During the course of last weekend and as one of a number of events commemorating his death, Fingo Festival oversaw the painting of a mural of Steve Biko in a Bruce Lee martial arts pose on the wall of a tyre shop at the side of Dr Jacob Zuma Drive.
During the course of last weekend and as one of a number of events commemorating his death, Fingo Festival oversaw the painting of a mural of Steve Biko in a Bruce Lee martial arts pose on the wall of a tyre shop at the side of Dr Jacob Zuma Drive.
They're calling it "Biko Bruce-Lee" and it was designed by Bulelani "Words" Booi and painted by various community members of all ages and backgrounds over two days.
It is part of an initiative Fingo are calling "Black Art/Black Lives" which, they say, looks at "how art can be used as a means of transforming or building a society that is scarred by the past".
"Images and statements have been used as a way of degrading black people so, through Black Art/ Black Lives, we will show you how we have used art for building a different understanding of how to re-humanise ourselves."
They chose the shop because it is on the street believed to be the last place Steve Biko was seen happy.
The mural was discussed at a colloquium at the Albany Museum on Wednesday (23 September), the culmination of a series of Art and Social Justice dialogue sessions.
Three of these sessions have been held since July, and they are part of a joint initiative involving the Fingo Festival, Upstart Youth Developlment Project and Rhodes School of Fine Art – all three of whom, as their information says, have "taken up the task of art work in different forms".
The project was born out of incidents such as the University of Free State's “Reitz incident” and the public and institutional disputes over the Cecil John Rhodes statue in Cape Town earlier this year.
It "aims to extend such debates by considering art and visual culture as intervening … agents that allow for a foray into historical, social, geographic, theoretical and political arenas".
The colloquium consisted of a series of papers on art and social justice given by members of the fine art department as well as a discussion about a project undertaken recently by Cape Town-based art collective, "The Burning Museum", with learners from Ntsika High School and Upstart which involved putting up posters in public spaces around the city.
As part of the debate on "Biko-Bruce Lee", Xolile 'X' Madinda, activist and director of Fingo Festival, said that academics talk a lot and implement nothing.
"As an art organization we have no time to waste on theory, we are more practical on what we want to achieve", Madinda said.
"Some academics write books, put them on a shelf, become gurus and doctors, and they do not go back to the people they asked the questions of for their research", he added.
