The Young Black Resistance, for Afropunk Solutions Sessions Johannesburg.
Note: This was a speech/keynote that I wrote for the Afropunk Solutions Sessions in Johannesburg, for 29 December 2018, but I didn’t get to deliver it in this form due to some last minute changes.
I’m one of those unfortunate people who struggle in front of a crowd. You may know a few of us. We talk about how nervous we are as soon as we have a mic in front of us. Our hands quiver when holding our pieces of paper, or sometimes our phones, and it seems only we can hear the sounds of our hearts beating loud and fast in our chests.
These and more are the reasons we’ve chosen to work at the backend of art and creative work. Notoriety and attention are often scary to us, though there are those smaller groups of friends and colleagues where we truly feel at home.
Together we know that we’re working towards a bigger whole and that makes our hearts beat just right, so not as scarily as when we’re in front of a crowd, but rather more purposefully and signalling its strength.
When I first started Owning The Light with my partner, it was and still is truly inspired by a combination of my niece and myself. I had just moved to Johannesburg and been doing work that I absolutely feel I was made to do. I had found language to describe it, “arts administrator/project manager slash slash slash”, and even more so it was great to truly know that there was a way to make a living from something that truly resonated with me. The thing was then reflecting on what it took to get to this point. My narrow memory took me to high school and that I liked to draw, so (not so) naturally my brother reckoned I should do architecture. It was then not a far leap to go to civil engineering. Economically, this was a good choice as there’s demand for those in this profession. But what would have happened if I, my brother, my parents (and even teachers!) had known that there were more career options out there for me than the accountant, engineer, doctor and so on. What if they (and myself) had known that there are people out there who are making a living as graphic designers, cinematographers, lighting technicians, choreographers, curators, arts administrators and many more. Would it start to broaden the prospect of how to apply the toolkits we gain through our primary and secondary school education to different worlds, and perhaps not perceive the journey from school to work to be as linear as we have been convinced it should be. So this is where Owning the Light comes in.
It is an online video series that profiles individuals who work in the arts and creative industries. I like to call them the “invisible hands” of the creative industry because they, or we, are very much a part of the value chain of ensuring there is beautiful art and creative work created. But, these hands go largely unseen. Unless you, like me, love to read the credit reels, or to read the contributors page in a magazine and so on, there is largely a limited understanding of the number of people who go into producing work. I’m definitely still learning about them across all the art forms, and I’m one of the ones whose interested. So there’s clearly an information problem here, that Owning the Light is trying to solve. Well, that’s the one. That the next generation of workers have an information gap about the number of career options they have in art and creative careers, while also not receiving positive reinforcement that there are people who look like them who take on those roles. There are many of us brown-faced young people who are powering the creative industries from the back-end, and getting paid to do so! The other problem, is to make these people more visible. To put their faces and stories out there so that, they can have their moment in the spotlight, and can be seen and valued for their contribution, so their vocation and work is validated.
I think for many of us who work in the creative industries, we are aware of the invisible hands, and also because many of us are those hands but think of those who are so distanced from it. They don’t know about set designers, special effects make-up artists, costume designers, stage managers, lithographers and more. So overall, it is a two-pronged approach to encourage participation in these careers. Because when I see someone who looks like me do something, I suddenly believe that I can do it as well. And yes, it’s about ensuring there are a lot of more us doing this work, and being known for doing this work. And who knows, it might even make it easier for our parents and/or caregivers to be supportive when we do venture into these worlds.
And speaking of ventures, there is then also the work of the entrepreneur. So, on a day-to-day basis I go to work in an environment filled with young black entrepreneurs solving problems in different parts of society and the creative industry. And what I’m finding about them is that they really dare to dream. No matter their background — as most of them don’t have the same back story — what they have in common is that they dared to start. And I want to focus on them a little because they, to me, are an important part of shifting the perception of what the people working within creativity look like. They are the ones courageous enough to dare to build that production company, digital agency, tech startup, artist management agency, food business and so on. And all these businesses further start to pave the way for more not-so-invisible hands to come through to build these empires. It sounds simplistic but it definitely is anything but. Building something from nothing is tough stuff. Most of you know this. Keeping at this something when nothing seems to be coming together, also tough. Capturing these stories and these moments in time is then important for when that aspiring production manager gets their first internship through one of these businesses over at the [The Hive Network Johannesburg] , so they know someone brave (who looks like them) paved the way for their journey. So when we compound all these invisible hands it becomes visible that we truly are an industry at work here in art and creativity. Not just a playground, or a hobby, or something we do en route to more serious work but we are the serious work.
So why wouldn’t we want to ensure that someone like my 16 year old niece knows what options are available to her. It’s not so much that she gets to know about her career options in the arts (including the entrepreneurial route that I currently service over at the [The Hive Network Johannesburg]) but rather that she and others who look like her and me and you know what possibilities are out there. We are not limited to simply being a teacher or nurse, like some of our parents unfortunately were. And now we don’t (all) carry the burden of simply having to make a living and make use of our opportunities from the sacrifices and investments made into our education and expected successes. But we have agency now. We have the choice to channel the energy, optimism and sometimes urgency of our millennial group and come for it all. And to me coming for it all is opting to, sometimes relentlessly and even more so foolishly, fulfilling our hearts content. And my hearts content, at a very basic level, is creating environments for people to fulfil their potential and in some very special cases for them to make their dreams come true. And at this very moment in time that is realised across my work in Owning the Light, the [The Hive Network Johannesburg] and a few other things I choose to do to contribute to this industry.
Thank you.
