Shades & Layers
Shades and Layers is a podcast focused on black women entrepreneurs from across the globe. It is a platform for exploring issues and challenges around business ownership, representation and holistic discussions about the meaning of sustainability in an increasingly complex global context. Conversations are wide- ranging and serve not only as a Masterclass in Entrepreneurship but also provide wisdom and tools for Successful Living. It is a space for meaningful conversation, a place for black and other women of color to be fully human and openly share their quirks and vulnerabilities.
Guests include prominent figurers in the beauty, fashion and wellness industries both in the Northern Hemisphere and the Global South.
Dr. Theo Mothoa-Frendo of USO Skincare discusses her journey from being product junkie to creating an African science-based skincare range. Taryn Gill of The Perfect Hair is a brand development whizz who discusses supply chain and distribution of her haircare brands. Katonya Breux discusses melanin and sunscreen and how she addresses the needs of a range of skin tones with her Unsun Cosmetics products.
We discuss inclusion in the wellness industry with Helen Rose Skincare and Yoga and Nectarines Founder , Day Bibb. Abiola Akani emphasizes non-performance in yoga with her IYA Wellness brand and Anesu Mbizho shares her journey to yoga and the ecosystem she's created through her business The Nest Space.
Fashion is all about handmade, custom made and circular production with featured guests like fashion designer Maria McCloy of Maria McCloy Accessories; Founder and textile/homeware designer Nkuli Mlangeni Berg of The Ninevites as well as Candice Lawrence, founder of the lighting design company Modern Gesture. These are just a few the conversations on the podcast over the past three years.
Shades & Layers
Designing Creative Futures: Dialogue and Collective Power with Palesa Segomotso Motsumi (S9, E4)
In this essential episode of, we sit down with Palesa Segomotso Motsumi, a trailblazing creative social entrepreneur and curator. She is the founder of Sematsatsa Library, a creative consultancy and curatorial agency based in South Africa.
Palesa's work occupies a space where art, culture and technology meet - she uses dialogue as a tool for change, storytelling as social infrastructure, and uses feminist design thinking to reimagine how creative ecosystems on the African continent function.
She shares her journey from the corporate grind to the world of art and social change in her hometown of Bloemfotein and major centers like Cape Town and Johannesburg. Through her groundbreaking work with Sematsatsa Library and projects like "Hashtag That's What She Said," a fundraising initiative honoring Black women in art, serve as radical acts of archiving, advocacy and community funding.
This is a journey through the process of building cultural platforms, designing new futures and how to center equity in African storytelling. It's also a personal narrative that touches on how to balance between the need for financial stability while making a social impact.
Highlights from our conversation include:
-What it takes to build a cultural enterprise outside South Africa's major creative capitals
-The role of dialogue as a form of social and political technology
-African feminist leadership and the art of curating safe, critical spaces
-The power of art and storytelling in funding and healing communities
LINKS AND MENTIONS
Palesa's Social Media Accounts - Sematsatsa Library and Personal Profile
Lawrence Lemoana
Mary Sibande
Ruth Motau
William Kentridge
Zanele Muholi
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Hello and welcome to Shades and Layers. I'm your host, kukwanos Kosanarichi, and today my guest is creative social entrepreneur Balisa Sikomutsomutsumi. Balisa is the founder of the creative consultancy and agency Simatsatsa Library. Among their many activities to promote an inclusive arts scene in South Africa, they also curate experiences and gatherings for the art world and use dialogue as a tool for education. In today's conversation, we get into Balisa's journey from corporate worker to owner of a social enterprise, as well as her journey through the art scenes of the South African cities of Bloemfontein, cape Town and Johannesburg. We also discuss her latest project called Hashtag that's what she Said an annual fundraising drive that honors black women in the creative arts. There are many gems of wisdom and knowledge in today's discussion Bonus if you're curious about how to make it as a creative entrepreneur and so, without further ado, let's get into Balalesa Sekhomotso Mutsumi's story.
