thinking, the Latitudes Podcast seeks to spark debate and provide our audience with a wide range of viewpoints from across the art ecosystem, even those that may ruffle feathers.
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Refiloe is in conversation with visual artist Cinga Samson about his meteoric rise to global, artistic success. Known for his figurative oil paintings of large-scale group scenes and self-portraits; along with his depictions of figures with pupil-less eyes arranged in ceremonious poses. Cinga unpacks just what his works seek to portray and perhaps why they might never fully do. Sceptical about the trappings of success: Cinga is more focused on appreciating the emotional and spiritual nourishment that family and nature can provide.
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Refiloe interviews Mark Read, the chairman of Africa's oldest commercial gallery, the Everard Read Group. They talk about Mark’s unique experience of being raised in the art business; then going on to helm and grow the family enterprise and ultimately becoming an influential figure in the art community. They also focus on his parallel life as a dedicated naturalist and preservationist who uses his influence to support several philanthropic causes. The wide ranging discussion explores ideas around visual art as a primordial tool of human expression and connection; and Mark gives his views on the innumerable possibilities that art can create for anyone, and for South Africans in particular.
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Refiloe speaks to Professor Sumayya Vally, acclaimed architect (and principal of the award winning architecture and research practice Counterspace) about architecture as an artistic medium. The conversation salvages the concept from the idealistic or theoretical and brings it into the deeply personal and intimate realms. Sumayya gives a peak into the engine at the heart of her practice including how architecture shows up in political moments, her fascination with under-appreciated stories as well as the legacies of our heroes and how she thinks of her own. Explore further here.
