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Activist Profiles

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Hannah Mentz is an award-winning portrait, commercial and reportage photographer.
She was fortunate enough to grow up in Zimbabwe. After finishing university, Hannah
started her photographic career in London where she lived for 10 years. Since then,
she’s been living in Cape Town and returning to Harare to make the Great Zimbabweans
project. Forty Zimbabweans were chosen to represent the forty years of Zimbabwe’s
independence.

HANNAh MEnTZ

“The idea for Great Zimbabweans came from my desire to use my skills as a
photographer to provide Zimbabweans a space to tell their own stories about the current
situation as well as to highlight peoples’ achievements. Returning to Zimbabwe to make
this project, I witnessed the force of the many people - determined, hard-working and
humble - making great things happen despite the difficulties.”

Hannah hopes to exhibit the project in Zimbabwe later this year and is currently seeking corporate/cultural sponsorship to bring the project back home.

Excerpts from the Great Zimbabwean Project can be seen on

Instagram @greatzimbabweans2020

and Facebook @Great Zimbabweans2020


See the Indiegogo campaign to support Great Zimbabweans through purchase of a limited edition coffee table book, containing all the photos and interviews.


Pre-orders will run for a limited time only.
 

Hannah Mentz
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Hope Masike - MUSICIAN / MBIRA PLAYER

As a  Zimbabwean, I consider myself a custodian of our culture. I hope we Zimbabweans will tell our stories--as musicians, poets, historians, all of us.

We need to capture stories of Zimbabwe and tell them to the world.

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Reverend Kenneth Mtata - GENERAL SECRETARY FOR THE ZIMBABWE COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

 

A nation functions when its soul is alive, when its moral antennae is up. The next 40 years must be a rediscovery of new community leadership, leadership beyond politics.

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Beatrice Mtetwa - HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER

I came to be able to speak truth to power, despite the consequences.

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Dominic Benhura - SCULPTOR

I’m proud to be a Zimbabwean, blessed to be born in this country. Maybe if I’d been born elsewhere, I wouldn’t have come across these stones, or the people who introduced me to them...

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Tsitsi Dangarembga - AUTHOR / FILMMAKER

I  grapple with how to open up society to embrace women’s voices. We must not stifle and suffocate them any longer.

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Chirikure Chirikure - POET

It’s a blessing and honour to be a Zimbabwean. It’s not a coincidence people are born in specific places and circumstances. I was fortunate to grow up in a village. Now I balance city and village life. This mix inspires my writing.”

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Chido Govera - Social Entrepreneur and Humanitarian

I had what you’d call a difficult childhood. But today, I would say I had a childhood

which helped shape who I am. I want to stay here with my people, work for their  betterment. It’s not by chance I’m here. Zimbabwe is my heartbeat. 

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I study sound through various perspectives.  As an artist, I’m interested in shifting between materials and processes. My research involves seeking particular rhythms and working to visualise them. In the beginning, I explored natural elements, inventing basic ‘machines’ that marked time passing and created rhythmic beats within installations and environments. I made works which mimic the rhythms of the body. I became interested in forces in nature: water cycles, flow systems and the many approaches to measuring these movements in time. I enjoy data, tools, and inventions, and I manipulate situations to capture the imagination and reveal the magic in our natural world.

 

Whether researching or staging socially engaged events, my ventures are an effort to extend the conversation around our global climate emergency. Discoveries in climate science continue, but scientists are not always the best communicators. Increasingly, artists and others are collaborating with scientists to make science more accessible. As an artist, I’m trying to draw people in, to engage and involve them in the slow process of change. 

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Caroline Locke
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As we move into the 20’s and climate catastrophe accelerates, my research and practice is now focused on reinforcing public awareness of human responsibilities towards the ‘natural world’.

Recent works are interactions that reconfigure perceptions of the relation between humans, ‘nature’, politics and history in the face of climate change. I’m creating participatory experiences designed to challenge notions of human exceptionalism. 

Influenced by scientific theories that suggest all things vibrate, I began experimenting with making frequencies visible using cymatics, the study of wave phenomena, especially sound, and its visual representations.

 

I invented Sound Fountains in 2002 and continued this research over the following decade. These sculptures allow sound waves to move through water, enabling audiences to “see” sound.

 

Hydrophonics was a live performance in which seven musicians’ instruments were connected to Sound Fountains so sound waves were visible on the water’s surface. The audience could watch and listen to sonic compositions based on the sight of the sound from above a stage built for the event. 

 

In 2012, I began a residency at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), constructing the immersive Interactive Sound Fountain in the YSP Chapel. This was an emotional time. My dad had recently died, and I was grieving. The movement of trees soothed me. By experiencing his sudden death, I no longer felt invincible. I became aware of my own mortality and acutely aware of my love for planet Earth.

