Catching up With Chimurenga
Founded by Cameroonian-born writer and DJ, Ntone Edjabe, Chimurenga is a pioneering, radical, pan-African cultural platform for artistic expression and intellectual discourse.
This unassuming Woodstock-based space has been a driving force in Capetonian creativity since its inception, spanning events, a public library, a shop, Chimurenga Magazine and the Pan African Space Station (PASS).
The latter is an online radio platform centred on music and fostering global connections and exchanges, while the award-winning magazine explores African culture, politics and art.
“From a workshop to an office to an exhibition space, a dance floor and a rare book shop, all in one instance, the factory floor is always giving,” team member and researcher Mischa Peters says.
The team’s space, Chimurenga Factory, has hosted the likes of British producer Floating Points, legendary saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and iconic American songstress Georgia Anne Muldrow, among others. Its publication has also featured influential voices like Senegalese novelist Boubacar Boris Diop and South African artist and writer, Zanele Muholi.
Still, as Mischa is quick to point out, Chimurenga forms part of a rich, long-standing intellectual and artistic community; one cultivated by the land and its people long before their arrival.
“Every day there are new sounds, ideas and interpretations coming into the space and moulding the work,” Peters says.
The collective’s name, derived from the Shona language, pays homage to Murenga, a legendary Zimbabwean warrior, embodying a reimagining and exploration of pan-African solidarity and identities. Not to mention, the decentralisation of the continent’s publishing landscape.
“As much as the work can be intensive and timely, there is a fantastic warmth in the factory,” Peters says.
Of course, sustaining an independent, nonprofit cultural space hasn’t been without its challenges.
“Humans grow, things change. The earth is in flux constantly and often staying alive means keeping cognisant of that,” Mischa says. Being prepared for the unprecedented and refusing to let fear of change dictate their next steps has been paramount to their continued success.
For the Chimurenga team of over 100 contributors, the goal is not only to share and create new knowledge, but rather to “express the intensities of our world, capture those forces and take action.”
To them, the annual magazine, which draws from the energy of revered periodicals like Transition and Drum, is a testament to the idea that receiving knowledge is an active, rather than passive process. It’s a means to foster solidarity among African creators while reigniting the spirit of conjuring and creating new futures.
For aspiring cultural workers, Mischa offers cautionary advice; “The system we live in calls for doubts and fears, do not aspire to them, they will lie to you.”
As Fela Kuti said, and the Chimurenga slogan reads; “Who no know go know.”
The space is well worth a visit, with an open door to the world of unconventional, pan-African literature and a library where ‘memories are preserved and history decided’ await.
Chimurenga Factory, at 157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock, is open from 10 AM to 6 PM, Monday to Friday.
Words by Neil Büchner Jr for Letterhead