Number Three

no other title supplies itself to me at present

For a week, we had heaps of flies in our kitchen. Not plague-level, or anything but enough to be extremely irritating. For the most part, they came from the excess rubbish accumulated over the weekend of Zhanta's Life Celebration & Funeral Service, that our beloved Trash Guys couldn't pick up in their normal truck.

It is two weeks later, and as I stepped outside, I noticed with a calm sort of joy that our dog Sting is able to take his morning nap without being accosted by tens of flies as he has been for the last two weeks.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because it reminded me of the beauty only found in a cyclical natural (?) order. I was led to consider what my friend called 'divergent' intentions.

Now, I haven’t done much research outside of the preliminary on flies, but here is what I do know. "Flies are attracted to trash because it often contains decaying organic matter, such as food scraps and other waste materials, which provide them with a source of nutrition. The odours released by decomposing organic materials can be particularly enticing to flies, drawing them to those areas." Gross. But, this was exactly what led me to think, about a so-called natural order. The flies go where they can find warmth and nutrition, and when that source moves, so do they.

There is a café in Harare that my friends told me about while I was in the US. Most of my friends are artists, or creatives, as they more often refer to themselves. I like the term creatives because it offers a more expansive view of the world in which they live (that I am in the midst of exploring), as well as the modes of expression that they embody and put out*.

This café was revered and excitedly revealed to me as the new artist hang-out spot. All of the creatives, the weirdos, those outside the box, were to be found there. By the time I got home, the space was occupied by fewer creatives, and more people, as a friend of mine noted, "who wish to be seen as a creative, and seen to be in creative spaces." Now, I will say, that there is no one hub for creatives. We are everywhere. And it is a beautiful thing. However, I also believe that we need a space of our own.

At the risk of comparing my beloved creative community with a buzz of hungry insects, I wish to make the following comparison: in the event that the community finds itself in an accepting and expressive space, with room for dialogue, growth, and communal ideation, I believe it is only pertinent that more and more people flock to that space. But once the essence of what made that creative space so attractive is gone, so are the creatives.

It is simple, really. However, it's worth noting that when spaces like these are overgrown with both genuine (what is genuine, really?) and insincere voices, the space itself ceases to prove purposeful. And so we go in search of alternative environments. I, perhaps selfishly, would like to have/start/find such a space, that is in and of the creative community, to be able to foster the kinds of connection I seek, as do those around me. It would be trivial to assume that posers would not follow, as they naturally do. Those who have adopted the "be as you wish to seem" ethos, will follow the scent of what nourishes them, though they cannot find a foothold, regardless of any barriers set to snuff them out. But I also do not believe that those so-called disingenuous members of the creative community should be completely shut out. It may work to the detriment of the community not to have hangers-on. For they have a role to play.

Is it not the case that leaders are in need of followers? Is it not the case that in a moment of Renaissance, like that in which we find ourselves as creatives, are in need of those who can share the message? I would think yes, on both counts. This is not to say, however, that the sole role of insincere community members is to be the echo of the "O.G.", but to say that some may take on the aforementioned role. Further, I would posit that wanna-be creatives can be both students and teachers for the community at large. Faults in our grand plans could be pointed out by those who cannot see it clearly as yet. Many of the disingenuous are more curious than malicious, in my view, and wish more than anything to be part of the community, even though they do not as yet have any contributions to make. With that said, however, I believe that curiosity is a contribution, as is imitation, as is mockery. Yes, mockery. In the ironic stance of those who embody the greatest of American R&B, for the sake of the aesthetic, for the cool, for the suave, for the blasé in it all, there lies an emptiness. That is a space to be filled, and perhaps I can start by saying that to fill such a void, we need to be creative in our introduction of new, indigenous perspectives, ideologies, methodologies, artistic endeavors, sounds, sculptural styles.

The contemporary is not and cannot be the be-all and end-all, because there is no art without art history. And it is the history that I, and many others are missing. In our burgeoning Renaissance, we must look back to look forward, from as far back as we can find. To know what the creatives in our ancestry were known for, to know what the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, looked like for people who look like us, to take inspiration from somewhere other than Van Dutch and Rick Owens (with the utmost respect to both brands, and their respective designs). We have more to offer. We have more to do.

And while imitation, inspiration, and creative expression are not mutually exclusive, they must (in my view) be rooted in an historical and art-historical foundation, allowing for a continuation, and not simply a veering-off from what was once ours.

There is a LOT more to be said about our Hometown creatives (myself included, for reasons of citizenship, among others) taking ample inspiration from the United States' media portrayal of Blackness, Opulence, and Sophistication, but I will write more on that later.

For my beloved creatives, I believe in our ability to create and find spaces that are open and inviting, willing and able to shift and change as we do, and develop into communities that aid the Renaissance in its infant years. We have everywhere to go, and each other to lean on. Because here's the thing about a Renaissance. The word itself means rebirth. We have to unearth that which was there before in order to emerge from it. It will not suffice to build our creative future from the fractured fractals of an adopted history.

-TC