 

I spent a great deal of time walking, thinking and enjoying the natural environment. The movement of the trees at YSP gives the place its rhythm, both seasonally and in alignment with weather conditions. In the trees, I experienced rhythms I associate with music. I noted in my journal, “the wind is moving through the branches at the very top of the tree (higher frequencies) whilst branches closer to the trunk are not moving so much (lower frequencies).”

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Thus began the inspiration to create The Frequency of Trees, finding different ways to measure the movements, rhythms and frequencies of the trees in the park and to relate this to my studies into how sound moves. 

 

Gathering data was becoming more integral to my work. I joined The Performing Data Research Group at Nottingham University and worked alongside Dr. Rachel Jacobs. We made artworks using climate and environmental data sets to explore communication between science and nature. 

I continued seeking ways to respond to our new geological age, developing public events to reimagine ways of relating to our bodies and the Earth. I became intent on understanding  how art practice can explore global and local issues and help instigate changes in thinking and behaviour.

 

The Frequency of Trees sculpture was finalised in 2015. It’s a series of twelve tuning forks tuned to the frequency of four different trees within Yorkshire Sculpture Park: Oak, Horse Chestnut, Beech and the Cedar of Lebanon. By measuring the number of times a branch or leaf on a tree moved a certain distance within a set time frame, I was able to equate tree movements with Hertz readings, the unit used to measure sound. 

 

I worked with engineer David Froggit and his laser scanning device to take detailed scans of the trees and with arboriculturist Sharon Durdant-Hollamby.  Sharon and I discussed the intelligence of a tree's roots system whilst she used tree radar to map out the tree roots of the YSP Oak tree. 


The Frequency of Trees is an interactive public sculpture. After striking the tuning forks, spectators are invited to listen for the resonating frequencies that continue long after the initial strike. These are the pure musical tones that exist after the initial high overtones recede. Human hearing range measures 20–16000Hz.Therefore, the 16Hz fork appears to have no sound. However, spectators can still enjoy the sight of sound by watching the fork resonate. The work continues to be used for various educational programmes at Yorkshire Sculpture Park .

Paulo Hartmann
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In 2017, I worked with the artist Wolfgang Buttress and physicist Martin Bencsik. Martin has developed various bioacoustic techniques. Using his accelerometers (ultra-sensitive vibrational sensors), we monitored the resonances of The Original Bramley, a famous tree in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Our readings suggested that the frequency of the Southwell Bramley Apple Tree is 500hz.

 

Thus began The Significant Tree projects. Through 2018/19, I scanned and collected data from The Major Oak Tree and The Parliament Tree in Sherwood Forest; Newton’s Apple Tree in Woolsthorpe; and The Bunya Pine Tree in Queensland Australia. 

 

In the studio, I created compositions and recordings using the fourteen forks tuned to the frequency of trees. I was shifting from the idea of seeing sound to the idea of feeling sound, focusing on the power of sound as it affects the human body. 

 

Across the world, 2018-19 was a time of major climate catastrophe. Wildfires in California; the warmest June ever recorded in England and Scotland; fierce Atlantic hurricanes; raging floods. Climate change was ramping up, accelerating beyond control. Drawing upon my childhood in Somerset, I recalled church clock bells giving rhythm to my days. My first visit to Loughborough’s John Taylor Bell Foundry was in the early 90’s with my father. When I next visited the foundry in 2018, Mike Semkin, the engineering director, helped me create my first Significant Tree Bell. Bells are traditionally used to ring out warnings and tell us of danger. The bell became my next fascination.

 

The 320-year-old Sycamore tree where the Tolpuddle Martyrs met in 1833 is the symbolic birthplace of the Trade Unions movement in the UK. The National Trust looks after the tree. Drawn by its significance, I pondered the notion of ordinary people instigating a mass climate uprising, achieving the extraordinary and creating change. In March 2020, I was due to scan the Tolpuddle Martyrs Tree in Dorset, casting a bell based on the tree’s data. It was to be part of a publicly engaged event at the Bournemouth Arts Festival. Working with the public and a town crier, I’d arranged to exchange tree saplings for the public’s stories about their own significant trees. The town crier was to use the tree bell to ring out 'tree cries'.  I was planning to write the tree cries, based on stories gathered from members of the public. Covid-19 struck and all was postponed.

Significant Trees and Warning Bells 

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MAKING NOISE

Whilst out ‘in the wild’ collecting data, I experience many conversations with passers-by. The interesting gadgets draw people in, compelling them to ask what I’m doing. I record some of these conversations, entering into discussions about climate change. Awareness of climate change is now widespread; we have all felt the effects. The seriousness of the effects, however, is not widely considered. This is frightening. We are conditioned to carry on as normal, buying, wasting, and sometimes hiding behind the idea we are powerless. We must discuss the power of what can be done collectively. We are now very much inside climate catastrophe. The steady rise of sea levels, flooding, increased storm activity and forest fires are increasing. Ice is melting, species are dying out. We are at war with a pandemic, the roots of which link climate disaster and human destructiveness as central factors. 

