My Friend Stary

My friend Stary is going to be famous. All you have to do is look at his work and the question becomes, 'Why have I never heard of this artist before?' Stary Mwaba: remember the name, you will not forget his work.

His paintings, within the cultural context of Zambia, his home, take great risks in their concepts and themes and yet his technique is so accessible, in other words he challenges the viewer without alienating them.

One of my favourites is entitled 'I am not Your Stereotype' (above). At first glance it may seem like a beautifully executed picture of a girl sitting, half-lounging (a common stance for Stary's subjects) surrounded by abstract, almost human forms. But let's look a little closer. First of all, see her hair, slightly golden brown in colour – unteased and natural. Then, let's look at the thigh and the back that are exposed, with the light glinting off them, wrapped casually in a chitenge – a Zambian cloth that women wear traditionally for modesty or to protect their clothes from dirt. In Zambian culture it is taboo for a woman to reveal these areas of her body, and yet here they are on display. Move now to the face and note the look of lazy defiance. She is beautiful, she is African and she is not afraid.
Stary's painting 'Baby' (below) was not well received in South Africa. The depiction of a black girl holding a white doll was seen as inappropriate, as if the addition of a white doll was an oversight, a mistake. That girl holding a doll, has a great deal of power in my opinion. The doll has no clothes apart from socks, whereas the girl is fully clothed. This touch subverts the nature of the poor African girl running around in rags – it is the white doll that is naked.

His marriage of technical skill, abstract exploration and genuine affection for his subjects in his paintings make your mouth water. If it is possible to be gently controversial, Stary Mwaba has achieved it.

I believe this is just the beginning for Stary, his work is becoming more experimental as he grows as an artist. In September, not only will he exhibit in Lusaka, but also fly to New York to take part in a residency at the Watermill, Brooklyn. For more on his work you can visit his website: http://starymwaba.webs.com/ or contact me directly.

The film I am currently obsessed with is 'Gentleman Broncos'. It's very, very funny, Sam Rockwell is brilliant, to be honest the whole cast is pretty solid. Jermaine Clement is also wonderful. But there is something else about the film that I loved.

The story follows teenager Benjamin (Jack's son from Will and Grace) who writes kitschy science fiction and has one of his stories 'Yeast Lords' (such genius) plagiarised by washed up sci-fi author Chevalier. The story splits between Benjamin's odd life with his widowed mother (played by the ultimate MILF from American Pie, ) and new found literary friends and the imagined story of Yeast Lords with Sam Rockwell fleshing out Benjamin's father substitute Bronco.
The set pieces are spot on, the weird Barbarella-esque sci-fi world and the oddly dated present day Utah.
I am sure I am one of many once geeky teens with whom the film really struck a chord. In the film Benjamin writes his stories and also designs the covers, one of the first scenes shows his room, his shrine to his dead father and home-made set for his novel complete with dolls. In that short scene director Jared Hess succinctly demonstrated just how much this world meant to Benjamin.
When I was a teenager I spent most of my time in my bedroom reading comic books, writing, make weird models out of wax listening to Tori Amos, Radiohead etc and watching films on my little red TV. My room was my world, and far from missing out on my teen years, I felt they were really import and a time I look back on fondly. Most of all I look back amazed at my ability to immerse myself in my imagination then, my endless creativity. Where did it go? Was it hormonal? When I left university I spent a few months writing my first novel, obviously it was rubbish, but I got up every morning at my parents' place, made myself coffee, went up to the spare room and wrote for two hours on an electronic typewriter. Now I'm in my thirties struggling to get together the motivation and momentum to write regularly, I can't believe that twenty-something was really me. Perhaps I need a room, maybe I need to listen to The Throwing Muses again. My hope is, that if I was like that once, I could be again.

90s Woman - Go Here

I found out about this site in Bitch Magazine. It reveres everything 90s with a girl slant. I pretty much wrote off the 90s remembering the 90s of MC Hammer and Boyz to Men. I was a young teen then. Then, after going on this site, I remember how brilliant that decade was as well. That was the era of Nirvana, of my formative years of fab indie films like The Unbelievable Truth and Sex, Lies and Videotape. What happened to Hal Hartley anyway? I became really into the arts then I think, as my previous post laments. I used by the now defunct Deadline magazine religiously and send off for all the DIY comic books in the back. Life was really exciting then, when you're that age – 15-20 – you're a discoverer.

