Innovative Storytelling WhatsApp Residency - Meet the Residents

As part of its Novembre Numerique programme, IFAS is proud to present its first experimental artistic residency in new media. During the month of October, a team of selected creatives are working under the mentoring of French multimedia production experts, to give life to the story of a South African writer. Their collaboration, mixing various fields, will allow to illustrate, animate and give voice to an original story, using WhatsApp as a medium and creative tool, and will lead to the creation of a "WhatsApp book".

Meet the writer

Harriet Meier

Harriet has worked professionally as a writer/producer in film and TV for over 40 years. She started DYNAMOTION, a scriptwriting company, with the late Robert Cheetham in 1988, and worked with Creative Media International, a film and TV production house, as Creative Director/Producer for many years before freelancing again.

Former chairperson of the Writers' Guild of SA, Harriet was selected with her story CHAMELEON – a journey of a young men with difficult superpowers, who struggles to get the things he wants in life.

About this residency Harriet said: "To now see IFAS taking on this field and offering a collaborative experience with other disciplines is something I am extremely excited about. I'm not 100% sure how you would do a WhatsApp book which consists of more than printed text messages, but that's why I'm applying to take part in this project. The Covid-19 pandemic has made it very clear that the world is changing, and that we will have to adapt with how we do things and find new ways to bring our stories to the audience. While we all hope that social distancing will soon be a thing of the past, I suspect that new media will grow stronger and be much more part of the entertainment industry in the future."

Meet the artists

Cheriese Dilrajh

Cheriese Dilrajh completed a BA Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand (2015-2018). Her actual education is the streets. Her areas of interest include (but are not limited to) migration, complexity of meaning and the making of new meanings. Often it is tied to inherited history, the creation of imagination and confronting and disrupting violence. Through sensory, audio and visual, written, multidimentional forms and occupation she engages with intergenerational, inherited and created knowledges, and the distortion and formation of self through personalized narratives that are a becoming of her story.

In October 2020 she also has been selected as joint recipient of the annual Young Womxn Studio Bursary from Bag Factory and will benefit from a fully funded studio bursary for a period of 12 months.

Faye Kabali-Kagwa

Faye Kabali-Kagwa work as an arts coordinator, critic, culture writer, and a Salzburg Global Seminar Young Cultural Innovators' fellow. She is an interdisciplinary practitioner with a strong focus on public engagement, identity, and accessibility with a growing interest in curation and producing.

Faye is the producer of The Shopping Dead, a fast-paced dramedy WhatsApp live performance that was coproduced by the National Arts Festival and debuted on the main curated programme at the virtual National Arts Festival 2020. In October 2020 she will be curating 'Dear Us, Matric 2020 | A WhatsApp status driven exhibition platform as one of the five winners of the Fak'ugesi Digital Art Curator Bootcamp.

Working as an arts and culture writer she has had her work published in the Mail & Guardian, New Frame, Culture Review, and the BASA website. Faye holds an honours degree in Sociology, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, and the Dramatic Arts from Rhodes University.

Nkululeko Mgenge

Nkululeko Mgenge is a creative, by profession he's an actor, children's theatre practitioner, director, facilitator and storyteller. He has a Btech in drama from Tshwane University of Technology specialized in Acting, Applied Theatre and Children's Theatre. He has experience in webinar productions and recently performed Tokologo the Musical directed by Billy Langa – rehearsal and performance were made online through Zoom meeting as part as In The Works playwriting development programme led by ASSITEJ SA. His experience includes theatre and film acting.

About the residency Nkululeko said: "It would be of great pleasure to partake in this journey of growth and working with other creatives breathing life to stories during this pandemic and further. With my ardent passion for performing arts I can ascertain my presence in the team will be of great contribution."

Siboniso Mncube

Siboniso represent a new generation of multilayered creative professionals in the advertising and media industry. He's passionate about creativity in a 4IR world and how to ceaselessly merge creative and tech for the greater good of Africa. He currently works at Ogilvy and Mather Johannesburg as a wordsmith, serve as a member of the AMASA subcommittee 2019/2020 and holds a distinguished award for the Management of Technology and Innovation from the Da Vinci Institute.

His discipline is, but not limited to multimedia design, which includes photography, digital art design, and written form. His various bodies of work have applied and combined different art forms to create artworks that speak to various socio-economic issues facing the youth in Africa.

Clement Tebogo Mokoena, aka TEBZAFUNK

Tebzafunk is an upcoming producer and DJ from Mpumalanga who is gaining a growing reputation digitally. This gifted producer and DJ has been working on creating powerful music that transports people to another time and place.

He started producing during his early teens and quickly established himself as an international producer. After completing his grade 12, he started his own record label, even though he had finance issues. He then dropped his 1st EP during summer 2018. Few months later he completed his first debut album. TebzaFunk dreams of having an active performing schedule at venues, festivals and events as well as collaborating innovatively with artists within the South African music industry.

Thalente Khomo

Thalente Khomo is a fashion and fine art photographer who completed her Bachelor of Technology in photography in November 2019. In her work Khomo questions the exploitation of young adults who are coerced into copulation at an early age, exposing their bodies as objects of adult life. She is interested in unpacking the memories of these young adults, and how their experiences become the baggage they carry into their futures. They are left with a distorted identity reflecting their past. She also investigates the parallels between the exploitation of women and environmental destruction.

"I am an artist who is ready to collaborate and experiment on multidisciplinary projects with other artists. I not only enjoy creating art but am even more enthusiastic when I have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from mentors giving me guidance and skill."

About Novembre Numérique

Novembre Numérique, the international festival of digital cultures, is organised by the Institut Français and the French cultural network abroad, on all five continents. In Johannesburg, Novembre Numérique is a series of creative events to connect French and South African artists, experts, young talents and professionals. For this second edition IFAS decided to program 1 writing residency about new media and literature, 1 Animation Jam and 1 Game Jam.

More information
The French Institute of South Africa (IFAS)
Tel. (+27) 11 403 0458
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