 

Of course, what we need is action on a massive scale to push for new policies, changes to international trade agreements and a total shift in the global corporate and consumer culture. However, there are actions  we can take individually that are essential. We can exert pressure, we can march, we can speak up and fight for the world. We can make a big noise, sing, shout and scream. And we can ring bells.

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In October 2020, I began working in collaboration with the artist and performer Bruce Asbestos to develop the role of The Tree Charter Crier. Drawing from a rich history of painting, sculpture, popular culture, folklore and fairy tales, Bruce mixes everyday objects with high art, fashion, and aspects of popular culture. I wrote Tree Charter 'cries' utilising the ten principles of The Woodland Trust's Tree Charter. Bruce designed the crier’s costume based on traditional Town Crier attire. On Tree Charter Day, Bruce performed the Tree Cries whilst ringing the Significant Tree Bell tuned to the frequency of the Southwell Bramley Apple.

 

Covid-19 made socially engaged projects last year difficult. We could not organise a gathering, but we still held ceremonies. Many conversations were had (2 metres apart) with passers-by. A small team of five ventured out into the cold November rain. The large Tree Charter Bell drew people to us. The team had many conversations with passers-by who wanted to know what the Bell was for and how many trees we were planting. People posted pictures of us and the bell on social media and some promised to keep an eye on the trees to make sure they grow. Conversations led to how to take action in view of climate catastrophe. A deeper investment in the environment was encouraged through the project, even in this time of restriction.

 

The staging of the current projects borrow from historical contexts. The church tower bell and handbells are part of an accepted historical tradition. I use friendly, trusted imagery with the intention that the work comes across as cosy and nostalgic. The aim is to attract attention, draw the public towards the activity and invite participants to plant a tree and make their own contribution against climate change. The bell is rung each time a new tree goes into the ground.

 

At the end of each tree planting session, the bell is rung for each of the trees planted. The endless bell tolling is actually quite sinister. Suggesting  warnings and death, the sound is an ominous reminder of difficult times to come.

CEREMONY

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The Frequency of Trees

The book, The Frequency of Trees, was

published by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and has an introduction written by John Newling. It follows the seasons at the park and four of the trees which the artist tracked and gathered data from in order to make The Frequency of Trees. It is a book about the seasons, nature, data, people, their stories and creating a public interactive sculpture. 

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Paulo Hartmann

Winter 2020

Paulo is a Brazilian based artist, musician and activist who resides in Sao Paulo. Paulo was our guest on an Emerging Voices Zoom talk in October. Paulo’s Zoom presentation offered an opportunity to consider how connected we all are, our local concerns reverberating across a shared planet. 

Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest  in the world.  Critical to  the planet’s ecosystem, it hosts more plant and animal species than any other country. The Amazon, the planet’s largest rainforest, sometimes called the ‘lungs of the world’, has been on fire. Scientists think the blazes were primarily caused when people set fire to trees to clear space for agriculture. Along with deforestation, Brazil’s environmental issues include illegal wildlife trade and poaching, severe pollution increased by mining activities, pesticide use and severe oil spills, and inappropriate use of land for development.

The response of Brazil’s President Bolsanaro consists of defensiveness, denial and scorn for anyone criticizing his environmental policies. At a speech to the United Nations in September, 2019, he defended his priorities and reiterated pledges to reduce the size of protected indigenous territories and to open up further areas  to commercial mining. (Jair Bolsonaro says 'deceitful' media hyping Amazon wildfires).

Brazilian climate activists along with worldwide advocates continue to fight for environmental reform, battling  to reverse the Bolsanaro government’s climate-destroying actions. It’s a long fight.

In October, Emerging Voices talked with Paulo Hartmann, one of those involved in Brazil’s climate struggles.  Paulo provided valuable insights into Brazil’s plight. It’s not just Brazil, but all of us, who need to pay attention.

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Black Lives Matter Features, Summer 2020: 

Click on Image to Read Individual Feature

Makayla Johansson, Summer 2020

Makayla Johansson

Black Lives Matter Feature, Summer 2020

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Makayla, twenty-one, was born in Miami, Florida. Her family is of of U.S. Virgin Island heritage. At university in Southern California, Makayla is finishing a degree in Health Aministration, and plans a career in healthcare consulting.

MAKAYLA JOHANSSON SPEAKS

 

The hardest thing about being Black in America is feeling like I alway have to be on guard. I constantly feel I need to make adjustments to myself in order not to seem like I am “stirring up trouble” or even make others uncomfortable with my Blackness.

 

 

Sometimes I feel as though it may be a little too late for things to change or may be way too hard to change. But it would definitely begin on an individual level, with individual mindsets. Which can be the hardest thing to shift.Once the mindsets of individuals transform, and there is more acceptance and open-mindedness, then we can begin the work of real change.