Speaker 2:My name is Palesa Sekhomotso Mutsumi. I was born and bred in Bloemfontein in South Africa. I am the founder of Sematasa Library, which is a creative consultancy and agency that I started in 2013. Out of sheer luck, I didn't think it was going to be a creative consultancy. I was just interested in art as a way to kind of have conversations and break some of the barriers that we find in, so to speak, the art world, and so I started having this idea of bringing people together, having conversations about art, you know, dialoguing around what could be some of the possibilities that could shape our story as a nation, as a country, as people. So I just yeah, I started Sumataza Library out of just the passion for talking to people and artists and creators in general.
Speaker 1:And when you say art, are we talking classical painting in an art gallery? You know music. What do you mean by art?
Speaker 2:It's broadly become a little bit more than just visual art. For me now it started being in the realm of visual art and talking about art as a visual communication tool, but I then started to think about art as expression, art as music, art as music, art as fashion, design, architecture. So those are things that kind of built into weaving what is now my kind of career, which is in the arts, which is in the creative arts. So I think, to answer your question, because I always get this question about art and what does it mean I think art is life and for me it's everything that is around us, everything that we can see, feel and also hear and also sometimes have a feeling about. And so, yeah, for me art is everything at the moment for me, yeah, and what's the core activity that you engage in?
Speaker 1:What do you guys do within this space?
Speaker 2:So we do several things.
Speaker 2:One, we try and educate people about art through curating experiences and also gatherings, and then the second thing that we do is to try and activate spaces with dialogues and conversations, like I said, and those are the two primary activities that we've kind of endeavored to create in the past few years.
Speaker 2:But before then I used to dabble a lot in what they call arts practitioners, which is to create workshops and empowerment tools for the creative industries, so toolkits that could talk to your young and up and coming artists to create a better career for themselves. So those are the things that I used to do in the background as an arts practitioner. But moving now into my career, I've kind of been interested in curating, broadly speaking, as a place where I can explore and experiment with different concepts and ideas and get influenced by a lot of writers and creatives in the space. So that's what I primarily do on a daily basis. It sounds a little bit airy and fairy, but a lot of the things that we do on a daily basis is to talk to people and hear their stories and understand where they're coming from and trying to kind of make sense of that. But what's?
Speaker 1:your main purpose with this work? What are you trying to achieve?
Speaker 2:Now that I've been in the industry, now that I've seen and heard and experienced a lot of things, my purpose right now is to be the work that I'm doing, even through Samadzadza, has totally changed over time, and I think it has to do with also me as a person. The purpose has to be bigger than just me, and I think the purpose is to bring a community together and kind of find a way to speak about issues in a constructive manner. I think that's where I'm at at the moment is to find a way to kind of create a specific space and place for everyone to feel included and also find solutions that could better the industry.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you focus on empowering youth and women of color. Do you have any examples that you could say well, this was a success for Smarts at the Library.
Speaker 2:There's so many, I think.
Speaker 2:I think there's just so many examples, but I think for me, it's seeing the transformation that has happened over time in the last couple of years when it comes to representation and the way in which women have moved into this space and taken ownership of their careers and their story.
Speaker 2:So one of the projects that I mentioned to you, I think, several times when I was starting to think about just the next kind of step towards what I'd like to do in my future, was to actually build a platform for women who are in the visual arts and that's called that's what she Said Hashtag.
Speaker 2:That's what she Said and really like it's a concept that I've been really working on for the past seven years give or take, which was from a research project, also with another organization in South Africa, where we try to find ways or solutions to some of the problems or some of the things that we face in this space. So it started as a passion project and now it's blossoming into a platform where I can see other younger, emerging artists who are women, who create art, coming and being supported in ways in which I could have never imagined. So the idea has grown bigger. We have hosted two dinners to raise funds for younger artists, who happen to be also women, or even people who identify as women. We kind of also want to engageasa Library's activities. Without even me thinking a lot about it, it's just happened to be there. It's an organic development.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's very organic and that's also something I believe in is that sometimes you want things to happen so quickly, yet you know, life has its own kind of flow and it happened organically that I fell into this idea and now we have people who are backing us phenomenal artists who have been honored in the process Because it's really about giving back. It's really about honoring the previous generation and giving back to the next generation of women artists and also just trying to transform the space without it being too, without overthinking about it, because I think a lot of the things we overthink it. And then also just like the financial benefits of having someone really like tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, you're doing well and I think you deserve to have this type of support means a lot to someone who's coming into the industry, so you could say it's a crowdfunding initiative. That is really like growing bigger and better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is it like a grant or do you have specific things that the artists need to use the money for? You know what do they typically do? And, yeah, just share one of the stories, I think for for for 2023.
