Made in Musina – Musina, Limpopo

Thenjiwe Nkosi and Ra Hlasane

The Made in Musina project has evolved out of research undertaken by Thenjiwe Nkosi and Ra Hlasane into the Musina arts community. The proposed project aims to facilitate collaboration and networking between organizations in the largely fragmented arts community of Musina. Nkosi and Hlasane intend to get people talking about the arts community in Musina and to start looking for ways to unify and amplify Musina’s artistic voices.

The artists plan to work with the Dulibadzimu Theatre Group, a community theatre group that formed out of a previous project that Nkosi initiated on a farm on the outskirts of Musina. There is a fundamental break in communication between different communities in Musina. They are interested in finding creative ways to bridge the farm/town divide, and in other ways investigate and break down the town/township divide, which falls along both racial and class lines. Working with the Dulibadzimu Theatre group is one such effort.

Nkosi and Hlasane imagine that Made in Musina will be an opportunity for Musina’s multiple arts organisations to lay the foundation for developing a Musina arts network. The idea is that the network will be a catalyst for ongoing collaborations and that it will facilitate wider exposure of Musina’s talent.

Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi received a M.F.A in Video, Photography and related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She currently lives and works in Johannesburg as an artist.

Rangoato Hlasane is an artist completing an Mtech in visual arts at the University of Johannesburg. He is the co-founder and director of Keleketla! Library, an interdisciplinary library based at the Drill Hall, Johannesburg.

Raymond Marlowe is a documentary photographer and vidographer and community workshop facilitator from Orange Farm. He is a student at the Market Photo Workshop and a part-time facilitator at the Bag Factory. He will be a facilitator and documenter of the project.