 

The most important thing Whites don’t get is that  we Black people aren’t asking for power over anyone else. We simply ask for respect and the opportunity to make a successful life for ourselves and our families without the constant fear of it being sabotaged or ripped away.

 

 

White people should constantly hold themselves and one another accountable. They need to be cognizant of their privilege and not use it solely for their own personal gain.  Call out and correct their peers when they see injustice taking place. And amplify the voices of those being oppressed.

 

 

I think the U.S. as a whole is too racist to change. Racism is a part of every single system that has been built, and constantly holds our people back from being the best we can be. Even when we do have great achievements, it doesn’t come without extreme hardship and discouragement compared to our White counterparts. In order for any real change to occur, people must understand some harsh realities. Then they can begin to dismantle and repair the broken systems. But too many are not ready to begin this work

Hannah Moore

Black Lives Matter Feature, Summer 2020

Hannah, twenty-two, is from Dallas, Texas. She is a university student in Southern California, and will become a doctor.

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HANNAH MOORE SPEAKS

1. What are the most difficult things about being black in America?

The most difficult would probably be seeing on social media almost every week another black individual being killed. Then hoping  your family member won’t be the next person trending online for being killed unjustly. Also trying to comprehend how something like skin color can either kill you, or enable you to live a good life in America.

2. How can things change?

There’s a saying that we aren’t born to hate, but we are taught to hate. Things can change if we see that we are all God’s children. No one is lesser or better than the other. If that were so, Jesus would’ve died for one skin color and left the others to perish. We also need to erase negative stereotypes that have been plaguing this world for too long. Instead we should learn about what makes people different, and how those differences aren’t something to fear.

 

3. What changes are the most important?

The most important changes are equality and accepting those differences that divide us now. Also getting some form of justice for those killed unjustly.

 

4. What are the most important things white people don't get?

As soon as you’re born black, someone hates you just because of the color of your skin.

There are so many disadvantages, setbacks, missed opportunities in life solely because of skin color.

Just because being oppressed hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it’s unimportant or doesn’t exist.

 

5. Speaking directly to white people, what should they be doing individually and collectively?

Educate yourself. Pick up a book or look at YouTube videos on the black experience, etc. Try to be informed on what’s happening.

Even though you might not completely understand what we’re going through, be sympathetic to the cause; don’t just brush it off as irrelevant.

 

6. Do you have hope or do you think the US is too racist to change?

I don’t think anyone or anything is too far gone to change. But racism is so deeply embedded in the US, it’s become normalized. Stereotypes simplify and destroy.  I believe the only way for someone to truly rid themselves of hatred is to know God. That’s when hatred and racism disappear. So there still is hope for the US.

Hannah Moore, Summer 2020

Tadiwanashe Chirongoma, born in Zimbabwe, was brought up in South Africa. He moved with his professor mother and counselor father to California in 2013. He remained after his parents’ return to Zimbabwe. After receiving his undergraduate degree in 2021, he will attend medical school.

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Black Lives Matter Feature, Summer 2020

Tadi, Summer 2020

Amanda Decker

Black Lives Matter Feature, Summer 2020

Amanda Decker was born and lives in southern California, a place to which she is deeply attached. Currently a graduate student, she studies Curriculum and Instruction as it applies to young learners.

Amanda Decker, Summer 2020
Belinda Crawford, Spring 2020

Belinda Crawford

Let Us Now Praise... Spring 2020

Belinda Crawford is a postgraduate theology student at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. Her work focuses on questions of identity and belonging, drawing on biblical materials to illuminate and engage with contemporary struggles.

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 A COLOURED’S SOUTH AFRICAN CHILDHOOD

I grew up and in many ways still live in an oppressive patriarchal society. As a coloured (biracial) female South African, I have a different story from the familiar one of the divide between Whites and Blacks. Being coloured during the apartheid regime was different from just being racially black, white, or Indian. We were illegal hybrids labeled “amperpass,” an Afrikaans term meaning “almost like the master” because of our fair complexion. 

In the early days of apartheid, poor white adolescents were sent to “industrial” schools to learn a trade so they would not have to do the demeaning labor assigned to Blacks. Coloured adolescents were eventually also admitted to these institutions, known as “reformatory” schools. Reformatory schools were managed by the departments of both education and prisons. As the number of coloured students increased in the reformatory schools, skill training gave way to practices that fostered social isolation and psychological slavery, tactics that in some cases led students to commit suicide. 

I became part of the state system when I was two years old, since my mother was not able to keep and raise a biracial child. I grew up in a segregated and isolated world that seemed normal to me until I understood the true history of the treatment of coloured people during the apartheid regime. Even after the end of apartheid, though, little has changed for coloured people in South Africa. South Africa’s motto of “the rainbow nation” does not include the marginalized coloured population. I am neither Black nor White, and thus I often feel I do not belong in either the “black world” or the “white world” in South Africa. I lament this reality, experiencing an ongoing sense of pain and brokenness.