Speaker 2:The idea was to have the artists that we celebrate nominate an artist, but because we've kind of transformed it as well into something that organically has transformed, people have now now come in, or community members, people that we regard as our supporters have come forward and said we'd like to be involved. How can we get involved and how can we nominate these artists to be part of this journey? And so, as it stands, we do have a selection process. So last 2024, the edition that we had we obviously looked at what kind of artist is being supported. So the artist who was honored this year was Mary Sebande, and she had a certain kind of idea around who she wanted to nominate, and so we always give the agency, the owners to the artist that we honor, to decide, and that's the number one criteria.
Speaker 2:You know, we always want to have like a criteria of a long list of things that we want to say about this particular artist, but I think that the honest part of it is that we actually give the person we honoring the honor to nominate the person that she'd like to do also give back to.
Speaker 2:So that's really our criteria In terms of selecting the honorary artists that we honor every year. It's really about two things, and that's international acclaim, how well the artist has done in terms of representing South Africa, and how well have they done that, whether it might not be competitions or winning, you know, prizes, but also just representing us as a nation, as a country, and I think Mary did that very well when she was quite young and also has done that like consistently. And so the second part is also the fact that the issues that the artist tackles you know some of the things that they deal with, the material issues that the artist deals with is very important to kind of also give grounding to the kind of work that they create. So those are the things that we look at.
Speaker 1:What kind of issues have been highlighted?
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I was going to say last year we had Zanella Moholi, nandi Pamtambo and Usha Sujaram. We honoured those three artists because we couldn't pick one person.
Speaker 1:We were just not Well.
Speaker 2:they're very topical we couldn't pick any. You know we were just like I can't just imagine picking zanelle over nandi, pa over usha. So all of them, yeah, and I think the artists highlight a lot of you know issues Usha deals with you know domesticity in her work, like how well have we? Kind of she works with material that would obviously you'd find in the household, in any household, and she really like makes the space become extremely different from what you would expect you know an iron or pegs to do, but she kind of activates a space and you think out of the box about it.
Speaker 2:Obviously, zanelle, with just her, her topical ideas around just colorism, our bodies, you know just a lot of things that we as black bodies experience on a daily basis and also just beyond representation with the lgbtiq plus community. So that's also something that I'm very passionate about, and also I've enjoyed her work over the years, not only as a friend, but also somebody that has always been very generous with their work and their mentorship to young people. And then the third thing is just Nandipa. Obviously I just yeah, I've been very touched by her work over the years as a young person and because I'm generally not somebody that talks about my art journey, in terms of how I got into art, nandipa probably was one of the first black women I've ever experienced in a gallery as a young, you know, high school girl. Wow, that's quite an impression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it kind of created a very big impression in my life and I think also with other people as well, because of the kind of work that she's produced. So that was last year and you know I've written just like broadly about it in terms of why we chose those three women. But with this year it was different because I kind of felt like, or we kind of felt like Mary had kind of become such a big force in the industry with her character, sophie. Sophie and what that meant and how everybody just took on with, you know, took that image and owned it for themselves. So that's when we kind of chimed into this idea of getting Mary to be honored this year and she was quite keen and happy and very humbled by the whole thing. And so that's how the organic part of it happened.
Speaker 2:It's just these organic relationships between artists and curators and writers and people that are in the industry who also feel strongly about their work. And so next year obviously it'll be another process again of trying to think about who is this person that could also hold space, not necessarily in the same way that all the other honorary artists have done, but also brings a different kind of aesthetic and a voice that probably would speak to what we stand for as a platform. So, unfortunately, because we don't invite everyone, it's quite small and intimate 30 people get to experience that whole dinner and we raise the funds and we put it up for an emerging artist to come and just bless us with a lot of what they have as a young artist. So that's really, in a nutshell, what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1:And do you have a typical amount or goal that you set, that you know this year we need to raise so much because it will be meaningful in this and that way, or do you just, you know, wait and see what you get?
Speaker 2:So last year we obviously were starting, so we obviously had a very big responsibility to get that going.
