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10
Contents
editorial
NYOKABI KARIŨKI
On Learning that one of the first Electronic Works was by an African, Halim El-Dabh
MARIMBA ANI
An Aesthetic of Control
JANNIKE BERGH in conversation with HAIDAR EID
Even Ghosts Weep in Gaza
WANELISA XABA
White psychology, Black indecipherability and iThongo
Theme African Psychology
DYLAN VALLEY & BISO MATHA RIALGO
An Epidemic of Loneliness - introduction to the African Psychology theme section of herri #10
KOPANO RATELE in dialogue with ARYAN KAGANOF
Psychology Contra Psychology: In Search of the Most Appropriate Definition of African Psychology
N CHABANI MANGANYI
On Becoming a Psychologist in Apartheid South Africa
THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
African Psychology: serving as a reminder of human universals which have been lost or forgotten in mainstream Western psychology.
AUGUSTINE NWOYE
From Psychological Humanities to African Psychology: A Review of Sources and Traditions
SAM MATHE
Naming
ZETHU CAKATA
Ubugqirha: healing beyond the Western gaze
KOPANO RATELE
Dethingifying
PUMEZA MATSHIKIZA
A Psychological Explanation of Myself
SYLVIA VOLLENHOVEN
The Elephants in the Room
GWEN ANSELL
A New African String Theory: The Art of Being Yourself and Being with Others
ISMAHAN SOUKEYNA DIOP
Exploring Afro-centric approaches to mental healthcare
KOPANO RATELE
Four (African) Psychologies
LOU-MARIE KRUGER
Hunger
FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA
"We are a wounded people."
CHARLA SMITH
Die “kywies” by die deur
KOPANO RATELE
Estrangement
MWELELA CELE
Sisi Khosi Xaba and the translation of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth into isiZulu
HUGO KA CANHAM
Leaving psychology to look for shades and complexity in despair
MALAIKA MAHLATSI
When Black academics leave historically White institutions
PAUL KHAHLISO
AGAINST COLONIAL PSYCHOLOGY
KOPANO RATELE
The interior life of Mtutu: Psychological fact or fiction?
MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA
Call Me Not a Man
WILFRED BARETT DAMON
James Joyce En Ek
ASHRAF KAGEE
Three friends in Gaza: We grieve, we mourn, we condemn, we deplore, we march, we demonstrate, we attend seminars and webinars, we wave flags, we wear keffiyas, we show off our t-shirts, but still the killing continues.
KOPANO RATELE AND SOPHIA SANAN
African Art, Black Subjectivity, and African Psychology: Refusing Racialised Structures of Aesthetic or Identity Theories
galleri
DATHINI MZAYIYA
Musidrawology as Methodology
STEVEN J. FOWLER
Dathini Mzayiya – the sound of the mark as it comes into being.
NONCEDO GXEKWA
Musidrawology as Portraits of the Artist Dathini Mzayiya & his Art
NONCEDO GXEKWA & NADINE CLOETE
Musidrawology as Methodology: a work of art by Dathini Mzayiya
NJABULO PHUNGULA
Like Knotted Strings
SPACE AFRIKA
oh baby
STRAND COMMUNITY ART PROJECT
Hands of the Future
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
The Blue Notes: Searching for Form and Freedom
DESMOND PAINTER
'with all the ambivalence of a car in the city...'
KOPANO RATELE
Ngoana Salemone/Mother
SOPHIA OLIVIA SANAN
Art as commodity, art as philosophy, art as world-making: notes from a conversation with Kopano Ratele on African Art, Black Subjectivity and African Psychology
ROBIN TOMENS
"Why don't you do something right and make a mistake?"
SIMON TAYLOR
On The Ontological Status of the Image
borborygmus
NAPO MASHEANE
Manifesto ea mokha oa makomonisi
MAKHOSAZANA XABA
Curious and Willing: Ngazibuza Ngaziphendula, Ngahumusha Kwahumusheka
RICHARD PITHOUSE
The Wretched of the Earth becomes Izimpabanga Zomhlaba
FRANTZ FANON/ MAKHOSAZANA XABA
The Wretched of the Earth - Conclusion
EUGENE SKEEF
Yighube!
VUYOKAZI NGEMNTU
Amahubo
MBE MBHELE
Who cares about Mandisi Dyantyis Anyway?
KARABO KGOLENG
Women and Water
BONGANI TAU
Notes on Spirit Capital
ADDAMMS MUTUTA
Conflict Cultures and the New South Africa
ADAM KEITH
A Conversation with Debby Friday
DICK EL DEMASIADO
Some Notes on Cumbia and Dub
