The WhyPAR Podcast
Episode 4: “It wasn’t about being an artist, it was about getting together”: On Building Youth Collectivities, A Conversation between Rangoato Hlasane and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (Part Two)
Citation:
Raza, Naima. ““It wasn’t about being an artist, it was about getting together”: On Building Youth Collectivities, A Conversation between Rangoato Hlasane and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (Part Two).” 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: When I interviewed her about whether the program at Keleketla! should extend itself? She said, “No, it shouldn't because if it does, then it's going to be like a school. And what's special about this is that it’s not a school,” right?
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 experience working in schools.
Today’s episode is the second 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.
Together, they’re going to be discussing the process and nuances of building youth collectivities, and specifically, within Ra’s program, the Keleketla! Library in Johannesburg. As I mentioned in the last episode, Keleketla was based out of Johannesburg’s historic Drill Hall between 2008-2015, and was actually the site where Nelson Mandela and 156 prominent freedom fighters were tried for treason in 1956. Keleketla! is now based at King Kong, a multidisciplinary arts space and concert venue which is also in Johannesburg.
In this episode, Ra and Rubén will explore: How do young people understand learning that happens in collectivities outside of school contexts? What is the significance of ephemeral moments and interactions shared between individuals in maintaining youth collectives? What is the role of demonstrations and performance in maintaining youth art collectives?
This conversation was recorded, out again, outdoors in Johannesburg. The birds chirping in the background make me so happy because it’s a gloomy, cloudy winter day here in Toronto.
And with that, let’s jump in!
Rubén: One thing I remember, being in Keleketla! the first time, five years ago, was that in a sense, this space felt to me full of life because it was full of artifacts that, so, so with the books in the, in the shelves, and then there were the various publications from other organizations that circulate through, through it, through a library.
Ra: Yes.
Rubén: And then there were all the various artifacts you also created. And of course, some of those artifacts, especially the ones that are printed are very evident, but I'm assuming that they were also a lot of stuff that was made that was not apparent because it was ephemeral, perhaps, because it was performative. And I wonder, can you describe those things for me, because I don't have a sense of them. I have a, I have a clear sense of the things that are, that are objects, like clear object materials, right? The printed, the notebooks, the various sort of printed things, but I don't have a sense of what the other things looked like and the work that came out of that space.
Ra: Yeah. There's a lot there. I don't know where to begin because… yeah. Uhm… the intergenerational dialogue for me come up as the most critical, and they come, they come in so many kinds of ways because… so for example, I remember Malose and I driving this car actually, driving about 40 minutes out of the city. Very far away, because, a young boy who was a student from his school, Freedom College, that became one of our really key partners in this education program and this school was two blocks away, three from the Drill Hall, and was having a hard time with the mother because, yeah, the mother just didn't understand why he's doing extra things outside of school. And, and because we always had these programs that were like 10 to 12 weeks leading towards a public moment to share, you know, the, the learner was getting concerned about letting down his group, he was playing the keyboard… and he came and was like “really, you need to come home and speak to my mother.” Right. And yeah, I mean, that's a very complex space of negotiation of all kinds of things, different complications, comprehension of what education is, of geographies of space, of young collectivities or collectives of young people, which are quite ephemeral by themselves. Like everything is always like, you know, it's going to end in any minute. But also like really commitment to the collective for us, stood out as this extended education or, you know, extended awareness about the place of, of centers such as ours. In their, in their, you know, in their contribution to, to learning, because one of the things also - its in the book that I gave you, 58 Years to the Treason Trial, there was this interview, with one of the members of the dance collective, who, when I interviewed her about whether the program at Keleketla! should extend itself? She said, “No, it shouldn't because if it does, then it's going to be like a school. And what's special about this is that it’s not a school,” right?
Then there were what we termed “Corridor Moments”, in this, there is this book Creating Spaces, the one, edited and put together by Nicola al-Samarai, we did, its written with arts, and we did actually quote this young person, Emma Ramashala again, about what is most valuable about the program, right? And, and for her, it wasn't about being an artist. It was about getting together, right? It was about also about the fact that this is a space to reflect with other people in the inner city, her peers. So, so these Corridor Moments for us have always been quite critical because the young people have always really centered and really emphasized the fact that they are not doing it because they want to be artists, there was that recognition. So it was not an invocation for our program in that sense.