Speaker 2:So last year we really just gave a nominal fee from everything that we had raised, but it was great to see the transformation of having to give another younger artist.
Speaker 2:You know some of the proceeds this year.
Speaker 2:We had a very good support. We had people coming and supporting and pledging and donating just a lot of their time but also a lot of their own funds to a particular group that Mary is part of and that's called Occupying the Gallery. So that was part of the mentoring that Mary and her husband, lawrence Limawana, are part of and they mentor young artists. So that's part of why I think this year was successful, because this year we got to at least see the impact of the raising of the funds, of the efforts and also just the kind of ways in which we can also think about the model, think about the approach, try to see who else we can also engage, whether it be a particular artist who's mentoring younger people or maybe even engaging younger artists to be on this journey with us. So it's really trying to see what works and what doesn't work, and that's the beauty of it is that it's still early, but we're able to throw in one idea or throw out one idea and try to make it work in one way or another.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's Shades and Layers. In the next part of our conversation, we talk about social entrepreneurship and impact. Balisa also talks about her journey to finding her place and being a confident player in the art world. She also takes a moment to acknowledge some of the people who were there for her as she tried to find her feet. So you are a social enterprise, yeah. So why is that an important?
Speaker 2:business model. Wow, I think I get why a lot of people think when you're a social entrepreneur, you're probably not interested in money.
Speaker 1:I beg to differ, but yes, I beg to differ, but yes, yes Okay.
Speaker 2:But essentially I am interested in making a difference, but also I'm interested in how we make that difference. So, yes, I'm interested in making money at the same time, but I'm also interested to wake the world up about certain things that obviously would not otherwise be discussed, and that's why I started Samantha Library. Even though I like to focus on women of color and young people, because that's the biggest demographic group in South Africa that is obviously going to be disadvantaged on some level or another, I always also feel that I'm part of that group At some point. I was a young person who was also struggling with certain things, and I also became part of a group of young women who are women of color who are able to shape the world that they're living in. So I became more of a social entrepreneur by accident, because I was never really interested in being an artist only.
Speaker 2:I was always thinking about art as a business, art as a vehicle, art as a tool, and I think that's why I started the company that I have now, or the brand, because obviously people associate me with the brand. But I never really held onto the idea of just being an artist. Because I also love art, I also went and did my own art activities in high school and also in varsity, but I was never really interested in just art, and I think that's why I opted the entrepreneurial route as opposed to having this art background as well. So yeah, I think you are right. I'm not only interested in just making a difference. I also am interested in having an economic influence into my own decisions as a person and also the community that I come from.
Speaker 1:And how have you kept your business going? I mean, you started in 2013. It's actually very rare for businesses to survive such a long time, especially like in the creative arts. So how have you kept the lights on? You know what has helped. If you can just share that.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I think I had to really sacrifice a lot. I don't have children and I don't have a working kind of family life where I have to be a mom, a wife, a partner and all of that. In most cases, somebody like me who's in their mid-30s would have had that kind of experience in their 20s where they've had to kind of get married, have kids and et cetera, et cetera. But I never planned on this happening. I think it was more of a serendipitous way of things shaping how I took the decision to start my business and how it's just transformed me first of all. So when I started I was really in corporate In Cape Town. I was really not happy with where I was in my life. I struggled a lot with the corporate environment then and I decided that I would just take everything I had and start Simatata. And that journey, that decision, changed who I was completely and people thought I was stupid. You know, just the whole idea of starting a business at 25, 26 was something that people were like are you crazy? What are you going to do? What's your parachute? What's your plan? You know, are you going to have a parachute? Are you going to survive in Cape Town and all of that. But I had support. I had people that really supported the idea and the business from the start up until maybe 2017, 2018, when I actually officially left the Western Cape and that was only because of my own decision that I felt like I was just stuck, in a way, in Cape Town. I wasn't growing, I didn't feel like the art world was moving at a pace that I wanted it to be, and I had this urge that I wanted to start a gallery. I wanted to be part of a commercial system that could make money for myself and also artists, and that environment kind of frustrated me, and so I just decided to take another leap again and leave a city that I love and cared for to start again in my own hometown.
