Stuff it

Seriously, all I want is my stuff back, finish a few projects and go home. Sounds simple, right? Especially the getting my stuff back part. Apparently it’s not.

I stored 4 prints and 10 A2 sized framed images at Museum Gallery in Cape Town at the end of 2010, with the promise to get them back when I was next in town.  I was part of their opening show ‘The New Landscape’ and had a good working relationship with them. I blogged about the show here. When I left CT,  I asked if I could store some of my work at the gallery while I was in Europe. They said yes, no problem. Fast forward 15 months. I am back. And I have been *trying* to get my work back since April 5th and obviously still haven’t got it.

First thing I did was to simply go to the gallery. There was no one there. In fact, half the gallery seems to have been closed. So I wrote an email instead, asking for an appointment to come fetch my prints & frames. I got a swift reply from the owner/manager saying that he was out of town, but that he would look for my prints and get back to me as soon as he returned to town. That’s cool. I did not hear from him again. So I sent another email. And another one and another one. And, in fact, another one. I phoned and left a voicemail message. Finally, an email reply. He was on holiday, but he would get back to me a.s.a.p. “Asap” again, eh? I am sensing a theme here.

As to be expected, nothing happens. I phone again, I email again. I went down there again. We speak on the phone, again. I offer to come help look for the prints. “No no, you don’t want to be down there”. He will look for it, and will get back to me tomorrow morning, or this afternoon or whenever.

Anyway, you get the idea. There is always an excuse; he’s out of town, the electricity is out and he can’t see anything, they are taking down one exhibition and building the next, but once that’s done, sure ‘I’ll get to the archive’. Best of all was when he suggested it was my fault because it took me more than a year. What are we, in high school?

You are running a business, I made a deal with you guys that it was ok to store my stuff there, now I want it back. All you have to do is set up an appointment and keep your word. I am not your ex-girlfriend asking for an old t-shirt back. This is my work and frankly, returning it is your work.

Anyway, you get the idea. I am being strung along, given the run around, lied to. But, I still want my work back.
And this sucks.

The Untouchable Solitude of a Foreigner

Decided to take a break today from all things Swimming Upstream the passed two days. I just spent it with my family and friends while hanging around in Cape Town. It was lovely. Had lunch at Caveau or in Camps Bay somewhere, had supper at Beluga and the Savoy Cabbage, and sat on the roof of Jamaica Me Crazy with my brother and some friends. Now that they have gone back to the NL  I can safely say that “Die fetten Jahren sind vorbei”, ok maybe not Jahren exactly but Wochen to say the least. Die Fetten Jahren sind vorbei is a German movie from 2004 and is known as The Edukators in English-speaking countries but hey, the original title is simply so much better, don’t you think?

It features Daniel Bruhl who previously starred in the awesome ‘Goodbye Lenin’ and Julia Jentsch who protrayed Sophie Scholl in the movie of the same name. There are so many cool German movies out there, including “Das Leben der Anderen” which is a total must see.

We didn’t just have food, but also visited some Cape Town museums. The other day, we started at the Slave Lodge which I still find interesting and moving despite having visited it twice before. The Lodge also hosted an exhibition on Nelson Mandela which was very interesting but, I’m sorry to say, the design/lay out was terrible. Too chaotic with big displays, odd turns and corners and a claustrophobic feel to add. The content was good though. From there on we made our way to St Georges Cathedral followed by The SA Jewish Museum and Holocaust Centre. I last visited the SAJM in 2007 and found it quite dull then but today I totally changed my mind. There were interesting displays and videos, I liked the set up of Remembering, Reality and Dreams and enjoyed the David Goldblatt exhibit.

When I was a kid there were many people at our dinner table who lived through the war, had numbers tattooed on their arm, or spent time in Japanese prison camps in Indonesia. It was good visiting the Holocaust Centre with my family as they were also all afflicted by the war, as was anybody, but that’s for a different day. All I want to say is that it was a topic… with discussions, emotions, books, photography, music and documentaries filmed or memoirs written by friends.

After all that wining and dining it is time to buckle down and work, work , work. The exhibition is frighteningly close and there is still some work left to do. Photos to edit, people to talk to, stuff to write, quotes to choose and gather in a nice presentation. And to get my visa stuff sorted out. I got my extension months ago but my passport is still in Pretoria. Which is a bit of a drag as I need it to apply for a new one. Yet I can’t really think of it right now as I need to do the other stuff first. I am pleased to see though, that several blogs and online publications have picked up on the press release and the upcoming event. One Small Seed, Cape Town Magazine and Audrey Magazine amongst others have all picked up on it and  I hope it will help get everyone to the Grand Daddy Hotel next week.

In the mean time I have moved from Fresnaye to Woodstock and already missing the space around me and the ocean views. But yay, there’s music. In this case, Asa’s  Beautiful Imperfections (available on Naive/PIAS). I love it. Pop, soul, beauty and coolness from Nigeria. Just what I needed:-)

The title btw comes from a Milan Kundera essay in his new book of essays called ‘The encounter’. According to him, an encounter is not a social relation, not in friendship not even an alliance but rather a “spark, a lightning flash; random chance”. I kind of like that:-)

I’ll sell pussy to a lesbian if I have to

“I was very strategic about what I was doing, where I was hanging out. I was studying photography but worked in a bar and I made sure it was in a cool place in town where the right people came. You have to surround yourself with the right environment, meet people and get inspired. A challenge is to get yourself known, gathering ties, selling yourself but you have to have the portfolio to back it up. I’ll sell pussy to a lesbian if I have to.”

(Neil John Smith)

We did the interview at his studio at the Woodstock Industrial Centre on a Friday morning. He brought champagne with. We drank it. It was a good interview. I was tipsy by 11 am.

Halo

halo by MissTexas1977.

‘Halo’ by Miss Texas 1977 is probably my favorite song of my time in South Africa. Somehow it makes me want to go on a road trip through vast open plains on a hot summer’s day in faded Technicolor.

The shoot was done in my kitchen and right outside my house in Woodstock.

edit: looks like they’ll be featured in the next issue of Cosmopolitan so keep a look out for them! And catch them live if you have the chance.

Little fish, big fish swimming in the water

Swimming Upstream – I’d say it’s going rather well. It hasn’t always been easy but as a friend reminded me early on, it really is “the only way to be in life”.  And it sure has been a lot of fun as well! After having started this project at the beginning of this year, I am finally swimming towards the end. Fortunately, in true Swimming Upstream style, this is happening in a glitchy rather wobbly way. Two shoots have been postponed and the exhibition date has been pushed back by a couple of weeks. I found out that Chew Magazine doesn’t accept any content that has been published before. The good things are that this gives me more time to actually finish and find sponsoring to help me print and frame everything. Another good thing is that I went to a Pecha Kucha meeting at Tafelberg Tavern last night and came back inspired. There are so many people doing so many cool things in this city that it really makes you try harder. Look out online for a new company called Membrane, curators of ideas and a new awesome magazine called JRNL as well GreenPop in case you’d like to add some green to our world. One tree costs R50. Now how cool is that?

The first photo, and header for the blog, is of DJ Akio, founder of Consciousflowz and Kool Out Lounge

Anyway, welcome to my blog.