MULTIPLE AUTHORS
Thinking decolonially towards music’s institution: A post-conference reflection
frictions
AAKRITI KUNTAL
Still
FORTUNATE JWARA
In between wor(l)ds
KHADIJA TRACEY HEEGER
A Love Letter
SHAFINAAZ HASSIM
Take your freedom and run
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
10 New Poems
KHULILE NXUMALO
Two Poems For
HENNING PIETERSE
Translating Van den vos Reynaerde (Of Reynaert the Fox) into Afrikaans
OSWALD KUCHERERA
Words to Treasure
MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA
To kill a man's pride
KELWYN SOLE
Political Fiction, Representation and the Canon: The Case of Mtutuzeli Matshoba
SABATA-MPHO MOKAE
Maboko a ga Alexander Pushkin 1799 - 1837
NAÒMI MORGAN
Why translate Godot into Afrikaans?
TENZIN TSUNDUE
Three Poems
claque
DILIP M. MENON
Hugo ka Canham’s Riotous Deathscapes
BARBARA ROUSSEAUX
Undoing Fascism: Notes on Milisuthando
WAMUWI MBAO
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Reclaiming the Territory of the Mind
SISCA JULIUS
Ausi Told Me: My Cape Herstoriography
SERGIO HENRY BEN
Read. Write. Relevance. A review of Herman Lategan's Hoerkind.
MARIO PISSARRA
the Imagined New is a Work in Progress
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The city is mine by Niq Mhlongo: A review
KARABO KGOLENG
The Comrade’s Wife by Barbara Boswell
DOMINIC DAULA
Pain, Loss, and Reconciliation in Music and Society
KNEO MOKGOPA
Normal Bandits: Mix Tape Memories by Anders Høg Hansen
ADDAMMS MUTUTA
‘Southern Cinema Aesthetics’: broadly imagined in multiple frames
RUTH MARGALIT
Writing the Nakba in Hebrew
LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG
Coming to Johnson
ekaya
KOPANO RATELE
From "Wilcocks" to "Krotoa": The Name Changing Ceremony
ARYAN KAGANOF
The herriverse: Introducing a new kind of Research Method, one that is Structural or even Meta- insofar as it exists in the Reader’s Navigation of the Curated Space and the Possible Contingent Connections as much as in the Objects being Curated; an Epistemic Construction therefore, that is obliquely but absolutely determined by Ontologically Unpredictable Exchanges.
MARTIJN PANTLIN
Introducing herri Search
off the record
UHURU PHALAFALA
Keorapetse Kgositsile & The Black Arts Movement Book Launch, Book Lounge, Cape Town Wednesday 24 April 2024.
PALESA MOKWENA
Lefifi Tladi - "invisible caring" or, seeing and being seen through a spiritual lens
CHRISTOPHER BALLANTINE
Edmund "Ntemi” Piliso Jazzing Through Defeat And Triumph: An Interview
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
CHRIS McGREGOR (1936-1990): Searching for Form and Freedom
SHAUN JOHANNES
In Memoriam Clement Benny
VEIT ERLMANN
"Singing Brings Joy To The Distressed" The Social History Of Zulu Migrant Workers' Choral Competitions
SAM MATHE
Stimela Sase Zola
MARKO PHIRI
Majaivana's Odyssey
EZEKIEL MPHAHLELE
The Non-European Character in South African English Fiction
BASIAMI “CYNTHIA” WAGAFA
Hyper-Literary Fiction: The (meta)Poetics Of Digital Fragmentation – an interview with August Highland
feedback
DIANA FERRUS
Thursday 20 February, 2020
LWAZI LUSHABA
Saturday 4 April 2020
NJABULO NDEBELE
Sunday 5 December 2021
BEN WATSON
6 June 2023 20:50
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Facebook
herri_gram FEEDBACK
Instagram
the selektah
LERATO “Lavas” MLAMBO
Real human person – a mix by Lavas
SIEMON ALLEN & CHRIS ALBERTYN
Celebrating the genius of Ntemi Edmund Piliso: A mix-tape of twenty five tunes recorded on 78rpm shellac in 25 years – 1953 to 1968
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
Stone Unturned 18: The Static Cargo of Stars
PhD
WARRICK SWINNEY
Stick Fighting against extinction: end beginnings and other dada nihilismus polemics
hotlynx
HOTLYNX
hotlynx
shopping
SHOPPING
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contributors
the back page
ELMI MULLER
Fugitive reflections on pain, death, and surgery
DICK TUINDER
Rob Schröder (13 November 1950 - 6 July 2024)
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DICK TUINDER