And because usually when we have this 12 week programs that go towards a public sharing, that last week becomes quite complex in that people stay late, facilitators stay late, we all stay late, and the learners stay late. And there's no coercion. There's no forcing. Everybody wanted to stay late because now there's a commitment to an idea, commitment to a project, a message, or a showcase of a skill - right - that has been achieved over quite a committed time. So then you have parents coming to, to be able to collect their children. And they stay there and see the results. Right? For me, those are quite significant because then that becomes an extended awareness. I mean, I'm being cautious of saying education, but at the same time, it’s like - to make people aware of the, of the place of the art, right?, even if they don't do anything, they do that. They make parents actually come and wait for their children who are committed to something that they have to complete. And this is not as school thing, right? As the other participants said, we don't want it to become a school, right? You want it to remain what it is. So, so that, that, that participation of parents, of sisters, of brothers, of people’s children, learners, youth, who are part of the program for us, it's the most effective way of creating awareness of the space of culture, of what people do in a community, in a community where the Johannesburg Art Gallery is also there, but not able to do that.
You know, in other words, the parents come into the rehearsal, in order to collect their children at the end of this, because this thing is going over time because it's necessary. Their children think it’s necessary. It's a place of experiencing art, not on the day of the showcase, but in the day of the rehearsal, but also performing other roles that are familial, that are also neighborly that are part of the, the life, of the whole thing. So, you know, to an extent it is this insertion into a space, this insistence that we are going to insert ourselves into the social archive, of this space, something else, despite all of this, despite the city defining the space as complex, despite the neglect, despite all of that, we’re going to actually forcefully insert into the archive of this place, something else.
So the Drill Hall right now really is really... is it's … I don't want to see the pictures, but it isn't. We have inserted an archive of something else. And that's why we've always said that the, we that's why the 58 Years to the Treason Trial book, we made sure that in terms of design aesthetic feel, it is beautiful and everything that we’ve always made is beautiful. Is this again, to like really insist on beauty in a space like that, to insist on the beautiful, in terms of the artifacts, knowing very well, that we can't even, that beauty can’t capture these ephemeral moments, these Corridor Moments that we termed that are very difficult to capture in many ways.
Rubén: And perhaps not, not, not necessarily to capture, right?
Ra: Right. Yeah…
Rubén: Because, I mean, there are, there are these spaces that - I was thinking about the activation of the, of the concept of art, you know, if you move from this shift about not what “the arts” do, but what the arts “do,” - that we activate the concept for a desired effect, as opposed to allowing the concept to define the effects that we desire, because perhaps there is a structure of relationality that we wish to activate, like - you know - the parent coming, staying late, and what happens in that moment that perhaps is difficult to activate through other means, but where “art” becomes a, becomes a match to wish the lights come, to fire the light, again, not in the name of art. It's really irrelevant. But in order to create - because really in a sense, you know, when I hear you describe what, what, resonates for me is this relationality that is being activated and which, you know, it's interesting because, because in our project, because we work so much - our project is defined by the fact that we work within school context and, and schools, are places that particularly for the children that you work with, the young people that we work with, schools are contexts where parents are not invited.
Ra: And only for the school governing body can do that?
Rubén: Right. Right. Right. Only, only through the means that the school says you may participate this way, you know? So it's interesting to hear that, to hear how, how the parents are drawn in through these kinds of preoccupations or these activations. Yeah. And what becomes possible in that setting and to think about the contrast. Right? Or, or even to think, I mean, I think it's the performance, that this event, this, this is what I want to get back to actually, I want to get back to these two day event because in a way the, this performative event, this closure, is a, is a borrowed thing. Right? I mean, if, if we think about, about the concept of the artist, which imposes the idea that the ultimate goal is to produce an artifact that is to be shared, right? That is sort of part of that phenomenon that we call the arts. What comes at the end is something that must be displayed. In a lot of ways, the same as the Academy with knowledge, we're supposed to produce something that has to be created, it has to be, that has to be disseminated, has to be proven in some way. And you have to demonstrate that there's something that comes out of all this work.
