ICA Scholars' Showcase

Join us for the ICA Scholars' Showcase on Wednesday 3 May 2023 at Hiddingh Hall, UCT Hiddingh Campus.

The ICA's MA and PhD Programme in Live Art, Interdisciplinary and Public Art brings together research and artistic practice in public spaces, taking the work of artists and academics to a range of communities.

The ICA’s Scholars’ Showcase offers audiences an opportunity to engage in an interchange around ongoing research by scholars. Aika Swai will present “Unchartered Dialog”, a performance lecture. The work is based on Swai’s dissertation centred around an imaginary conversation between American Indian and African language artists and includes speculation of what would happen if the two groups found ways of speaking to each other. 

Nkosenathi Koela will present “Isibeleko seSandi – The Sound Womb”. The work comprises a structure that mimics the physical and acoustic properties that the calabash produces within traditional instruments such as the Kora, Ngoni, Ngombi, uHadi, Balafon or Timbila. Koela engages the calabash as the oldest and most widely used resonator within Africa to amplify a variety of elements (wood/steel) with varying musical properties. Koela reimagines the instrument as a musical ‘womb’ in which individuals may enter the embryonic waters of sound.

Programme:

17h30 - 18h00 Refreshments will be served

18h00 - 18h50 Aika Swai's 'Unchartered Dialog'

19h00 - 19h50 Nkosenathi Koela's 'Isibeleko sesandi - The sound womb'

About the Scholars

Aika Swai is a PhD candidate in UCT's Department of English Literary Studies. Her research revolves around the communicability of so-called magical or supernatural events, especially when African or Indigenous American authors rely on English to convey the real, and come across as magical. Aika is also a scholar in the Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) where she explores languaging – language as a verb, and as an art form, frequently spilling over into trance-languaging.

Nkosenathi Ernie Koela is a PhD candidate specialising in indigenous music therapies at the University of Cape Town. Using interdisciplinary practice, including his practice as an Afrikan multi-instrumentalist, Koela explores how healing practices through sound create space that manifests spiritually and materially. Koela has been a performer and instrumentalist for over 16 years. Alongside playing instruments, he also teaches others how to play traditional instruments.