Landedness
Image Credit: Tom Platinum Morley
Landedness is a commissioning, co-creation, and engagement programme. Collaborating with artists and partners including MADEYOULOOK, the ungovernable, and Black Swan Society; Black people and people of colour (aged 18-35) in South Africa and the UK will get the opportunity to explore the idea of “landedness” in both cultural contexts.
Between March - November 2022, we will build on Ejaradini, a two-year project by MADEYOULOOK at Primary (2020-2022).
For Ejaradini, MADEYOULOOK had considered how personal gardens have featured in the lives of ordinary Black people, particularly under the difficult circumstances of forced removals, migration, and the challenges of labour politics within the context of South Africa. Landedness aims to highlight nature’s complex issues and connections by expanding on these subjects through cultural exchange. The programme explores topics such as land access, custodianship and intimacy.
Artist Collaborators
In the UK, we are working with Zethu Maseko, and in South Africa our partners are working with Alphabet Zoo.
Zethu will develop a large-scale quilted banner/tapestry created from natural dyes in response to conversations and specific place-based experiences of Black people and people of colour. A group convened by Primary in the UK will get the opportunity to explore the themes within the Landedness programme. Workshop participants are Roo Dhissou, Raisa Mcclarey Francis, Mbonisi Mkhombe, Tala Nengola, Pardeep Nijjar, Vera Okodugha, Janhavi Sharma and Sofia Yala.
Additionally, MADEYOULOOK will be in residence with Primary in Summer 2022.
Workshops
From March, Zethu will work alongside a Gardening Facilitator / Gardener to co-design and deliver a set of four workshops around the subject of Black urban gardening. The workshops will focus on storytelling, introducing participants to South African native plants found in the UK landscape. She will encourage discussion around the displacement of indigenous plants such as Crocosmia, Agapanthus, Bamboo, Gerbera, and Osteospermum. As a co-facilitator of the sessions, she will invite participants to plant Isicakathi (aka Agapanthus in the UK) and learn about the plant’s origins and indigenous medicinal uses.
Alongside gardening, we will explore a range of activities such as art-making, zine-making, photography, writing and critical fabulation, and field recording. Towards the end of the programme, the UK participant group will contribute photographs from the workshop and pressed images of the plants with information on their origins and uses to a series of zines. We will create the publications in collaboration with the artists and the group in South Africa.
Landedness is supported by the British Council Cultural Exchange programme, which assists cultural organisations, festivals, artists, and creatives between the countries of SSA and the UK to create art, build networks, collaborate and develop markets and share artists’ work with audiences.