 

My mother, Thembi Mjweni, a domestic worker, was abandoned by my white father and shortly thereafter handed me over to the state. I only learned my story when I was twenty-three years old. My mother told me, “Before you were born, I was a domestic worker earning R12.00 per month (0.52 GBP) Your father deceived me into believing if we had a relationship, he would ensure I got an identity document and access to housing and social welfare. These promises were never fulfilled. Your father left me to fend for you and myself. 

 

This was not only difficult for me as a Black woman but even more challenging as I could not take you home to my village. You were too fair, with curly hair and little red lips, to be amongst Blacks. My heart was shattered. But I believed your growing up in a non-black environment would give you the ability to speak English, have an identity document and go to a Coloured school. I named you Nokuthula (meaning ‘peace’)”. 

My mother could not speak up for herself, as she could not address the elders in her village nor the government. On both sides, she was doomed for being an illegal sexual object for my father. 

In my teens, I was placed in a Coloured place of safety in the Northern Cape while waiting for a vacant space in the reformatory for girls in Cape Town. The place of safety was a temporary residence for a maximum period of 6-12 months. 

Every afternoon caregivers would read out names of girls who would leave the place of safety for reformatory either that night or early in the morning. The cold breeze of anxious silence would snatch my breath as names were called. I would pray my name not be spoken. The place of safety was a home away from home whereas reformatory life had no freedom. Isolation from the outside world was what it was known for. 

Matrons would tell us of the rigid routines of reformatory in order for us to appreciate the liberties we enjoyed, like going to public school, enjoying excursions, wearing our own clothes, playing sports, partaking in social activities such as painting and knitting and even going to church on a Sunday morning. All of these were prohibited in reformatory. 

These moments of transition from safe place to reformatory were tearful and heart breaking.  After your name was announced, a farewell song would be sung for you “Dis’ nie vaarwel nie maar net totsiens” ( this is not farewell, but just goodbye) “tot ons weer ontmoet” (till we meet again). You greeted friends for the last time, packed your clothes and prepared for the escorted trip to reformatory in Cape Town.

When I arrived at the reformatory, I looked for similarities to the place of safety and found none. The primary goal was to punish, reward, and reform girls, turning them into exemplars of White South African female passivity. I was one of 250 predominately Coloured girls and was welcomed with a number (14436).  I was sixteen years old.

The clothes I brought were taken away in the matron’s office, and I was left with my toiletries and hairdryer. I was given shoes, socks, underwear, two uniforms - green for school and blue for the weekend, two night dresses - one for winter and one for summer, three stay home dresses and a bath towel, I was told I would see my normal clothes on the day I left.

All 250 of us looked the same. There were no males, and no outside social activities. There was, however, stringent discipline.  Unless I was handpicked by someone from the surrounding community to clean their house for R4.30 (0.19 GBP) for a half day and R7 (0.30 GBP) for a full day, I had to remain within the confines of the institution.

In reformatory I was well nourished, three main meals and two snacks. I was domesticated through strict routines.  The school had three types of skill training: home-economics, needlework, and hairdressing. I received family planning as a preventative measure so that I would not fall pregnant should I be released on vacation 

Failure to comply with the rules and routine meant punishment, which meant going to court - the matron’s office - and being disciplined.  If anyone made an attempt to escape, or physically fought with other girls. she would be locked up in a very small room called the “cell”. This room had only a single bed and a very small window, just enough for sufficient sunlight and air.  

When I entered reformatory and given the number 14436, I was informed this number meant I was double. There was another girl numbered 14436, and I was her double. All the clothes and bedding given to me were numbered 14436. The traces of 14436 will forever be upon me. 

On the 3rd of December, 1993, at the age of 18, I was released from reformatory. For most of my life thereafter, I’ve been caught between who I really am, and how I am perceived, trapped between categories and definitions which don’t fit me. I used to think this was a curse, but now I see it as opening me to less confining worlds.

As a female caught up in the bonds of an oppressive political structure, not trained for any skill that would afford me the ability to survive in my society, and deprived of the traditions and culture of my two heritages, my restlessness about my life as a Coloured woman in South Africa continues.

I don’t look like most of the people around me; I can’t identify culturally with any particular group in South Africa, a country in which identity is culturally crucial. I often feel disconnected with so many and so much around me. This has, however, encouraged me to express my frustrations, anguish, and deep sense of pain to help my fellow coloured South Africans who know the marginalization that I have experienced, using my faith to shape others in my community.

Rachel Jacobs Winter 2020

Rachel Jacobs &The Future Machine

Let Us Now Praise... Winter 2020

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Rachel Jacobs is a practising artist, academic researcher, interactive games designer, writer

and arts facilitator. In 1996, she co-founded the award-winning artist collective Active

Ingredient. Her 2014 doctorate in Computer Science investigated the contributions of artists engaging with climate change.  Rachel is currently an Associate Researcher at the University of Nottingham and Visiting Research Fellow at Central St Martins (University of the Arts London).   Her current project, Future Machine, is designed to help communities across England respond to environmental change.