Speaker 2:Thinking about these ideas was very hard for me, because I thought why do we have all these things that happen in other centers like Cape Town and Joburg and not where I come from? And so I then took a leap, took what I had and jumped again and went to Bloemfontein, and for me that also changed how I looked at art, because then I started to interact with local artists who had barely, you know, even gone out of where they came from, but had good, good work and talent, and I stayed there for about two, three years thinking about you know just how powerful it would be to have something that could interact with them. So, yeah, I think for me it's to answer your question it has been really hard at times to kind of put the lights on. It has been very great on a personal development level where I've had to really grow into this person that I am now yeah, resilient and all of that. But it is harder if you are someone who cares for people as much as I do and wants to see them progress in a space that is completely different from other places, right?
Speaker 2:So I kind of felt like in that time, in that era of my life, I felt that as a Black woman in the free state, there was only so much I could do for the community that I was looking out for and also looking to gain from at the same time, and so I decided to take, you know, the next leap of really just looking at my life and focusing on some of the things that would broaden my horizon and broaden my paycheck and make life easier for me as well. So I then moved to Joburg, which was always something that people thought of when they saw me. Every time they would engage with me in Bloemfontein or they would come into Bloemfontein or Cape Town and would say why would you not want to move to Johannesburg? And yeah, the tough decision to move from Joburg with my business was made and I moved to Johannesburg. For that reason. I won't get into much detail in terms of how tough it was, but it was really tough to be in Joburg and not know anybody from the get go.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think for me know anybody from the get-go and I think for me what made me realize a deeper part of it is that I wasn't really familiar with how things are in Johannesburg as a space and as a cultural hub. I was naive and I thought I could go anywhere, do anything, and Joburg is very different from a lot of cities and anybody that has been there for a long time will tell you that Joburg is a very tough city to crack.
Speaker 1:Swallows people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and you know one good I wouldn't say she's a friend, but one good acquaintance. When I worked in Cape Town for the first time with a client, my very first big client said to me if you really want to make it in Joburg, just make friends with the right people who will protect you and guide you and make your life easier in the city. And I took that advice and I think I wouldn't say I made it a conscious thing where I would sort out people that would make my life easier in the city. But I think they kind of came on their own and I also gravitated towards them. And some of those people are still in my life and they still encourage me to this day. And those are artists that I hold dear. And one of them was Benon Lutaya, who passed on a long time ago, who was very special to me and very special as a person because he gave me a very big opportunity that kind of made some kind of a difference in my art career and, yeah, and encouraged me and saw something in me that would make me feel welcome in Johannesburg.
Speaker 2:I think also the other thing is that we try to make Joburg sound so scary, I mean, at least from my understanding, I feel like Joburg is more of a place that you find yourself. You find yourself, you know, I found myself in very large ways. I got to curate a talks program in one of the art fairs in Johannesburg, which was a very big thing for me. I mean, I felt very low at that point in my career, to be honest, and I think this is the first time I even speak about it, because it was a very different time for me mentally and I tried so hard to kind of be like you know, play to the entire curating and doing the thing. That is just phenomenal for people who are like me, you know, who come from a very different background.
Speaker 2:So when I got into this space, I felt extremely overwhelmed. You know, right now, I think, when I look back, people often say how did it feel, you know, to kind of do something that put maybe a little bit of a sprinkle in your career? I feel like very different about it. I feel like I should have done a lot more experimental work in terms of just breaking the barriers around art, even though I tried to do it as much as possible. And I see that a lot of people are taking those experimental steps to create a better, inclusive environment and I'm happy about that. To be honest, I'm really happy about that. But if I had it my way, I would have done it differently.
Speaker 2:Those are the moments that obviously speak to keeping the lights on. That was one moment of keeping Samath Sasa alive as a place that I had started, you know, a long time ago and for someone or a platform to recognize me in that way was very big People that I'd never actually thought I would ever work with in such an intimate, personal way. That was a huge thing for me. The other parts that kept the lights on were really in Joburg specifically, were really people that trusted me outside of the commercial work that is, the business side of it. It's more organizations that wanted me to come and, you know, impart my own knowledge around certain topics, engaging me on certain platforms, speaking in engagements, research different parts of my own kind of interests when it comes to writing, when it comes to conceptual ideas. I'm now finding that I'm in the commercial space again, you know, and now it's just becoming clearer and clearer why I had to kind of work in a specific manner in order to be in a commercial space again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean you keep talking about inclusivity, inclusion, etc. And, having started this organization 10 years ago, what transformation have you seen since you started out compared to what's going on now? What's improved, what still needs work?
