The Collaborator’s Course took place in Cape Town from the 16th November to the 7th December 2009. The course was designed and co-ordinated by Heeten Baghat and Paula Kingwill.
The course’s aims were to give seven local and international artists a crash course on Cape Town: the city, its history and its many narratives. It was also to speak to the theme of the 2010 Festival. It was a daunting task: which voice does one choose of the many contradictory voices, or which issue of the hundreds that make up the landscape of Cape Town?
In collating the course, Paula and Heeten came across a wealth of stories about Cape Town. They wanted to give space for the less-’fashionable’ narratives: the marginalised voices, as well as the official version. They drew from the extraordinary resource of the District 6 museum, to the stories told by Father Michael Weeder of a city built on graveyards, a tour of the memorial sites by a MK veteran (from the Direct Action Centre for Peach and Memory) as well as the official Red Bus city tour.
The participants took part in rituals and discussions about ritual, art and healing. They learned more about the city than many people who have lived here their entire lives, know.
The course aimed to lay out a diverse banquet of resources for understanding Cape Town, but it is now up to the collaborators to help each other digest that information and to create exciting art works with it.
The course facilitators are grateful to the following people who were integral to the course’s success:
- Noeleen Murray
- Diane Gibson
- Khalid Shamis [Sufi Master]
- Kerry Anderson
- Bonita Bennet & District Six Museum
- Tossie Van Tonder
- Charmaine Joseph Gwaza
- Sue Kiel
- Julia Raynham
- Father Michael Weeder
- Direct Action for Peace and Memory
- Matipa Mwamuka & Mannenberg Annex
- Develop Action Group
- Renate Meyer & The Centre for Popular Memory
- Niklass Zimmer
- Vivienne Lalu, SWEAT
- Laurie Nathan
- Jennifer Williams, Women’s Legal Centre
- The Trauma Centre
- Father Richard Girdwood
- Claudia Rauber, Phakalane
- Edgar Pieterse, African Centre for Cities
- Ismail Farouk, African Centre for Cities
- Ons Plek Shelter for Girls
- Lunga Smile, Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum
- Rod Suskin and Chris
- Ayesha Price, IZIKO National Gallery
- Sitembile Xasa and Mkize
- Irvin Kinnes
- Felicia Pattinson-Bacon
- Kai Losgott