The Future Machine: A Biography

Environmentally Engaged and Collaborative Artwork 

Devised by Artist/Researcher Rachel Jacobs

www.whenthefuturecomes.net

WHAT IS IT?

The Future Machine is a magical device created via a series of conversations with artists and citizens across England. As the name suggests, the creation looks ahead, aiming to help address an uncertain future on a planet in crisis. Its interactive technology allows stories to be recorded and printed on the spot from the words of participant viewers. These narratives are intended to help individuals imagine creative ways to address  global climate change.

As well as looking forward, the Future Machine reminds us of a less contaminated past. Juxtaposing the two contexts is meant to inspire us to find ways into an inhabitable communal future. The sleek simplicity of the machine’s polished ash casing with its copper transmitters and receivers – like ears on either side of the frame – take us back to an increasingly distant time when our planet was less spoilt. Music transmitted from the copper speakers, a tribal drumming and percussion soundscape, enhances the notion of the Machine moving through shifting weather landscapes. 

 

The Machine will travel to the same places every year to witness changes in the environments of each locale, and to document the responses of local citizens.  Its creators aim to have it on the road for at least ten years. The goal is to explore how site-specific art, science, technology, ritual, myth and storytelling can help frame positive responses to anthropogenic (human made) environmental change in these dangerous climate times.

Rachel Jacobs and the Future Machine

HOW DID IT COME TO BE?

 

The Future Machine is part of a larger artist-led research project studying the long-term impact of anthropogenic climate and environmental change on mental and physical wellbeing. The Future Machine began with Rachel Jacobs and the arts collective Active Ingredient she co-founded in 1996. Rachel’s previous work includes: Performing the Future in 2017-18, The Prediction Machine which was built in 2015 and is continuing to tour nationally, along with Relate (Timestreams) and A Conversation Between Trees . These two international co-productions took place across the UK and Brazil between 2011-2013.

 

Since 2016, 'Building a Future Machine' workshops have taken place in Nottingham, Loughborough, Liverpool and Cambridge. Over one hundred visions of a Future Machine were created. Ideas on what we have lost and gained in the past and what we should protect or risk losing in the future  are described in a paper published in the Journal for Risk Research (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2019.1569104?journalCode=rjrr20)

 

Input from public workshops was part of the design process. Engineers and programmers designed digital systems, working alongside the artist, carpenters and metal workers. Conversations with climate scientists also informed the work. 

WHERE WAS IT LAUNCHED?

The Future Machine was first launched in Finsbury Park, north London, on 12 October 2019. Four more journeys will take place in inner city Nottingham with artist Frank Abbott; post -industrial Cumbria with artist Wallace Heim; rural Oxfordshire with artist Juliet Robson; and Cornwall and Somerset with artists Caroline Locke and Matt Watkins. An exhibition of the machine and all it has witnessed is planned at Furtherfield Gallery (London) in 2021.  

Prior to the Finsbury Park launch, five workshops took place as part of the Time Portals programme at Furtherfield Gallery.  Over five months, forty participants came together to talk about environmental change in general and Finsbury Park in particular, considering the Future Machine as a way into a more optimistic future.

Finsbury Park encompasses three London boroughs (Haringey, Islington and Hackney). One may enter the park from one of three gates and never see anyone who enters and exits via a different gate. The Machine traveled from gate to gate to greet different communities with projects in the park, pulling them into the procession.

First up was Pedal Power, an inclusive cycling club for people with disabilities who cycle together twice weekly.    

Edible Landscapes, a garden paradise containing only edible plants and maintained by people dedicated to conserving the environment, encouraged people to pick autumnal hops and berries with which to decorate the Machine and give it a ritual element. Prior to the launch, a collaboration was forged with Alex Dayo and his fellow musician Dave Kemp from the drumming school in Finsbury Park. Alex created sounds for the Machine wherein tone and pitch reflect  the increasing weather volatility of record-breaking heat, rain and wind.

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Alex Dayo, Musician and Composer

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Future Machine in Autumn

Sixty plus people, undeterred by October rain, came to meet the Machine, walk beside it, push and pull it around the park and speak to it. Attached to the Machine is a recording device into which people confide their visions of climate, present and future. Voices were often prayerful, whispered hopes and fearful dreams set down in a challenging time.

Imagining Climate

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Future Machine will be returning to Finsbury Park every Autumn, for the foreseeable future.

[Suzy Rosenthal contributed to this report and we thank her.]

Millie Guest

Let Us Now Praise... Autumn 2019

Millie Guest is a passionate climate advocate. She co-founded  Parents for Future UK https://www.parentsforfuture.org.uk  It aims to involve parents in the struggle for climate justice. Empowering them is to encourage meaningful action to help  ensure their children's viable future.