90s Woman

My favourite band ever was The Throwing Muses, here is one of their best songs. Unfortunately the quality ain't great.

In Mourning

The room was cream and exactly like this; A calendar from the Zambian Police, a copper picture of rhinos in relief, a plaque that wasn't a plaque but was used as such all three high up along the same wall. The plaque said that Jesus looked over the house, was a silent listener and an unseen guest. There was a large patch of peeled back paint that had been painted over and looked like a badly healed scar. An armchair in dusky pink velour and then the floor was covered with reed mats and two thin mattresses. That was it. The calendar was hung level but the rhinos were a little askew.

Inside the fuse box outside the front door, sparrows were nesting, they dropped down on occasion and picked dry grass and fibres from the porch in their staccato little way. I saw a flat-bed truck in the yard and felt impressed that they had such a thing in their possession until my eyes went to the flat tire sunk firm into the dirt and the grass growing through the fuel tank.

5 women lined up on the mattresses, sitting modestly with their legs stretched in front of them and crossed, wrapped in chitenges. Mary's was especially faded. Most of their feet were clean and pink and from the soles they looked so young and tender. We sat very quietly while Mary's aunt sorted through a small stack of papers – medical cards, school exercise books covered in cheap wrapping paper and a small photo album. Mary's grandmother sat next to Mary and had a toothpick, she used it to idly pick out the small circles on her chitenge, she then traced them with the tip or picked at some imaginary stain or other, eventually bored of this, she used it clean her toe nails. Mary's mother died of low blood pressure. We asked the aunt what happened, she told us her blood pressure dropped and she went to hospital. In the hospital she didn't get any medicine and died after five days. There was going to be an investigation. 'And what was the result?' we asked, 'We buried her so...' she shrugged. No investigation.

We left wanting to know how it was possible that the aunt seemed better educated than the niece, she spoke better English and was large, while Mary spoke so little English and was so thin. In the end we were not really sure whether the grandmother was the grandmother, or the aunt the aunt and my husband said that he didn't think it was her mother that died. We had no idea who the other women were, cousins? Sisters? Families are so less clearly divided here.

And I wondered whether there is such a concept as a needless death in Zambia.

Zambian Modernism

Paradise is Comparative

Women's day is a national holiday here so we decided to go away for the weekend. Lake Kariba was our destination, I'd been before and remembered it being lovely and not too far from the big smoke.
The drive down went from pretty to spectacular as we navigated winding roads overlooking the lake – it reminded me of the Gargano in southern Italy. While we drove we talked about whether there were any Peace Corps or VSO volunteers there and how lucky they would be to have such a placement.
Lake Kariba is home of the Kariba dam, a huge reservoir that spreads over the border to Zimbabwe. It used to supply about 50% of Zambia's electricity back in the '60s. It was built by Italian engineers and I really like the design, it feels like a Bond film should be set there. As lovely as the lake is, there are plenty of crocs and hippos so we didn't take the plunge and stuck to the pool instead which was more than adequate. We spent 3 days lazing at the bar, playing card games and relaxing.

While there we ran into someone we knew in Lusaka and she introduced us to some VSO volunteers who live in the area. We chatted and I remarked at what a great place it must be to live and one shrugged and said it was alright. Now this surprising remark – seriously look at the pictures! – made me think it was a result of one or both of two possible factors. First – they were British and we British and not really known for going overboard with praise or joy. I first realised this when I started to spend time with more Americans who are much more enthusiastic. Second – they have problems with their placement, who doesn't? But what they don't realise is how much worse it could've been. There are some really isolated and boring places in Zambia, I lived in one and although I was glad to leave, I still managed to enjoy the experience. I knew volunteers in even more out-of-the-way placements than mine, 12 hours from Lusaka on terrible roads in the middle of the bush and still they were desperately sad to leave.

Volunteering is all about your attitude and knowing your limits. If you have chosen to volunteer in a developing country you must decide yourself whether you really can manage to be in a different culture and the struggles that entails. Moreover, are you open enough to learn from the experience and look beyond the difference to see the beauty? It's hard for a reason but just sticking it out and becoming resentful proves nothing. I don't know the background of these volunteers and maybe they had very valid reasons for being nonplussed. I hope so, otherwise they will look back and kick themselves when they realise just how good they had it.