Speaker 2:So it's a good question, because that's something that is very interesting is that sometimes you do work that people think is pioneering. I mean, you would know this in terms of just the landscape of work that happens, the time that things happen. I'll tell you that the transformation that I've seen is that when I started as an arts practitioner I had no idea I would be curating. I think for me that was far-fetched. I always felt like curating was such a huge responsibility. I always felt it was part of a museum structure that was very far from what I was doing and people kept on thinking about me or thinking with me about curating and saying, oh, you're a curator, maybe you should try curating, study, curating, all of those things. But I never really thought about it as a career. I always felt me and curating were very far from each other, but I felt very inclined to the business side.
Speaker 2:So the transformation that I've seen in South Africa now is just the amount of talented young black women who are curating, who are taking over spaces, who are redefining curating in a different way. I mean you, your experience as a producer and a cultural person in the industry that is also something that is taking shape in a very big way is that people are taking on this producer hat and making it into something very big for themselves, and that is a very huge step in terms of how, economically, the whole industry has transformed. Industry has transformed. You know, women are now starting to have really big roles in institutions when it comes to just being curatorial heads, curatorial directors, curatorial visionaries, and I think that's very important for one for me it's very important because I never saw it when I started at least that wasn't my experience and just the inspiration that I could also call myself a curator in the future is something that has kind of made me think about what is curating actually? You know what?
Speaker 1:does it mean?
Speaker 2:to be a curator in South Africa now? And how is it that I get to call myself a curator and not what I usually call myself, which is an arts practitioner? And what are the difference? What is the difference between being an arts practitioner and being a curator? And I think, to be fair, I used to call myself an arts practitioner because I felt the need to over-explain the working part of it, the need to over.
Speaker 1:Explain the working part of it. You know like you need to work in this industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I understand, yeah, yeah, so that you can, you know, be recognized and be, you know, be promoted, and you know so when I kind of left that title and I referred to myself as somebody that curates, or curates experiences and gatherings and dialogues, I started to think about it in a very different way and now I'm very proud to call myself one of the curators in South Africa who obviously run a specific company and who are passionate about young people and are passionate about transforming how we look at art, not only for the elite and the people that buy into it, but also how we can actually make it a career that is sustainable at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is that a possibility for young artists in South Africa now to have a sustainable career? Say more.
Speaker 2:You know, I think because we've always thought about being in the industry as a burdensome thing, where people kind of go into it and think, oh, I'm going to be an artist and it's going to take me a long time to be very wealthy and successful.
Speaker 2:And I've seen that there is a lot of possibility for artists to make it if and when they make the right kind of decisions or when they meet the right kind of people and the people that will make them realize how important it is to have a sustainable career.
Speaker 2:I was reading a story a few days ago, I think, of one of these amazing artists that we have in South Africa, and instead of me thinking about their work in the world and what they do and what they've done, I kind of started to think about what kind of influence they have on younger artists who are now coming up.
Speaker 2:And the reason why it is so important to have that kind of conversation is that most of us don't have role models that could say it's okay to be a curator, it's okay to be a full-time artist, it's okay to be an art teacher or an art practitioner, because we've never really trusted in this art thing as much as we trust other careers and that's been the narrative across the board, across generations. So I think, because we have examples that are doing work that is phenomenal and that's sustainable, it's possible to have a career for many, many years and still survive and still have all the benefits of being a cultural worker. The dynamic part of it is that the structures and the things that support artists has to go. A lot more has to be worked on in South Africa and also in the world, but I think there's a huge potential for artists to have sustainable careers because we have examples now that we can refer to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, attitudes have changed, of course also. I mean, when I entered the cultural space, it was just a foreign concept to even think about having a career in arts and culture. So it's attitude. But also, you know, let's talk about measuring success, right? So how do you measure success as an institution? And also, how do you encourage the artists that you support to think about what success means?
