THINKING IN WAYS OF REPAIR
Photographer | Zivanai Matangi
In July 2024, SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea hosted Thinking In | Ways of Repair.
Ways of Repair is an incubative and exploratory workshop that engages the archive of Princess Magogo, the Zulu princess, musician and poet.
Led by Sibonelo Gumede and Nombuso Mathibela, who are joined by several collaborators of The Centre for the Less Good Idea as well as musician and indigenous instrument specialist, Zawadi Ya Mungu, this Thinking In grapples with questions around contemporary modes of archival research in South Africa.
THE OPEN MOMENT
A lightbox projector displays an exploded metaphor for the research process: images, handwritten notes, scanned documents and textual fragments. “When we talk about ways of repair, we are talking about the failures of memory, the failures of politics, and the failures of ethics in how we confront archives, figures, people, and spaces,” says Mathibela. “Princess Magogo is a pathway into understanding archives as a methodology for us.”
Following a break-down of some of the “key characters” in the research, Mathibela and team demonstrate their methodology of performance as research. In addition to a live engagement with the tactile archive in the lightbox, there are audio recordings of spoken interviews.
Photographer | Zivanai Matangi
These both inform and speak back to the activity we see playing out in the projected image. It is at once filmic and live, a physical, embodied engagement with the materials that lend them a more contemporary and perhaps more accessable point of entry. Crucially, it’s a methodology that allows for a collective and collaborative way of engaging the archives, drawing on the body, the voice, and artistic impulse to surface new information.
The moment builds and swells, giving way to a collective choral investigation into the archives, echoing the voice and practice of Princess Magogo. They continue in this way, activating the archives through different compositions. Following this is a reflection by the performers, as well as a Q&A with the audience, further reflecting on the experience of the workshop, performance-led research and more.
Photographer | Zivanai Matangi
CREDITS:
RESEARCHERS & PROJECT INITIATORS | Sibonelo Gumede, Nombuso Mathibela & Zawadi Yamungu
ARTISTS | Tshego Khutsoane, Thulisile Binda, Micca Manganye, Sbusiso Shozi, Pertunia Msani & Nomaswazi Kunene