Gugulective

Untitled
Opens: 8 November 2007
Ends: 30 November 2007



Gugulective is an artist collective consisting of 7 members. The name Gugulective derives from the Xhosa word for pride (gugu). Although founded and developed in Gugulethu in 2006, artists from Langa and Khayelitsha have joined the group in the meantime. Due to a number of organisational and financial obstacles, the collective could only take up its practical work in the form of creative projects this year. Two exhibitions were put together in Gugulethu as well as a painting workshop with the local youth.
Gugulective is clearly not aiming at reactionary intervention, but is born out of the need for creative projects in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Art is seen as a means to promote development and create social cohesion within communities. Unfortunately, it is often neglected when crime and economic troubles are prevalent in everyday life. Many township schools for instance do not teach art any longer, and extracurricular activities in this field are largely lacking, too.
To date, their work have been realised in Gugulethu. Untitled is a group exhibition working in and with the blank projects space to create work which will create a conversation between two locations (blank projects in Cape Town and Kwa Mlamli in Gugulethu). The installation piece will consist of tables and chairs taken from Mlami's shebeen and installed at blank projects. Along with the chairs and tables, items of clothing will be installed.

“We aim to challenge the pre-conceived visual representation of shebeens in institutional and gallery spaces. In recent years, the shebeen has been portrayed as a negative and loud space, covered with wall paper, filled with people sitting on beer crates and lacking aesthetics and recreational values.
This piece is symbolic of absence in many ways: the absence of black artists and audience in gallery spaces, and also the fact that mobility structures hinder accessibility to institutional spaces and the city centre itself for individuals residing in Khayelitsha and Gugulethu.”