The WhyPAR Podcast
Episode 3: “A space that belongs to the city, but is being neglected by the city”: On the Geographies of YPAR, A Conversation between Rangoato Hlasane and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (Part One)
Citation:
Raza, Naima. “A space that belongs to the city, but is being neglected by the city”: On the Geographies of YPAR, A Conversation between Rangoato Hlasane and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (Part One).” Produced by Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández and Sarah Switzer at The Youth Research Lab. The WhyPAR Podcast. March 2, 2021. Podcast, MP3 audio, https://youthresearchlab.org/whypar
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Host: Welcome to The WhyPAR podcast, a project of the Youth Research Lab at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
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Host: In the WhyPAR podcast, youth participatory action research practitioners discuss the ethical dimensions of conducting YPAR. In our podcast, we explore issues of co-leading YPAR projects, building relationships, power dynamics, and sharing our work together. The Youth Research Lab is located in Toronto on the traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River.
Ra: It is therefore, was always wanting to be levered their response… So keleketa as a call and response… the response being keleketla, I'm here to listen to you, active participation… there’s a drawing from responding to the political conditions, seeking to create that which is not there for you…
Host: Welcome everyone! My name is Naima, and I’m the host of the whyPAR podcast. I am currently a graduate assistant here at the Youth Research Lab. I’m also a YPAR practitioner with a background working in schools.
And we’re back this month with another exciting conversation. Last month you heard from Sarah and Rubén. Today’s episode is the first in a three-part conversation between Rangoato Hlasane, (or Ra) and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández. Ra is a YPAR practitioner, co-founder of Keleketla! Library and a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rubén is a YPAR practitioner, the Director of the Youth Research Lab, and a professor at the University of Toronto.
They’re going to be discussing how YPAR plays out in marginalized geographies, and specifically, in the context of the Joubert Park neighbourhood in Johannesburg. In this episode, they will discuss Keleketla!, a library and media arts project co-founded by Ra. Keleketla! was based at Johannesburg’s historic Drill Hall in the Joubert Park neighbourhood between 2008-2015, and it was actually the site where Nelson Mandela and 156 prominent freedom fighters were tried for treason in 1956. So, the operating space of Keleketla! holds a heavy significance. Keleketla! is now based at King Kong, a multidisciplinary arts space and concert venue which is also in Johannesburg.
Together, both Ra and Rubén will explore: How are cultural spaces born of creative resistance by populations neglected by the city? What are the ways that young people come together and actively create their own spaces and institutions in order to engage in the arts? What is the significance of spaces like the historic Drill Hill as being the site that allows young people to share space, imagine and create the programming they hope for?
This conversation was recorded outdoors in Johannesburg. I’m sure you can hear the children playing and the birds chirping in the background of the conversation. Hearing the sounds of the outdoors throughout the entire conversation brought me so much joy. And with that, let’s jump in!
Rubén: Thank you for doing this, having this conversation with me and allowing me to record it. It's really, it's really an honor. And just such a pleasure to keep having these conversations with you. I know I hope that whatever it is that transpires between us, it's somehow useful to somebody else. And if not, then it would just be a gift to each other is a gift to each other.
Ra: It’s a gift to each other. Yeah, I'm really, it's an equal honor and a pleasure. And indeed the privilege because, it's borrowed time, right? Like, we, we tried to make the best of the time that we have together…
Rubén: So, I think it would be great. If, can you describe kind of the beginnings of “Keleketla” and, the beginnings of “Keleketla” and the work that you do for people who are not familiar with it. And, I'm particularly curious about what were the commitments that moved you to this? What were the sort of both ethical political commitments that sort of moved you through this process of arriving at your practice?
Ra: Yo, as they say , there are always many ways to enter in the story, and there are many pathways into it. But one of the first stories that I really always go back to is the meeting of myself and Malose Malahlela, who is basically the one person whom we have carried through this Keleketla project for many years. We met at the, at a cipher, a hip hop cipher.
The cipher is a space of a circle in which knowledge is transferring in a circle, one person after the other, was very important. But in that circle, there are many different personalities, biographies, characteristics, written styles. So, so you always feel each other up, you know, as to who am I feeling? Who is saying what, who is that I'm feeling? So you can feel each other on a stylistic level. You can feel each other on a thematic level, all kinds of things.
So from that very first session where we connected, we became the core organizers, pulling people together into these sessions every Friday. Started in my room, into another person's room and Malose’s room. Towards the end of 2007, we were feeling like, okay, now we are living in student accommodation, but we want to keep this connection. This community, this connectivity. So that's when we spoke to people who were running the space in the Drill Hall doing arts and culture programs, within other programs that were happening within this space.
