Unlike other podcasts that come out, hogs the spotlight and vanish in thin web waves, “Concepts of Love”, a webcast hosted by Suzana Sousa and Dana Whabira is still very much creating.
This week, the Njelele Art Radio-produced show aired its fourth episode, “Love & Sex’ which features South African-based curator Lerato Bereng.
In Sesotho, Lerato means ‘love’, thus the new episode’s conversation begins by positioning love in Lerato Bereng’s curatorial work and practice. It draws its title and departure from the exhibition SEX she curated in 2016 at Stevenson Gallery, delving into sex in social and political contexts, as well as the interplay of sex and language.
Ultimately, the discourse navigates through intricacies of social construction and meaning to contemplate ideas of intimacy, tenderness and love, questioning whether the overexposure of both love and sex contribute to the establishment of a certain set of ideas in society or open a discussion of all the nuances that could lead to deeper understandings of such matters.
From 2008 to 2009 Bereng took part in CAPE Africa Platform’s Young Curator’s Programme for which she curated Thank You Driver, as part of the Cape ‘09 Biennale.
In 2021 Bereng will curate How to make a Country, at FRAC Poitou-Charentes, France, under the umbrella of the Insitut Français’s Africa Season 2020.
Here are some of the previous episodes you might have missed from the Concepts Of Love…
Love & Other Things, The Zethu Matebeni Episode
Black love seems to be perceived as a marginal situation rather than the norm similarly to what happens within the LGBTQI community. Zethu Matebeni, an activist in the academy who spends most of her time writing and rewriting African queer theory for everyday use, explores the love between life and death; and argue how revolutionary love is in our interaction with the Other. In her rendition of ‘Black Man Loving Black Man Is The Revolutionary Act’, she addresses years of colonial violence and discourse that denied love, the feeling and its expression to black people infusing the black body with meaning that transcended it and deployed it of its humanity. In this episode, love is examined as an open and engaging concept that can change lives and world views.
The Progress of Love Pt.II, The Wura-Natasha Ogunji Episode
In the second part of an homage to Bisi Silva and her legacy, visual artist and performer Wura-Natasha Ogunji joins Suzana and Dana to discuss ‘The Progress of Love’ curated by Silva in collaboration with the Menil Collection and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, in which Wura participated with the performance ‘A Tortoise Walks Majestically on Window Ledges’ (2012). Focusing on several of her works, the conversation encompasses the concept of love through time, family contexts and histories, religion, social history and the body. Ultimately, we attempt to untangle a critical question brought up by ‘The Progress of Love’ ~ what is universal and cultural in the definition and expression of love?
