This is a recording of a live event that took place at the Open Book Festival in March 2022 in Cape Town. In this discussion, Relebone Rirhandzu eAfrika, Tapiwa Guzha and Jen Thorpe explore the effect of capitalism on creativity and mental health in the company of Faye Kabali-Kagwa.
This event was made possible by the support of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, as well as the Heinrich Boell Foundation.
Relebone Rirhandzu eAfrika is a writer, editor and the podcast host of 'The Nine Lives of Depression Survivors'. The Tzaneen-born and bred essayist, literacy advocate, life coach and mental health advocate has been writing for years but still sees herself as a baby writer. Her debut book, Broken Porcelain, is a collection of essays exploring mental health. She is an avid bookstagrammer (@blackfeatherhideout) who promotes Black writers and their work, and a plant mom who doesn’t believe that there is such a thing as having too many plants. You can find her ranting and being goofy on all social media at @relebone everywhere.
Jen Thorpe is a feminist writer and researcher based in Cape Town, South Africa. Her first novel, The Peculiars (2016), was long listed for the Etisalat Prize for Literature (2016) and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize (2017). Her second, The Fall, was long listed for the Sunday Times CNA Fiction Prize (2021). She has published poetry, flash fiction, and short stories on a number of online publishing platforms including Itch, Brittle Paper, Aerodrome, Saraba Magazine, BooksLive, and Poetry Potion. She has published three feminist essay collections. Her new book, Adulting 101, is due in 2022. Twitter: @Jen_Thorpe
Tapiwa Guzha is a Zimbabwean-born and Cape Town-based hedonist who believes a diverse life is a well lived one. He's a generalist who tinkers with his body, hands and mind in as many ways as possible. Whether it be food, rope bondage, soap and jewellery making, sex education, calligraphy, body movement or molecular biology. If a human body is capable of doing it, he's probably keen on trying it.
Faye Kabali-Kagwa is an arts coordinator, cultural curator, and writer. She is a fellow of the VANSA Cultural Leadership Programme 2021, the Pan African Creative Exchange (PACE) Dramaturgy Lab 2021, and the Salzburg Global Seminar Cultural Innovators Forum 2019. In 2021 she was recognised as one of the Mail & Guardians Top 200 Young South Africans for the year. Faye has an uncanny ability to read the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist. She builds interventions that go beyond artistic output and is interested in audience as engaged contributors to her work. Image by Chris de Beer-Procter
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