And that's when the idea of starting a library started. And because then it was sort of set that in a library, formed by not bureaucrats, administrators, but by artists… the library itself had to be something else. Had to reimagine itself, had to reimagine libraries, and what they can be. Right? I've always been interested in literature and reading and writing and not only writing lyrics, but also writing many other different kinds of things. So that also became important in terms of what kind of library should this become…
But at the time we really were not so conscious about what, you know, how we are thinking about what kind of library we should do. The only thing was that children became the most, the main recipients, the main beneficiaries, right? Who came because, because it's, as you can you imagine the dynamics in the compact nature and the density of it, there are very few spaces for children. And because it had this public square as a building, this Drill Hall space, children are always drawn to this square to play. So when the library emerged, some of the first people who came were children. Now, because children are coming and enjoying the books, and it was only one shelf - finished - and they were like, well, we actually wanna dance, we wanna, we want music, we want to paint. So the children gave us a mandate in a sense.
So when the children were asking all kinds of things and the Joubert Park project had some remaining funds, then we could, because of these large space contacts, collectives [working here] at the time in theater and music and visual art, and stuff, and we were like, the children are asking for some things, and between us we don't have enough skills to give them what they want, ah but we have this huge space. So, if you want to do workshops, performances, concerts, let's think of a bartering system. Children, what they want in exchange for you using the space, for [inaudible].
And essentially that's how the after school program developed, right. It was a mandate. There was like, books are not enough, books are not the only thing we need. And what was beautiful though, was the naming, was that the naming, the term Keleketla is a response to a storytellers, "once upon a time." Um, so the response being keleketla, I'm here to listen to you, active participation, uh, as I was, uh, sharing at the session at keleketla library is that it is, uh, it is therefore was always wanting to be [levered] their response then, and I always go back to, to the children, seeking more than the books, seeking more than what you started with, and brought into the space and saying 'we actually have other things in mind.'
And then that leading to further call and responses. So keleketa as a call and response, was really manifested and concretized at the very beginning, in terms of how the after school program, emerged, and developed and, and really became a key feature of the library. So, so in a sense, there’s a drawing from responding to the social conditions, the political conditions, seeking to create that which is not there for you…
At the same time the student accommodation was two blocks away from the Johannesburg Art gallery. Uh, and very few people knew it, right? Like knew of it. I did because I was studying fine art. And now, uh, our lecturers used to take us there, but in the student accommodation nobody knew, I mean, so it was also about there are structures, there are institutions of culture, but it's a distant culture. Nobody is, Nobody knows. Or even if they know they don't want to go.
Organizing cifers, regular cifers was way of getting together to rap together, because that's what we do. So starting a collective that way, and then this collective ahead of, towards graduation, realizing that what we created is important, let's take it further than rapping into forming a space, a Library. A formal space of gathering was important because we were forming a space informed by what we do.
So we were informed by what we do, and then, and out of which then creating a space that, that expands from that, but by inviting others, but also listening to what people are seeking, particularly the young people, then developed into this program of intergenerational conversations, right? but that also on the political level was informed by the fact that we knew that there's not enough spaces for all these collectives, including ourselves, before we gained access to do things. So we knew that is the resonance that people are seeking space and we have it. So, so on that political level, it was also known that the city of Joburg does not have enough spaces. And of course the paradox being that Johannesburg Art Gallery is right there and we were not using it. And in terms of using a space that is being, that belongs to the city, but being neglected, by the city. Right?
Rubén: Yeah. I mean, that was one of the things that really stood out to me being there. And I remember it quite distinctly, right. That here are these spaces that the city produces, for the purpose of engaging an audience, and here is an audience, ready to engage, that's not interested in these spaces. And then here is a space that the city forgets or, and then that's where the engagement occurs. So that this is a powerful, you know, that's about agencies. There's so much about that that has to do with people's relationship to space.
Ra: Yes. The temporal, the spatial.
Rubén: And what spaces are welcoming, and what spaces are not…
A question that I wanted to ask you about, about the process of welcoming the children, creating the space, being there, Because in a sense, you know, drill hall is both at the moment, Drill Hall is both an empty space. Uh, with, with a structure, right? That kind of physical structure. I, I, I remember the brick columns, the floor, the wood right, across from the square. And so it isn't the church, it isn't a school. It isn't any of these other institutions that, that in this case, children, but even adults navigate. And yet at the same time, it's a place with such a monumental and heavy history, right? which the children may or may not have been aware of. Perhaps they could see the fences and recognize that this is not just any kind of square, right.
Because when you, at least my experience of Drill Hall, when you're in that space, that cement floor and the fences is that you recognize it as a public space, but you recognize it that it isn't a park. Right? It isn't, it's something else. Right? And, and, and then, you know, the history of Drill Hall. So I'm really curious about how, how that facilitation occurred or what were the sort of signals or, or, or events, or, you know, intuitions or thoughts or feelings that, that allowed a space that on the one hand is empty and has no content. And on the other, has this huge historical content and this particular…. yeah, again, it's not a church, it's not a school, isn't not a courthouse. It's not a library, isn't not a museum and you're - there you are. Right. And then there you are, and there are the children. And then suddenly things start happening. Bring me back to that. Like, what's that like?
Ra: I mean, look, one thing is, is that when the city invited what they called anchor tenants, they did, what I think is a good job, right? So there was an institution, that was based on skills transfer called the Joubert Charitable Affair that is involved in taking care of the young people, for skills transferal. And then they selected another group, another organization that is looking at homeless people and giving them a place to stay and also involved skills transferral in kind.
Rubén: So they were, they were sheltering homeless people in this?
