NOT X CHRIS SAUNDERS - Exhibition -

After almost two years working on my new collaborative exhibition, the NOT X CHRIS SAUNDERS exhibition opened this week at Wallplay in New York City. The show was well received. In this post I wanted to put up all the final images from the series, each of these images is available as an edition of 10. The show will be up for viewing till the 17th. We also have an artist talk on Monday the 15th at 7pm in the gallery space. 

NOT X Chris Saunders X Macdonald Mfolo with Manthe Ribame, Orange Farm 2014

NOT X Chris Saunders X Vernac with Manthe Ribame, Bree Street Taxi Rank Johannsburg 2014

NOT X Chris Saunders X Vernac with Manthe Ribame, Bree Street Taxi Rank Johannsburg 2014

NOT X Chris Saunders X Floyd Manotana with Manthe Ribame, Jeppestown Johannsburg 2014

NOT X Chris Saunders X Floyd Manotana with Manthe Ribame, Jeppestown Johannsburg 2014

NOT X Chris Saunders X DR Pachaga with Manthe Ribame, Jeppestown Johannsburg 2014

An Introduction to NOT X CHRIS SAUNDERS: 

In a world of increasing globalization, what is locality and how does it reflect diversity? ‘NOT x Chris Saunders’ is a creative experiment that tries to make sense of this question through fashion and photography. As an act, journalist Bill Moyers describes creativity as “piercing the mundane to find the marvellous ” This exhibition reflects the journey and dialogue between seven creators who step outside of familiar ground. It demonstrates how technology-enabled creators living in different cities and countries, each with varying influences and processes meet via the Internet, enter into an inter disciplinary exchange and collaboratively produce garments, sculptures, still and moving images. In January 2014, NOT, an experimental womenswear brand based in New York, becomes a roving studio and practice. Its designer, Jenny Lai, travels to Johannesburg to collaborate with photographer and filmmaker Chris Saunders. Chris’ personal work focuses on South African artistic subcultures; it is the linchpin to graft the project into multiple local contexts. Cultural reinvention is frequently propelled by emergent practices, and often made by the next generation. ‘NOT x Chris Saunders’ places itself at this nexus. Over a period of two months, the studio moves between Johannesburg, Orange Farm, Soweto and Cape Town. It resides in homes and studios of four local creators who each work with Lai to reinterpret a selection of NOT garments. The designs maintain elements of their original form, but the question is how will they remain the same or change under the vision of accessories designer Dennis Chuene, vintage clothier Dr. Pachanga, menswear designer Floyd Avenue, and costumer and puppet maker Macdonald Mfolo. Each bring their own aesthetic language and techniques that reflect something of their history, environment, and ideas. With performance artist Manthe Ribane as protagonist, Saunders’ images narrate beyond mere documentation. He layers each image densely to situate each story in a uniquely South African context.

- Missla Libsekal, Another Africa (anotherafrica.net)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

On September 10th, 2014, NOT x Chris Saunders opens at Wallplay’s concept space on New York’s Lower East Side. The exhibition is the culmination of the cross-cultural, interdisciplinary relationship between New York-based designer Jenny Lai, Johannesburg based photographer Chris Saunders, and four local creatives from South Africa. The exhibition will continue in March at the Museum of African Design.

NOT x Chris Saunders explores the process of creative cross-border collaboration and showcases the distinct people, places, and processes that make South African fashion unique. By utilizing Wallplay’s first and second floor, 12 street level screens and rooftop projections, the exhibition will convey, across several platforms, how a cross cultural collaboration can happen in the modern digital age. The exhibition will make this rich project come alive by inviting visitors through the tactile process of each collaboration: through documentation images, design sketches, final photographs, and a video that shows each garment in performance.

South African collaborators include Dennis Chuene of Vernac Bags, a designer who takes apart China bags to recreate stylish and functional backpacks, Dr Pachanga, a vintage clothier who introduces the global trade of 2nd hand clothing, Floyd Avenue, a streetwear and hat designer from the Smarteez fashion collective, Macdonald Mfolo, a costume designer for Pantsula dancers and maker of larger-than-life puppets, and finally Manthe Ribane, a performance artist who tours internationally with South African rap-rave band Die Antwoord. Each collaborator was chosen for the unique perspective they offered on South African fashion. 

wallplay | 118 Orchard Street (Corner of Delancey) | New York, NY 10002 

www.wallplay.com | join our live feed using #wallplay

NOT X CS: INTRODUCING FLOYD MANOTANA

Over the past couple of weeks leading up to the NOT X CS exhibition in New York cities Wallplay gallery Another Africa have been posting a story a week on the collaborators involved in the project. This week they have introduced well known Sowetan street wear design Floyd Manotana AKA Floyd Avenue, I have documented him many times before this as he is one of the founding members of The Smarteez collective. 