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Millie Guest, Autumn 2019
Ruth Catlow, Summr 2019

Ruth Catlow

Let Us Now Praise... Summer 2019

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Ruth Catlow  is an artist-theorist , researcher and curator, co-founder with Marc Garrett of the Furtherfield Gallery and commons space in North London.   

Ruth focuses on the intersection of arts and technology as it applies to emerging practices in art, decentralised technologies and the blockchain. Among other collaborative activities, she develops academic and cross-sector partnerships and is an international keynote speaker on art and technology. Ruth is editor of Artists Re-Thinking the Blockchain, a collection of essays exploring this emerging reality. We spoke with her in the commons space in Finsbury Park, North London, in July 2019.

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Ruth Catlow on some uses of Blockchain in artworld business

Interview with Ruth CatlowEmerging Voices
00:00 / 14:32

@furtherfield 

@IsDecal

Gohar Shahnazaryan Ph.D Spring 2019

Gohar Shahnazaryan, Ph.D

Let Us Now Praise... Spring 2019

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Dr. Gohar Shahnazaryan is Director of Yerevan State University Centre for Gender and Leadership Studies (www.ysu.am/gender) and Co-Director of Women’s Resource Centre NGO (www.womenofarmenia.org) in Yerevan, Armenia. She has a PH.D. in Sociology, and is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Sociology at Yerevan State University.

 

Through the Open Society Institute, Gohar was a fellow at the Institute of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies at the University of California,  Berkeley, and continues to be affiliated with Berkeley’s Sociology and Gender Studies departments.

For the past ten years, Gohar has coordinated large-scale projects on women and gender issues. Projects include  women’s leadership development, referral systems for survivors of gender based violence, educational projects on women’s rights, women and peacebuilding. She is a leader in expanding the feminist presence in Armenia. Dr. Shahnazaryan is the author of more than twenty publications on gender issues in Armenia.

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WRC Retreat

About Women’s Resource Center

Founded in 2003, The Women’s Resource Center of Armenia (WRC) is the first resource center for young women created in post-soviet Armenia.

 

WRC’s main goal is empower and encourage women to be active citizens of the Armenian community. The  Center is participatory, run and governed by women. WRC is the first NGO to address the issue of sexual violence in Armenia. A  volunteer-based hotline and crisis center has been in place since 2007. 

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Meeting with partners from Croatia at WRC office 

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A conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights organized by WRC

WRC works to develop sexual assault crisis centers in rural areas as well as regionally, and builds coalitions on all levels, including in partnership with the government.  Monthly trainings on sexual and reproductive health and rights are ongoing, based on  workshops held at WRC for 15 years, and collected in the book My Body, My Rights.

One of WRC’s crowning achievements was to develop a safe, empowering learning space for all women in Yerevan and in the conflict area of Nagorno Kharabagh. In 2016, the Center was  given the UK based Star Foundation For and With Girls award. This award enabled the purchase of a property for the Center, making it completely accessible to all women, including those with disabilities. The Center regularly collaborates with women refugees, LBTQ women, women from rural areas and conflict regions. Providing support  and teaching skills helps womenstart their own business. The emphasis is on independence and engagement in community mobilization for social change.

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15 year anniversary of Women's Resource Center

WRC has become a beacon for women’s rights, collaborating with state agencies to develop  laws essential for gender equality. The Center was instrumental in passing amendments to the Law on Sexual Violence in the Criminal Code of Armenia,  along with drafting the Law Preventing Domestic Violence.

About Women’s Fund Armenia

Last year (2018) saw the establishment of a Women’s Fund to support  movement building in Armenia. Women’s Fund Armenia is determined to assist in the development of a feminist discourse, and to address the major challenges of women and girls in Armenia. See the footnote for further information on the goals of the women’s Fund. 

Scope of WFA interests involves, but is not limited to:

 

  • Support to newly established women’s initiatives in developing strategic planning and setting  priorities;

  • Support to implementation of projects related to sexual and reproductive health, especially in less urban regions of Armenia;

  • Support of projects dealing with issues that are taboo in Armenia, particularly, raising awareness about sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls

  • Support of initiatives designed by women and girls from marginalized, vulnerable and underprivileged communities;

  • Support of initiatives designed and led by adolescent girls;

  • Research on women’s and gender issues;

  • Raising awareness about militarization and nationalism on women’s rights and choices;

  • Implementation of projects to support activists and representatives of NGOs to avoid burnout, as well as activities aimed at self-care and capacity development;

  • Support to translations of feminist literature;

  • Organization of study tours for feminist and women’s organizations to visit similar organizations and get acquainted with their work;

  • Support to feminist art and creative activities

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Jo Roach

Let Us Now Praise... Winter 2019

Jo Roach is Founder and Executive Director of Pedal Power, a bicycling club for persons of all ages with learning disabilities. It began with Jo and her daughter, Susie, over twenty years ago. Bicyling is one of Susie's joys, and Jo made certain she could cycle regularly.