Speaker 2:I think for me, let's say, for example, we talk about an artist like William Kentridge and obviously very well known, very highly adored, also quite affluent and has influenced a lot of artists and has had a very successful, sustainable career. And for me, I always pick out William Kentridge in a lot of my interactions because I also educate young people about the ways in which they can navigate their careers and the things that they can do to make it sustainable, learning from other artists who have done it before. For me, I think, when you're an artist and you have a gallery representation, that does not only mean you're going to be in a gallery representational structure forever, so you have to build everything around your brand. Everything around what you do has to have some sort of business model and you have to think about it in a way that a doctor would think about their business as a health practitioner what are the things that you do on a daily basis that could propel you to success? And for me, when I advise young people, when I speak to them, when I lecture on certain topics, I always pick out also Black women who have done it before, that have been sustainable in their careers.
Speaker 2:It might not be a straight line, but it has its own bumps and challenges. However, I'm always cognizant of the fact that one has to think about themselves as a business. If I'm not writing, what else can I do? If I'm not speaking, what else can I do that could make me have more income or make me have some sort of advantage, you know, in terms of leveraging my networks, leveraging some of the things that I've learned over the years. So I'm always giving advice from that point of view, and somebody like William Kentridge has always been somebody that I've looked at as an example that keeps on having such a phenomenal career within film, within visual arts, within branding, within working with corporate, with art institutions, with producing work that is absolutely transformative. You know, everything that he does is about making whatever story he's trying to tell to be part of something that's not easily fabricated, you know, or easily done. You know he's very, very good at conceptual thinking. He knows what he's doing and I think that's what I try to impart to some of the people that I speak to, somebody that I also have mentioned before, zanella Moholi, and how she has kept on producing books and photographs and using her body and, you know, speaking at events and doing all sorts of things that could also make her life and her art sustainable.
Speaker 2:So I think all these artists for me are very much. I mean Zanelle. One of my favorite favorite pieces of her work is a film called A Difficult Love, and I always talk about it to her and she's always like oh, you're always so in love with that piece of work and it's for me it's important to mention that work because I think a lot of the time when we think about arts, we always think about framed works that hang on the wall, but we also don't think about how we can also transform the things that we do onto different mediums. So that's the success for me If you're able to take your idea and replicate it in different ways, that's something that could make your life economically enriched as well and empowered.
Speaker 1:My guest today on Shades and Layers is Balisa Sekhomutso Mutsumi, and she is the founder of the arts agency and consultancy Smatata Library. Up next, we talk about legacy and we get into the Shades and Layers rapid fire. Speaking of South Africa spreading its wings, how do you also make sure that there's still as much as a library, this nurturing of the local you know, without having the international overshadow?
Speaker 2:the local and community driven.
Speaker 2:I think it also speaks to the kind of people we have around, you know, just interested in art.
Speaker 2:Recently I started to kind of have these private mentoring sessions with artists that were in my own community community, as in my own hometown and made a call to kind of have them in my space and we chat and we talk about their careers, where they want to go and how they want to navigate their own careers.
Speaker 2:It became something that was about people that were from my hometown but now it kind of spread into like having younger artists from other parts of the country. You know, sharing in conversation. But what I realized was that all of the artists that I interacted with had similar questions around how do I make it, how do I make an application for a residency or a commission or this particular art prize, and the same questions keep repeating themselves over and over again. Until now I actually realized that it's not even about the question. It's about how much information is out there about the things that they're asking about. So somebody like bringing a Ruth Madao into the space and asking them to talk about their experience is going to count more than me talking about how, the how to list. You know this is what you need to cover.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know like this is what you need to write but you know instead of having like someone who has done it and is able to say, look, this is how I did it, this is what happened. This is the degree of success I've had with this medium and this is what happens when you follow through with what you started, and for me, it's just those moments where it doesn't need to be recorded or be online for people to access that or to have a call to action for people to come in. It just showed me that there's a possibility that we are trying to speak to an audience that most probably is listening but is not tuning in. And that's very important to me at the moment is that is the audience really tuning into what is happening in their career? And bringing in guests and asking them to speak about certain aspects of their careers was really enriching for the younger artists because they could relate a lot of what they were doing.
Speaker 2:They could relate it to also the people that I brought into the space. It was not really planned in that way. I think it was also something that I thought it's not fair to have just one person speak about certain steps, whereas I could bring in people that I already know are in this space.
