Conversation on art, ancestry, and community with Gogo Mahlodi & Puleng Mongale

JOHANNESBURG – Growing up, I would witness women in our communities gathering together on weekends for a stokvel or various societies.

These get-togethers helped insulate a lot of black families against poverty, and created a sense of community and sisterhood, for the women who were part of them.

The societies or stokvels within our communities serve a range of purposes – from giving rotating cash payouts, saving money for particular events like funerals or Christmas – or even pooling money for bulk grocery orders made once or twice a year.

This Women’s Day sangoma Gogo Mahlodi and artist Puleng Mongale host Societea at Native Rebels in Soweto.

The pair come together to offer a different kind of stokvel/society which will offer good food, good music, and an equally delectable conversation on art, ancestry, and community at Societea.

Inspired by the societies and stokvels founded in townships across South Africa, Societea seeks to bring together creatives, artists and like-minded people as they think and explore together through the sharing of experiences, processes and intentions.

“I hope that people learn more than anything this is a platform to share and to learn and to impart knowledge by sharing our experiences. So I hope people walk away more informed, interested and curious about art, and creativity but also about their own ancestry and people in their family. The conversation that we’ll be having is around odds and ancestry, so I hope people will start to look into their own bloodlines,” said Mahlodi.

Societies have always been a powerful tool in the fight against poverty and are particularly helpful in uplifting women and breaking the cycle of financial dependency. They play an important role in acting as a kind of informal social welfare system for many of South Africa’s poorest people.

“Women, particularly black women and women of colour are born into unfavourable circumstances (patriarchy, sexism, racism, capitalism, etc) but through history, women have constantly moved mountains even while being oppressed. I’m constantly learning the power of exercising one’s agency as a woman, no matter the circumstances. Women throughout history continue to teach me (us) that exercising one’s agency is a form of resistance and a way of taking one’s power back” said Mongale.

For many, the community aspect of societies provides encouragement and accountability, a sense of family, and belonging that we all need.

“I hope people get to feel like they’re a part of a larger community and an even bigger “calling”. It’s really not a coincidence that an event such as society is happening right now, among black folk and also post the isolation of the pandemic. It is needed. Healing is needed, as well as a sense of togetherness and feeling safe to just be who we are,” said Mongale.

Hosted by writer and sangoma, Vuyiswa Xekatwane (aka Gogo Mahlodi), Societea offers a space for people to commune through shared knowledge, music and food.

The talk starts at 10 am and the DJs will stop playing at 8pm. The lineup includes Teedo Love, Maria McCloy, Nenoblues and Buntu The Ghetto.i.

Mahlodi (Vuyiswa Xekatwane) is a writer, content producer, and healer living and working in Johannesburg. As a writer, her work centres mainly around South African jazz documentation and musical heritage. As a traditional healer, on the other hand,her work is concerned with the restoration of indigenous practices and knowledge sharing.

“As a woman, I think it’s important to understand that we couldn’t get to the place that we are without the efforts of people from previous generations. So whether you’re thinking about women’s liberation, positions that women are able to hold today, that comes off the efforts of people long before us. And I think a big part of the conversation that we’ll be having around ancestry will speak to that,” said Mahlodi.

Women’s Month is a time in which we commemorate iconic South African women that fought in the struggle against apartheid, it’s also a time when we empower, honour and celebrate the beauty and strength of women.

You’re not able to be the person that you are today without the efforts and intentions and work of previous generations, otherwise we’d have to start where they started. It’s because of the efforts of the people that come before us our mothers, our grandmothers and those who came before them that we are able to be the woman that we are today. Women from the previous generation play an incredibly important role because we’re not able to be who we are if it wasn’t for their efforts,” said Mahlodi.

Mongale’s artistic expression is mostly influenced by the stories of the women in her life; women who raised her, and women in her family who she has heard about but never met – such as her late great-grandmother – after whom she is named. She also draws inspiration from the black, working-class women she encounters daily in the city.

“I draw inspiration from many women around me, some are alive and others are not. Creating is both a political and spiritual exercise for me, my work is about defining who I am and who I want to be as a young, black woman in this world” said Mongale.

Creating digital collages, Mongale explores her identity through an internal dialogue that revolves around a re-imagined history, the establishment and maintenance of ancestral relationships, black womanhood, and re-claiming her heritage.

“The role that ancestors play in today’s society is when one actively participates in having a relationship with them, then they are able to be rooted in a sense of identity- belonging. A genuine relationship with our ancestors also helps us see and remember them as human beings, as opposed to constantly thinking of them as “warriors” and supernatural beings. When we see them as people, we also understand that they had challenges and limitations of their time, we get to understand our gifts/talents better, our family dynamics and dysfunction, generational trauma, etc. This helps us make better decisions in our lives and communities, we’re able to exercise empathy and get to understand why we are the way that we are, this awareness helps make healing possible,” said Mongale.

Mongale finds that her collage work, through self-portraiture, allows her to put together pieces of worlds she’s never been a part of and worlds that she’s trying to forge right now. Her imagined, photoshopped landscapes are vivid renderings of a life she yearns for. She says living in Johannesburg has always made her feel slightly displaced: “Joburg is an eclectic mix of cultures but is somehow dominated by one particular culture/language”.

Brunch and conversation between Mahlodi and Mongale starts at 10am at Native Rebels in Soweto.

READ: Brunch with Gogo Mahlodi: A conversation about spiritual hygiene

This article first appeared on 947 : Conversation on art, ancestry, and community with Gogo Mahlodi & Puleng Mongale