Must-attend: Fashion Battle in Jozi
What a fascinating concept, for anyone interested in fashion and culture, don’t miss this Fash-off. It started with people dressing up in Kinshasa… In January 2007, French artist Jean Christophe Lanquetin staged an exhibition of portraits photographed over a period of two years in the streets of Lingwala, Kinshasa (DRC). The images captured the legendary ‘Sapeurs’, documenting a practice that primarily revolves around street fashion and haute couture, the competitive rituals and performance of dressing up. Implicitly, the practice of ‘sape’ raises arguments around ‘body politics’ and its agency: how to claim one’s own, ‘clean’ and exclusive space in contrast to a disintegrating city and world at large?
‘100 Year War’ is the name of one of the ‘sapeurs’ gangs in Kinshasa and references the extended series of wars that started in France in the 14th Century. The practice of competing in the streets against other groups, such as the ‘Japanese’, to show off the most expensive clothes and ingenious poses, styles and dances, is a highly popular tradition in Kin’. Each ‘sapeur’ challenges the other’s territory – the codes of display, resistance and aspiration towards all that ‘Europe’ represents for them: colonialism, globalism, an affluent world of choices…
And in Johannesburg: Continuing with this theme, Lanquetin is collaborating with Joburg designer and artist Athi-Patra on a series of public interventions that aim to explore the local geographies of ‘body politics’, as they are taken up by the Congolese Sapeurs in Yeoville, the Emo-kids and NuKool skool of Melville to Pantsulas and Swankers of Jozi. Leading up to the event on the 30th, the artists stage performances that include the posting of large prints of the ‘Sapeurs’ on the walls of the Fashion District, Yeoville, the Zone and the Drill Hall.
This project developed out of the Artist-in-Residency programme facilitated by the Joubert Park Project at the Drill Hall and supported by the French Institute of South Africa in the framework of EUNIC projects, and the National Arts Council of South Africa. With thanks to: Nadine Hutton, Mbuso Kagebe, Lolo Veleko, Ra Ngoato and the Kelektla! Team, Vuyo Gope, Djoca Paulo, Frans Radebe, Tau Skosana and Sakhlie Madi, Adam Levine, Cleo-Patra, Laurent Clavel and the IFAS team, the sapeurs of Kinshasa and all particpants.
A project developed by artist-in-residency JEAN-CHRISTOPHE LANQUETIN & ATHI-PATRA RUGA & the Joubert Park Project in association with the French Institute of South Africa
WEDNESDAY 30 APRIL, 6:30pm till late
Drill Hall, Corner Twist and Plein Street, Joubert Park
Opposite Noord Street Taxies /Shell Garage
Free Entrance, Secure Parking & Cash Bar