Speaker 1:Multiple speakers here, so what are you hoping your legacy will be for the South African arts community?
Speaker 2:I think my legacy will be a very well thought through process, I guess, of someone who was trying to paint a picture that was about embracing how we look at ourselves as opposed to being fixated with what has happened to us.
Speaker 2:I'm always very mindful about that, that I always tell my family that, you know, whatever happens to us is not really what is happening. It's just something that is going to be part of what is in the future and what is it that we're trying to learn from that. But yeah, I think my legacy will just be that it's going to be a lot more about. What is it that I'm trying to say with certain things in my work, in my curatorial work, in my writing. Sometimes, when I write about artists, it becomes more of a journey within itself, with them, with me as well, me being a witness to their life, me being a witness to their art, also trying to make sense of what they do in their careers. So I don't know if it's going to be something that I will document in a book for people to read or it's going to be in a form of a documentary that I think of, or it's going to be an institution one day, because I'm a writer and I love writing.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite writers and artists. You know, in Ghana, Ibrahim Mahama has an institution in his hometown and has built this massive institution and everything that he does is to pour into that space, and I think that's something that I would aspire to have that kind of legacy one day.
Speaker 1:Sure sure, sure. Speaking of documenting things, we are now at the rapid fire and my question, first question is if you had to write a memoir, what would it be called and why?
Speaker 2:Are you making me blush? So for the sake of the question, I won't go into other things. For the sake of the question, if I were to write a memoir, the title would be and Just Like that, oh cool why?
Speaker 2:I've always had this fascination of gardening. I love to work with my hands, I love flowers, plants, so it would. Elizabeth gilbert has this book that she wrote about a botanist. Oh, yeah, the botanist, yeah, yeah. So it's one of my favorite books that I've read and I've always been obsessed. So if it was anything, it would be about nature and botany and flowers, and yeah, that would be it.
Speaker 2:Yeah but this has to be the story of your life yeah, it would be about it essentially will be and just like that. You know, I think there's something there about just plants and things, just being.
Speaker 1:you know that blossom over time, yeah definitely about that, and who would play the lead character in the movie version of your life?
Speaker 2:It probably is going to be sounding vain, but I did do speech and drama as a matrix subject.
Speaker 1:So I do know how to, oh, okay, so I do know how to, okay, you do, you do know how to act. Okay, you play yourself fair enough, okay, okay, yes, cool, cool. So who would you invite to dinner? Famous black woman, living or dead, who would you invite to dinner?
Speaker 2:oh my god. Yeah, this is a tough one. I would definitely definitely invite. It might sound very like controversial, but yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say I definitely invite. If I say this name, it's probably going to look like Say it, I would definitely like to invite somebody like tandisa to a dinner. I think there's something I would love to speak to about, not really her music, but just her as a person, in terms of her upbringing. Of course, everything that's online you can access, but I think having a dinner with her would be really amazing. So I'm just going to put it out there that one day can I please have a dinner with Tandi Samazwai.
Speaker 1:She's funny and fun. So, before we wrap it up, what are you looking forward to at the moment?
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to being in Cape Town. Previously, staying here and now coming back is something very much I hold dear. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to being in the city again. I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, certain aspects of my life being transformed. I have I have a lot of ideas, but I think I need to focus on just one, which is right now building on what I've discussed with you. That's what she said. So, yeah, I mean I'm looking forward to just doing life, really just being present.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if someone wants to get hold of you, work with you, give you money, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:so if somebody wants to give me money, work with me and collaborate with me, they can find me on. I'm mostly active on Instagram. I'm under my handle at T-Y-A-T-Y-I Jaji, which is my handle, my personal handle. If they'd like to get in contact with the work that I do with Samathaza Library, they can get in contact at Samathaza Library on Instagram and email me as well. Palesa at samathazalibraryafrica, and I answer most of the time. Most of the time.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, and that is all from me this time around. Thank you, palisa, for sharing your story, and thanks to you for listening. Please visit the show notes for more on Palisa's work and some of the artists mentioned in today's show. While you're in the show notes, please share and rate the podcast so that others can find us. A five-star rating would be amazing. Thank you, I'm Kutuanus Kwasana Ritchie, and until next time, please do take good care.