Chaminuka Lodge – An Art Hideaway

Finally got to Chaminuka. Chaminuka is a lodge outside of Lusaka with game, two elephants, a couple of lions and hyenas. It has amazing views of a lake and is designed in a 1970s modernist style, I won't say retro because I get the feeling it has been like this for some time.

We went to simply get out of Lusaka but also because Chaminuka has a large collection of art. And it does indeed. One of Zambia's most significant artists is the late Henry Tayali; his work is abstract meets expressionism often depicting groups, crowds of figures or landscapes that are also somehow crammed with uniformity – colourful, textured.

The lodge is pretty much crammed with art, everywhere you turn there is a stark white marble sculpture reminiscent of Moore or Epworth, there are large tribal masks staring down at you starkly so you feel transported to a dark corner of the British Museum. Truly it is a formidable collection that is democratic and diverse, but the sheer number pieces means that canvasses are on ever available wall space and the overall effect is overwhelming and a little tatty. More importantly there are no notes to tell you of the artist or the title of the piece or even where it is from and this is a grave shame. Perhaps it is time for Chaminuka to consider a space dedicated to this impressive collection and do it full justice.

Cleaning, cleaners and patronage

I am beginning to see why so many people hate housework. We have been living in Zambia since September and since I don’t work, and our housekeeper turned out to be the worst, I decided it would be better if I did the household chores.

We don’t have a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner, we have to hand wash our clothes and sweep up – no carpets. It’s not so much that it’s hard work (and I am still piling on the pounds despite the sweat I build up), it’s the sheer futility of it. You sweep, you mop, you scrub and a day later you have to do it all again. Neither or I nor my husband are especially fastidious people but we live next to a construction site in a city that is already very dusty and as hard as I might try, the next day our living room resembles something Mrs. Haversham would be proud of.
Lusaka has no pavements, many of the roads are not tarmac, all you have to do is walk down the road and it’s like you brought a desert back on your shoes. And forget about wearing nice clothes, they get dirty and grimey and then fall apart from the rigours or hand washing.

So why don’t we have a cleaner? This is a tough one for many ex-pats or middle class folk here and there is no easy solution. Personally I found have a cleaner on her hands and knees scrubbing while I lazed around doing little seemed downright perverse. Perhaps if I didn’t work from home freelance I would feel differently. To be sure I had cleaners when I lived in Zambia before, but I was a young volunteer with lots to do and loved coming home to a clean house – who wouldn’t? I was quite lucky with my cleaners, only one out of the 3 I had took things (and I had 3 because I moved 3 times) and they never asked me for additional help. However the cleaner we had when we moved to Lusaka, not only cleaned worse than me, but constantly needed extra money for problems at home. And this seems to be quite common, it’s almost as if you are adopted by the people who work for you. A friend of mine who studied anthropology says it’s to do with the idea patronage. I’m not too clear on the details but it seems that in some cultures it’s commonly assumed that those with more will look out for those with less. Ex-pats are of course those with more. Although I am still not a fan of the practice, it does make me understanding of the situation here rather than just assuming I’m being taken for a ride. Despite the dust and hand washing though, I still have no plans to get a cleaner.

Where Sculpture Comes to Die

I had heard from some of my friends at the gallery about Rockston and finally made my way there on Monday. It's tucked away in the Woodlands area of Lusaka, a pleasant are near Chilenje where there quite a few artists living and some history. This was the area that the British colonists lived in and Chilenje is where Kenneth Kaunda lived, according to my sources, those fighting for independence used to sneek over from Chilenje to Woodlands at night to harass the Brits. Things are much quieter nowadays.

When arriving I was first struck with the beauty of the place. Woodlands itself lives up to its name, trees are abundant. Rockston has a large garden and as I pulled up to the gate I could already see through a gap sculptures dotting the grass. Unfortunately some of the pieces had seen better days, nevertheless everywhere I looked there was some example of art. Rockston claims to be a studio and gallery but at the moment nothing much is happening. There is certainly no gallery and the studios are lovely but badly in need of refurbishment. It is more the potential of the place that got me excited rather than where it is now. I hope that soon the managers will become more active.

From the Road

Promoting the Henry Tayali Gallery

The Henry Tayali gallery based here in Lusaka started an ICT workshop this week for artists to come and learn how to use ICT to promote their artwork. I talked to the group about social networking and was impressed with their level of enthusiasm.

This gallery has so much potential and could be key to growing an art scene in Lusaka, I hope to do more promotional work with them soon.