 

Other learning disabled persons began to come along. Now over 2500 members come to one of Pedal Power's four weekly sessions in North London. Trainers work to insure that every session is fun filled with a sense of freedom.

Introduction to Jo Roach and Pedal Power, in a few of her own words.  

In addition to Pedal Power, Jo is also a poet.  Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies including Oxford Poets (2007).  

Her poem For My Daughter, was presented at a recent conference on Profound and Multiple Learning Disabled Persons.  

Read more about Jo's and her poetry here,

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/joroachbiog.html

Pedal Power and the work they do at www.pedalpowercc.org

Jo Roach reading Bread and Butter & For My Daughter

Jo Roach Winter 2019
Sophie Chirongoma, Spring 2018

   Sophie Chirongoma, PhD

     Profiles of Activists Feature, Spring 2018

...lecturer, Midlands State University, Zimbabwe

...advocate for African women and children's rights

...active member of Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (the CIRCLE)

SOPHIE'S STORY

I come from the Karanga society, a predominately patriarchal culture which values males over females. The rights of the girl child and her aspirations are neglected in favor of boy children. Women are considered insignificant players, and their education and health care are neglected. I was fortunate to have been born into a family which valued boy and girl children equally.  My parents sacrificed to insure my sisters and I were educated and well cared for. Often they were criticized for 'wasting' valuable resources on their daughters; girls were seen only as wives and mothers, not as persons contributing to a larger world.  I remember my father taking me to the local clinic on his bicycle or accompanying me on a four hour bus ride if I needed medical care outside the village. Even when they had to sacrifice what little money they had, school fees were always paid. In spite of my good fortune, I saw how women and girls were  denied access to education and health services.

 

I chose to pursue an academic path in which I studied African religion and culture, working to understand how these key pillars of African society operate to disinherit women and girls. I advocate for girls and women's access to education and health care; not being forced into child marriage; access to birth control; protection from domestic violence.  I use education as a tool to enlighten people, to help them interrogate and change deeply held religio-cultural traditions which dehumanize both men and women.

 

Contact information: sochirongoma@yahoo.com or sochirongoma@gmail.com.

SELECTIONS FROM SOPHIE'S WRITING

 

Voices From the Third World: Inter-Faith Dialogue Listening to African Voices (ed) K.C. Abraham, Volume XXV111 No.2 (2005) “Women Curbing Ecological Degradation: Hope for Transformed Lives Inspired through Inter-faith dialogue between Shona Religion and the Christian faith in Masvingo, Zimbabwe” pp39-60

Women in God’s Image: Images of God the Mother Nos 10&11 April & September, 2005 “Motherhood and Ecological Conservation of Mother-Earth” in Karen Buckenham (ed) (City Printing Works Private Ltd: Pietermaritzburg) pp.8-12

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Women, Religion and Health: Essays in Honour of Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye “Women, Poverty and HIV in Zimbabwe: An Exploration of Inequalities in Health Care” in Phiri I.A and Nadar S (eds) (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, New York) pp173-182 (2006)

From our side: emerging perspectives on development and ethics “Ubuntu and women’s health agency in contemporary South Africa” co-authored with Domoka Lucinda Manda in Steve de Gruchy, Sytse Strijbos and Nico Koopman (eds) (Rozenberg Publishers: Amsterdam) pp189-207 (2008b)

 

The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church “Earth, water, fire and wind: elements of African ecclesiologies” co-authored with Steve de Gruchy in Gerard Mannion and Lewis S. Mudge (eds) Routledge Publishers pp291-305 (2008c)

 

Compassionate Circles: African Women, Theologians Facing HIV: “Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Restore Order): Its Impact and implications in the era of HIV and AIDS in contemporary Zimbabwe” in Hadebe Nontando and Chitando Ezra (eds) (World Council of Churches Publications, Geneva, Switzerland) pp71-94 (2009)

 

ONLINE: 

 

Bahun-Wilson, A and Chirongoma, S (2014) “Effective responses to HIV and AIDS addressed in Tanzania” available online http://www.oikoumene.org/en/press-centre/news/effective-responses-to-hiv-and-aids-addressed-in-tanzania

 

Chirongoma, S (2015) An Exploration of the Role of the Karanga-Shona Women within the ZIRRCON Ecological Project in Masvingo Zimbabwe: Towards an indigenous eco-feminist theology available online http://www.tf.uio.no/english/research/projects/redo/redo-publications/sophi-paper.pdf

 

Co-authored the YWCA Safe Spaces Training Guide with Sonjelle Shilton (2016) Available online, 

http://www.worldywca.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Safe-Spaces-long-web.pdf

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