Rob Schröder (13 November 1950 - 6 July 2024)

De kunstgeschiedenis zoals we die kennen wordt bepaald door incidentele periodes die aan een voor dat moment perfecte constellatie van talent, voedingsbodem en publiek onderdak bieden. Periodes met een begin en een einde, maar met blijvende resonanties richting beide zijdes van de eeuwigheid.

Art history as we know it is determined by incidental periods that accommodate a perfect constellation of talent, breeding ground and audience for that moment. Periods with a beginning and an end, but with lasting resonances towards both sides of eternity.

Rob was in zekere zin een uomo universalis met dien verstande dat het universum waartoe hij zich verhield voor het overgrote deel door de 20-ste eeuw werd begrensd. In die eeuw immers begint de geschiedenis van politieke maakbaarheid, van vereniging op basis van beginselen. Daar begint welbeschouwd de mondiale tweekamp tussen goed en kwaad. Daar ontstond een beeldtaal die niet gevormd was door geloof, geld en gezag, maar een beeldtaal die spreekbuis was van een stelsel van waarden die het arbitraire van geld en gezag en het ronduit leugenachtige van religie voorgoed en onontkenbaar blootlegde.

Rob was in a sense an uomo universalis, with the understanding that the universe to which he related was largely limited to the 20th century. After all, the history of political feasibility, of association based on principles, begins in that century. This is where the global battle between good and evil begins. There arose a visual language that was not shaped by faith, money and authority, but a visual language that was the mouthpiece of a system of values ​​that permanently and undeniably exposed the arbitrary nature of money and authority and the downright mendacity of religion.

Wat blijft nadat de rook van de actualiteit is opgetrokken zijn de woorden, de melodieën, de kleuren en vormen. Dat zijn de afdrukken waarmee het verleden met de toekomst spreekt. Alle geschiedenis is kunstgeschiedenis. De twintigste eeuw was rijk aan dit soort perfecte constellaties. Ieder met haar eigen lijnen naar verleden en toekomst.

What remains after the smoke of current events has cleared are the words, the melodies, the colors and shapes. These are the imprints through which the past speaks to the future. All history is art history. The twentieth century was rich in these kinds of perfect constellations. Each with its own lines to the past and future.

Maar er is een periode, bijna exact in het midden van die overvolle eeuw, die meer dan welke ook samenviel met haar eigen tijd en op de meest vanzelfsprekende wijze schoonheid, vervoering, idealisme en menselijke waardigheid in zichzelf verenigde.

But there is a period, almost exactly in the middle of that crowded century, which more than any other coincided with its own time and most naturally united in itself beauty, exaltation, idealism and human dignity.

De bigband die eraan vooraf ging was gedrild als een romeins legioen. De muziek van empire, hiërarchie. Allen in dienst van 1 genie. De periode die daarop volgde, die van het combo, quartet of quintet was daarmee vergeleken een sociaal experiment waarin alle stemmen die het geheel vormden principieel gelijkwaardig waren. Een sociaal experiment dat als vanzelf nieuwe muzikale vormen genereerde, en een scherper individueel bewustzijn niet alleen mogelijk-, maar noodzakelijk maakte.

The big band that preceded it was drilled like a Roman legion. The music of empire, hierarchy. All in the service of 1 genius. The period that followed, that of the combo, quartet or quintet, was in comparison a social experiment in which all voices that formed the whole were basically equal. A social experiment that automatically generated new musical forms and made a sharper individual consciousness not only possible, but necessary.