You know, part of what I think we're wondering is, and we're so preoccupied with is, how do we keep a balance between highlighting the hallway, the hallway conversation that is not shareable and, and underscoring the importance of them, those moments, vis-a-vis these other moments, that in a sense are less important for the pedagogical project, and yet extremely important for sustaining the structure of whatever it is that we are doing. You can call it a school or you can do it, or not. And yet this moment of, in fact, dissemination this moment of sharing this moment of performance or performing an end… becomes so important for the funders, for the parents,
Ra: For the kids - getting to convince the parents - “I am part of this thing,” for the kids obviously and for the parents as well. Right?
Rubén: … and for the participants as well!
Ra: I mean, they, they give you their whole time…
Rubén: Of course. And there is an affective dimension to being able to say, look what I did. Right. Look what I accomplished. Right. And of course that has an importance, so, you know, so managing that, that balance between, between what we, as facilitators believe is important, which is ephemeral and passing and cannot be shared and, and what the structure requires of us to make, to make ourselves legible.
Ra: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that features. Okay. So the work with the, with the youth, at the Drill Hall, of course, it ended since 2015. And since then I've entered the Academy. I mean, I entered the Academy in 2013, which is a completely different thing. So, the kind of anecdotes I shared about this participant, who said that, “we don't Keleketla to be a school”. You know, I'm not doing it to be an artist. I actually want to be a doctor, and she is right now, a doctor. So, it's different to an art school…
Rubén: So now you are at an art school for one of the artists… laughter
Ra: But also don't become artists! Some start coffee shops, some start work at call centres, there are a few of them that eventually become artists. And yet when I'm there, I'm engaging them with something that is quite defined. And I face all kinds of attitudes, personalities, all kinds of levels of engagement. And I can see who is going to, who's not, and who wants to, who's not, I can see who just had the privilege to be in that class. And it's a very difficult balance to do, because I want to reach those who really are committed to a particular kind of ideology and agenda and, and stuff. And I, and also there is, although I try as much as I can, a desire to reproduce a particular kind of ideology, or a way of being, post-art school. Right. And for me, it's collectivities. I want to instigate collectives, like that’s my dream, every time.
So it's a difficult balance because now one of the things that I had tried as much is to get students to move away from doing work for, for marks, for grading, for crits, for example, it's like, how can you do that? Then you will still, like, you will get, you will, you will get this degree, but can you please move away from these marks? Don't come to my class for grading. Like, how can I achieve such an environment? It was a difficult one at that stage. It’s difficult because it has to do with financial aid, it has to do with resources, it has to do with people's time. Like really getting people to own the process. Right? So that I really become as a facilitator with a capital F, and that's difficult because they see me as something else. Right. It's a figure of authority. Somebody who's going to give them warnings, who's going to, and I really want to eliminate that as much as I can.
So it's, it's quite, it's quite a difficult one. So, so in a sense, even being in the University now, you know, every time a student tells me that they're speaking to their parents about the cost, or during graduation, their parents are saying, okay, yeah, we had that. I feel like, okay, all right. Something is happening, slowly but surely because I think, the, the Keleketla experience, as well as the earlier experience before Keleketla, you know, when we were still students, the student accommodation, even in high school, it is more of an extension of the assets in the community to be understood as, as not infinite for what they are. So the RISO, for example, is something that, when I realized that actually it exists in schools, simply for photocopying all these things, exists! And in 2013, when Keleketla wanted to do a zine workshop, and we bought two RISOs, that were second hand both of them were broke, the day after. And we gave up. Two years later, I realized that Freedom College, our partner school, has a RISOs, you know, so, so this idea of extending all this community halls, churches, you know, all these things that are already in the community, that they are not just supposed to be infinite for their only role, how to extend them into… because that's, that's really central to South African political life. Churches were places of solace, for political activists, the place where they would go, and be accepted and then organize in the church. The halls turns into weddings into, into churches, into youth clubs. They, they have multiple goals. They're not just one thing at one time just for that alone. So that is the kind of thing that I think is quite critical in enabling an understanding and really illuminating, that, which is already understood in the way that its being done.
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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 the ways we can build spaces outside of school and avoid reproducing the structures of schooling, the ways that young people value collectivity, and the importance of ephemeral interactions and moments that cannot be documented in maintaining collectivity. Stay tuned for our next episode and see you next time!