Below is exert from the Another Africa article: 

'  Behind the veneer of fashion, well the business of it, we sometimes see the creative impetus. After all in a world saturated by clothes, what makes a designer pick up their sketch book?

For many a creator, an anthropological introspection is part of their habit and routine, though they’d hardly refer to is as such. They are likely to describe it as observing or seeing; it could be a small gesture, or a certain attitude they’ll say. However big or small, these details that often go unnoticed, are the very things that become the inspiration to create. And so fashioning fashion sometimes becomes a catalyst for the making of a new rhythm and self-imagining. ' See more on Floyd at http://www.anotherafrica.net/design/fashion/floyd-avenue

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NOT X CS: INTRODUCING VERNAC

Over the next month leading up to the NOTXCS collaboration exhibition at the Wallplay in New York City, Another Africa will be releasing a series of interviews with the different collaborators we worked with in South Africa on our project. 

The second collaboration is with Vernac bags who are designed by Dennis Chuene in Durbanville near Cape Town. 

Here is an exert from Anotherafrica.net who are media partner with the NOTXCHRISSAUNDERS exhibition:

'Coming of age is filled with periods of awkwardness, of playing with boundaries and self-expression.  Those attempts to discover how to align our clothes with our personalities, ideas and such.

I recall in high school a friend strutting about in slender very pointy black patent brogues. Those coveted Fluevogs were the precursor to the days when it was trendy to wear Dr. Martens. She happily stood out, whilst others snickered calling them elf shoes, and other choice unnameable descriptors. But Denise simply laughed and kept wearing her “soles for unique souls”.

Many a fashion designer finds inspiration in the Denise’s of this world, and the same can be said of Dennis Chuene. In his case the kids that helped form his early appreciation of fashion, were the eccentric musicians of his teens. Whilst musicians today still seem to have significant sway in South Africa, the designer finds his inspiration in the humble plastic traveling bag.'

To read more head to: http://www.anotherafrica.net/design/fashion/in-conversation-with-dennis-chuene-a-cape-town-based-fashion-designer 

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NOTXCS: INTRODUCING DR. PACHANGA

Over the next month leading up to the NOTXCS collaboration exhibition at the Wallplay in New York City, Another Africa will be releasing a series of interviews with the different collaborators we worked with in South Africa on our project. 

The first of those is DR Pachanga AKA JR Onyangunga.

Here is an exert from Another Africa: 

' NOT x Chris Saunders | A Fashion & Photography collaboration from New York to South Africa featuring Dr. Pachanga

For some fashion merely constitutes items of clothing to cover the body, and for others it’s the palette for creativity and individuality. Johannesburg based vintage clothier,  Jean-Rene Onyagunga who goes by the alias Dr. Pachanga, falls into the later category. ' 

You can read the rest of the article at: http://www.anotherafrica.net/design/fashion/in-conversation-with-dr-pachanga-a-johannesburg-based-vintage-clothier

Check in over the next few weeks to see more. 

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NOTXCS : Another Africa

 Image by Justin McGee

The first press release on Another Africa is out. Missla Libsekal breaks down our process into a well written insightful series of dialogue in the form of a interview. 

All of this is aiming towards the release of our exhibition in NYC next month at WallPlay.

‘NOT x Chris Saunders’ an experimental fashion and photography collaboration from New York to South Africa made possible by the Internet.

Armed with a bit of bandwidth and a few good keywords plugged into google’s image search, documentation of far flung happenings are only as far your finger tips. Add social media to the mix and you can track down near to anyone with an online presence. This hyper-connectivity is changing the prospects for creative collaboration.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.anotherafrica.net/design/fashion/in-conversation-with-jenny-lai-chris-saunders-on-digitally-enabled-cross-cultural-creative-collaborations

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Not X Chris Saunders Exhibition in NYC Crowd funding

http://igg.me/at/notxcs/x/8061117

Not (Jenny Lai) and myself completed an amazing collaborative body of work earlier this year and we are now getting ready to exhibit it in NYC and have launched a crowdfunding campaign. The point of the work, to expose the uniqueness of South African creativity globally. We wanted to show the uniqueness of the South African process and what makes it so unique.

Our Collaborators where Vernac Bags Dennis Chuene), Mac D the puppet maker from Orange Farm, Floyd Avenue Floyd Funky-LowLife Avenue) from the Smarteez collective in Soweto and Dr Pachanga AKAJean Rene Maximillion.

Please help us make this exhibition happen. We have an amazing space in the Lower East side call Wallplay (www.wallplay.com) that are hosting us plus an amazing plan to showcase the work.

Lets expose the vibrancy through a positive showcase of exceptional work between borders.

Help us by contributing anything from $10 US. We really appreciate it!

Visit the Indiegogo page for more information on the collaboration plus a 

video about the project.