Dezelfde organisatievorm van een band herkennen we in de vele ismes onder wier vlag kunstenaars zich in die eeuw organiseerden. Het is ook de beste organisatievorm voor bankovervallen en verzet. Het mag dan ook niet verbazen dat Rob zijn hele leven naar de muziek uit die periode is blijven luisteren. Wanneer ik Robs leven en werken met een van de sleutelfiguren uit die tijd moet vergelijken dan is dat niet Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Chet Baker of Eric Dolphy, maar de persoon die ik naast hem zie staan en goedkeurend zie knikken is vooral de ‘gentle giant’ Yusef Lateef. Die zijn bandleden aanmoedigde om te schrijven en te lezen. Die dit zelfs als voorwaarde stelde. Die zijn muziek niet alleen voor de lol en de schoonheid, maar vanuit een uiterlijke overtuiging en een innerlijk gevoelde noodzaak maakte. Die met behulp van de oren de ogen wilde openen.

We recognize the same organizational form of a band in the many isms under whose banner artists organized themselves in that century. It is also the best form of organization for bank robberies and resistance. It should therefore come as no surprise that Rob continued to listen to the music from that period all his life. If I have to compare Rob’s life and work with one of the key figures of that time, it is not Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Chet Baker or Eric Dolphy, but the person I see standing next to him and nodding approvingly is above all the ‘gentle giant’ Yusef Lateef. Who encouraged his bandmates to write and read. Who even made this a condition. Who made his music not just for fun and beauty, but from an outward conviction and an inner necessity. Who wanted to open the eyes with the help of the ears.

Wie zijn muziek beluisterd hoort dat echte vrijheid een melodie is waarvan het begin het einde nog niet kent. Het nastreven van dit soort vrijheid is geen sinecure. Het vraagt om moed, een overtuiging en – toegegeven – een beetje geluk. Het geluk om in je tijd te passen, de juiste mensen, kameraden en middelen daar aan te treffen en – nog belangrijker – die te herkennen.

Anyone who listens to his music will hear that true freedom is a melody whose beginning does not yet know the end. Pursuing this kind of freedom is no easy feat. It takes courage, conviction and – admittedly – a little luck. The good fortune of fitting into your time, finding the right people, comrades and resources there and – more importantly – recognizing them.

Rob had dat geluk en vooral ook het talent die middelen en mensen te herkennen. Jos Houweling vertelde me dat toen hij als jonge docent in de jaren ’70 op de Rietveld kwam er twee mensen waren die er de dienst uitmaakten. De directeur Simon den Hartog en ene Rob Schröder. Een student die als voorzitter van de studentenraad toen al het hoogste woord voerde. ‘Ik was maar een eenvoudige docent,’ zei Jos, ‘Maar Rob bepaalde wat er gebeurde.’

Rob had that good fortune and, above all, had the talent to recognize those resources and people. Jos Houweling told me that when he came to the Rietveld Academy as a young teacher in the 1970s, there were two people in charge. The director Simon den Hartog and a certain Rob Schröder. A student who, as chairman of the student council, already had the highest say. “I was just a simple teacher,” said Jos, “But Rob determined what happened.”

En dat is ten slotte de laatste en voornaamste eigenschap die de kunst vleugels geeft en waarmee onze gevleugelde vriend zijn inspirerende en voorbeeldige vlucht door dit leven maakte: de aangeboren aandrang, nee: de persoonlijk gevoelde verplichting, om je met de wereld te bemoeien. Om het beter te weten zonder dat daarvoor een hard bewijs is. Want echte vrijheid is een melodie waarvan het begin het einde nog niet kent.

And that, after all, is the last and most important quality that gives art wings and with which our winged friend made his inspiring and exemplary flight through this life: the innate urge, no: the personally felt obligation, to get involved in the world. To know better without hard evidence. Because true freedom is a melody whose beginning does not yet know the end.

Jabu Mxhaka and Rob Schröder, Johannesburg, 29 August 2008. Photo Aryan Kaganof.
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ELMI MULLER
Issue #10
© 2024
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