References Fanon, F. (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press: New York, 163. Sinwell, L. (2022). Teaching and Learning Paulo Freire: South Africa’s Communities of Struggle. Education as Change, 26. Sinwell, L. (2025 forthcoming). God is Gangstah: The authorised biography of Ayanda Mabulu. Ohio University Press & Jacana Media: Johannesburg. This project’s teaching and learning aspect is intimately linked to my forthcoming book, God is Gangstah: The Authorised Biography of Ayanda Mabulu (Sinwell, forthcoming 2025). This research project sought to uncover the ancestral spirit and memory embedded within Mabulu’s artworks more generally. His artwork and the book I wrote are deeply embedded in the Indigenous Knowledge Systems and oral traditions that were passed down to him by gangsters as well as his elders in the former Ciskei, which was at the coal face of the battle against colonial dispossession. However, his worldview is also shaped by his reading of Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (Fanon, 1961). The very social location of Wretcheds’, that is, those who remain last or at the bottom of the social hierarchy, such as the sex workers, gangsters, and prisoners, have a certain legitimacy even if they do not reflect the values that we uphold. Fanon states, “the fellah, the unemployed and the starving do not lay claim to truth. They do not say they represent the truth because they are the truth in their very being” (Fanon, 1961, p.75). Ayanda’s creative works challenge us to take power from below by gazing at the world directly through their eyes. Mabulu draws on personal experience, memory, and Xhosa folklore to confront and articulate hidden and complex forms of knowledge about the violence embedded within racial capitalism. The paintings reflect betrayal and thousands of cries of those who died and remain wretched. A self-taught artist and oral historian, the layers and entanglements explored in Mabulu’s work are fertile ground for rich oral histories and research as well as the application of Freirean approaches to teaching and learning which centre on critical dialogue and which opens new lines of discussion regarding the contemporary meaning of decolonisation. The painting of Steve Biko was part of the inter-disciplinary exhibition which took place at FADA on 16 June 2023. The photo credit: Simphiwe Yoko. western or elite forms of knowledge production, which tend to extract from indigenous people, Mabulu constructed the lived experience of the people of Marikana by centring his dreams of the black body of Steve Biko, thus demonstrating what decolonisation means in both theory and practice. This also highlighted that the indigenous way of seeing and knowing intertwines past and present politics. The present was invited to see itself through the Indigenous lens in relation to the future and what it hopes to achieve and is also being asked to see itself through the past. Rejecting western notions of time as linear, the past, present and future were interlocked in the exhibition through our presence or contemporary condition. The approach was rooted in Indigenous Knowledge systems, which currently require social justice. This further suggested that the reclamation of humanity cannot occur without the restoration and dignity of the black body. Memories and dreams were foregrounded as a political intervention to address our contemporary socio-economic crisis. The exhibition drew from these multiple frameworks and temporalities from 1976 (Soweto Uprisings) to 2012 (when the Marikana massacre happened) to invent alternative ways of seeing our present condition to ask new questions and perhaps start to have other kinds of dreams. The artwork sought to answer the question: Can the dreams of the past function as a portal through which address society’s socio-political problems? Using the body of Steve Biko as a medium or portal, the audience became active participants who were required to engage with the dead body to reinterpret the past in the present. This highlighted the historical violence that has been meted out against the black male body. He illustrated how racial violence dehumanises, traumatises, and situates Black men and women in a perpetual state of abject misery. This innovative teaching and learning approach connected the theories various lectures were developing in their classes to the exhibition. As time passed, however, it increasingly became evident that the exhibition was not a once-off event. I also drew extensively upon the artist’s work as an integral component of my 3rd year Sociology module called “Globalisation”, which I am teaching in the 3rd term of 2024 and consists of nearly 200 students. This course introduces the concept of globalisation, explicitly emphasising urban studies, governance, and contested meanings of development. In addition to analysing globalisation in terms of neoliberal capitalist (or marketoriented) policy and alternatives, the module unpacks the concept of “racial capitalism”, arguably society’s fundamental structural feature. We also highlighted the emergence, spread and globalisation of white supremacy and resistance (including black consciousness and black liberation). The module drew upon creative and artistic works – especially Mabulu’s paintings - to demonstrate the connection between the political economy and the lived experiences of ordinary people on the African continent. Instead of assuming that students are “empty vessels” (banks) to be filled by the teacher (who necessarily has knowledge), I developed a Freirean approach (see: Sinwell, 2022) in my module whereby students were asked to analyse what various artworks (paintings and in other cases literature) mean to them. Many students could relate these creative works to their experiences, highlighting theoretical debates about the relationship between race, class, and gender oppression. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2024 122
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjU1NDYx