Please Share this.

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Exhibition in Edinburgh Coming to a close

Last month I was asked to put together a collection of my work and exhibit it at The Institute in Edinburgh, this was all put together by the No Globe Collective, a group of young creative people from Edinburgh who believe that the arts should have no borders. The show was part of a mini festival with my exhibition opening the night before Spoek Mathambo performed. 

It was a resounding success and the exhibition will be open till the 10th of June. It includes a collection of my Photographs, from the Smarteez to the Panstula work shown last year in the S'Phara Phara exhibition and some of the new Rolling Stone work of Spoek Mathambo as seen in the poster above. 

If your there please check it out. 

S'Phara Phara video piece

The thought of my exhibition almost been over is haunting me, its been a month and it feels like days. On that note, I wanted to upload my video piece which was on display at the exhibition in The Resolution Gallery.

The video piece is the culmination of other experimentation with other videos I shot while at Fabrica, originally I was commissioned by The United Colors of Benetton to shoot a video piece which could be used in the video installation walls in their stores of the acclaimed Johannesburg fashion collective the Smarteez. Unfortunately we shot it but it never came to fruition. So I decided to shoot another similar video for my exhibition on the Real Action Pantsula dance crew, this time learning from the mistakes I had made last time and getting to work with the amazing editor Malcolm Che' to finish it off.

The S'Phara Phara exhibition will be up till the 17th September at The Resolution Gallery in Johannesburg.

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S'Phara Phara - 20th August - Resolution Gallery, Johannesburg. Solo Exhibition.

So on my return from the USA I will be doing the final preparations for my solo show on the Real Actions Pantsula Dance Crew in Johannesburg. Below is a press release and the first invite for the show. The show will open at 12pm on the 20th August at the Resolution Gallery in Jan Smuts ave, Johannesburg. It will have the culmination of the work I shot during my stint at Colors (Fabrica) in Italy where the documentary began when I was commissioned to shoot for the Dance issue and further delving into this amazing contemporary  South African culture.

The show will be opened by iconic South African photographer Alf Khumalo and include two video installations as well as an array of framed prints. 

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Afropolitans - V&A London (24th June 2011)

I will be showing some of my up and coming exhibition S'Phara Phara which will open at the Resolution Gallery on the 20th August, when I get back from the USA.

Showing will be a preview of the printed show plus some the video which was featured in Colors magazine last year when I was on residency at Fabrica in Italy. My new S'Phara video which will be installed at the exhibition will also be shown at the event.

Check out http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/afropolitans-24-june-2011/ for more info on the event and let me know how it goes if you do go!



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Robot Ahead. A collaborative exhibition. Justin McGee and Chris Saunders.

Recently I was approached by the Salon/Locale  to set up a small exhibition in Cape Town. They are a organisition from Amsterdam that set up fashioned themed exhibitions around the world in major cities. They started in Amsterdam where they decided to give people a more interesting alternative to Fashion Week which in Amsterdam.

Justin McGee is a photographer I have always admired. He is brave, willing and street. We hit the streets of Johannesburg together to shoot, Robot Ahead.

The exhibition is on display in furniture designer Gregor Jenkins studio at 84 Shortmarket Street Cape Town and will be so till the end of March.

Read below to get the jist of it:

ROBOT AHEAD
A series of street portraits of the amazing people of Johannesburg       

by Chris Saunders & Justin McGee

Robot ahead’s title is inspired by a sign which you see when entering the city of Johannesburg from the South end coming into Doornfontein into the CBD toward Hillbrow from the M2 highway, I like to refer to it as the ‘Welcome To Johannesburg Sign,’ but instead it is a relic from the Apartheid era, with its Afrikaans, ‘Robot Voor,’ above. Living abroad for the last year also made the fact that we call traffic lights robots very odd and made the sign even more humorous and local. For me the sign epitomises the city and its image, that of business without pleasure, commercial art and big brand fashion culture. A 9 to 5’rs paradise with little to offer as a street culture.

Justin and I are both photographers who have spent tons of our time documenting the streets of the inner city of Johannesburg. We wanted to show the beauty in the street culture breaking the stereotypical view point and creating a new and attractive series showing the city for its best asset, the people. The people of Johannesburg CBD are friendly, approachable and very real.

We decided that the best way to do this would be to walk from one side of the city to the other and shoot a series of street portraits over a period of a couple of hours, showing how easy it is to come across amazing people and scenes. Johannesburg is such a badly documented city, it is feared not embraced. We want to show that the people of the city are good and something to be enamored, not ignored.

All Prints are available as limited editions of 2 prints per image and will be re-printed on Archival Cotton Rag in Johannesburg and shipped unframed to buyer.

Prints cost R4500 (A1 Unframed Print Size on Archival Matte Paper) and Exhibition AP which will not be sold and kept by artist.

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