Ra: Yes. And then invited the Joubert Park project to get that project with other cultures. And they were tasked and sort of bringing their heritage, their culture and heritage to, to sort of activate the space for programming that revisits its history. So those structures were in place and then there's this square, which is just open for people to come in. And then all these three organizations could host things there. So as a shared space, so basically already people that come into the square to just chill and play.
Rubén: Because of these organizations being there?
Ra: Yes. And also the square being open to everybody, in a sense.
So when we get, but, but the Joubert Park project was working on a project, and most of the time, really contemporary language, which, which, which I think was also kind of alienating, and would, you know, would have an effect where then other people stay on the margins and watch. In a sense. So what we proposed was to be fully integrated in the space to run on as is instead of [inaudible] as cutting out of a student community where we do more on a weekly basis, which is in a sense, a project to project basis. But we were part of that community, bringing that the root of being part of a community, but having moments of showcase.
So, so when, and, and, and, and it is here that I think it is the children's mandate that a shelf of books, it's not enough. We want more that really pop because on the one hand, we, we did not have all the skills they wanted. So it made us reach out. But this also had an effect in terms of making us network too, by bringing other collectives, we are knowing more people. Remember we are coming out of student accommodation. So we are also still trying to be in connection with the broader world. Outside of sort of that isolated world oif just students accommodation. So that, that, that dabbling created an effect where the immediate neighborhood knows now that okay, if you got tired or just run on the square and playing soccer, there is dance. There is, there is drama. There is visual art, it's complicated, but also actually is a library where you can get books and you can not get in the library.
And the schools in the inner city, most of them don't have libraries, especially in those, in that neighborhood where most of the schools actually, are private, but not private in the sense that they are expensive. They're actually sometimes cheaper than government schools, such as schools like [school name] boys or [school name] boys and girls. So they are private in the sense that they're not governing schools, but they actually for working class families. And most of them operate in business that needs to be offices that have been abandoned in this shift. When these exodus to the Northern suburbs, so many buildings were empty. So they became schools, cheap schools. So many of them actually don't have libraries. So in fact, what we did when we first started in 2008, 2009, and starting this after school program, after the kids asked, and then we were reaching out to collectives who, who needed space and had the skills, we were going to schools to ask teachers that there's a program and, you know, the learners can come and participate.
And of course, no, teachers were too busy, so they didn't want to be engaging for the organizer and that didn't work. Right. And we popped it and continued to do [inaudible] with those who were interested. Then what happened is that every now and then you start hearing from different schools, writing letters, “Dear Keleketla, we hear about the work you're doing, which is really great.” First they wrote to us about books. And just to just ask me about books, the point that they do not have resources and libraries. So all the schools that addressing us letters, because the learners who now come, go speak in the schools about this space.
And, I mean, some of them were not so committed, but it was this Freedom College that really was really similar in many ways. And, and it is that actually, that really created this, this, this confluence of, of different understanding of the geography, which with Joubert Park in the neighborhood, I'll send you a video. I don't know, since for the reflections one. And this one is quite significant because there was a time when, when we approached Freedom College to work with them on a choir project. So when we were doing the history of the Drill Hall, we realized that during the Treason Trial of 1956, because the trial was really dragging the, the trial formed themselves into the choir.
Rubén: Hmm. Interesting.
Ra: Because they were bored, you know, this trial was ridiculous. So they formed the choir and then in this part of us, and then Freedom College invites, well, we approach Freedom College to say, this is a very interesting factor. And we know you have a school choir.
And then the teacher who was the choir conductor was very excited to collaborate with us. But then after agreeing, left the school. During that time, then somebody who was coming to the Drill Hall, for a music studio that was operating, had heard these children singing and came upstairs… and asked if they could be involved and at the time we were like, okay, we'll see, because we still had this school choir conductor. And then the conductor of the school choir left the school, and we were left with no conductor. And that person actually can conduct. And then they was, she was now a new conductor with a band of young practitioners who you're collaborating with, and it was a phenomenal project.
So, I think it is this ability to work within, and the finding of at the time there was a project called Hundred Meter Radius, which was, which came out of the funds of the previous organization, that, that when we applied to occupy the space, we are about to leave. So the funds came few years later after they've given up or given over the space to us. And there was these funds that we could use.
So, the project was called Hundred Metre Radius, which is about really in the neighborhood. And yet there was this ability for people beyond the neighborhood, as students facilitated many projects, people from other geographies helped facilitate projects. So the ability to work within, enmeshed within the immediate neighborhood, and also have people from elsewhere coming to the space to collaborate was quite critical. But I, it was very, very important in, in creating this environment that is quite open, because at the end of the day, people don't want to be parochial. People want to be with others. They want to see the world from the way they are.
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Host: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of The WhyPAR Podcast. My big takeaways from Ra and Rubén’s conversation include hearing about how organically small informal gathering spaces like can lead to the creation of such important community spaces like Keleketla. I learned about how we can re-imagine what libraries and artistic spaces can look like, and how sites like Keleketla can be grounded within community and a neighbourhood and also bring people across a city together. Stay tuned for our next episode and see you next time!