Episode 6
Listen to Season 3, Episode 6 of The ICA Podcast, featuring artist and cultural producer Russel Hlongwane!
Hlongwane transports us to unexpected places in his speculative performance Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud, which draws on Zulu cosmology, folklore and systems of transcendence, and places them within a digital framework delivered through video, installation and a performance lecture. The work seamlessly merges myth, fact and fiction while proposing non-linearity, the diffusion of time and the displacement of hegemonic knowledge.
Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podcast Addict, on our website; or wherever you find podcasts.
Russel Hlongwane, Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud. 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Photos by Xolani Tulumani.
Russel Hlongwane is an artist and cultural producer based in Durban, South Africa. His work is located at the intersection of heritage, modernity and culture/tradition as it applies to black life in South Africa, the African continent and the diaspora. His practice includes cultural research, creative producing, design, curatorship and writing. He is part of a number of collectives, working groups and programmes spread across the SADC region, the continent and the world.
Russel Hlongwane, Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud. 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Photo by Xolani Tulumani.
About The ICA Podcast
The Podcast – launched in July 2020 – emerged out of the ICA's 2019 publication Acts of Transgression: Contemporary Live Art in South Africa and extends the work begun by the book through conversations with the creators and curators of Live Art. Each episode is alive with music and audio from artists’ performances, and the weight and emotion of their personal stories.
Season 1 looked at the bodies of work of 8 diverse artists. In Season 2, each episode focused on a single performance, and the creative processes that brought them into being. Catch up on any episodes you may have missed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Season 3 – hosted by writer Nkgopoleng Moloi – explores 7 performances featured at the 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Listen to each artist bring their immersive and richly layered performance to life, and reflect along the way on how their upbringing has shaped their practice.
The 7 episodes of Season 3 dive into:
I AM by Tandile Mbatsha
Between my finger and thumb by Asemahle Ntlonti
We are everywhere by Qondiswa James
Ingoduko yamaNkazana (The Return of the Home of Harlots) by Lukhanyiso Skosana
UkuNqula kukuThandaza by Nkosenathi Koela
Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud by Russel Hlongwane; and
Reclaiming the Poetics of Indigenous Horns by Kolawole Gbolahan.
Looking ahead
In Episode 7, the final episode of Season 3, we'll be speaking to musician and creative writer Kolawole Gbolahan. Join us then!
Rate and review the podcast on Apple podcasts to help other listeners find the show. Or share The ICA Podcast with a friend!
Russel Hlongwane, Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud. 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Photo by Xolani Tulumani.