Taking up the critical role of culture and imagination at work in gender theorisation, activism and consciousness addressed in the recent issue ‘Gender and popular imaginaries in Africa’ (2018) and the situatedness of Southern women’s postcolonial struggles in ‘Southern feminisms’ (2019), this issue of Agenda boldly situates Southern cultural, artistic and creative production centre stage.
Its interest is in how the local geographies and distinctive spatialities of the postcolonial South produce creative explorations that demonstrate in different ways, mediums and genres the intersection of feminine identities. Writers draw attention to multiple axes that shape lives, and the tensions that produce oppressions and desires.
The guest editors, Lliane Loots and Ongezwa Mbele, have brought an inspired and enthusiastic vision in their curation of the issue. Writing in the introduction to the issue, they emphasise the value of creative dialogues among feminists: “In titling this issue ‘Cultural dialogues’ we have been mindful that we curate a journal of writings and reflections from women that indeed set up dialogue; between academia and artist and cultural production, between praxis and theory, and between the gendered being and doing of the cultural domain in the geographical South.”
Contributors to the issue include several young Black feminist creatives whose voices speak to the journeys they are making in diverse roles as producers, curators, performers and directors. They write about several artistic genres: dance, popular music and performance, poetry, theatre, fine art and sculpture with perspectives from South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria and Benin.
We trust the issue contributes to the feminist dialogues and debates around the power of creative and cultural production to transform, educate and inform; as well as the value of its consumption and critique to provoke self-reflection, social questioning, and to deepen our understanding and imagination of collective social consciousness. After all culture has in the past been in the forefront of resistance, protests and the liberatory messages that opposed colonialism and apartheid. What has often been missing, as several contributors to the issue write, has been the participation of women as creatives, directors, writers and curators in roles where they are indeed in the foreground. We hope that this issue addresses the historic gender gap and expands the platform for women’s feminist cultural and creative contribution to gain firm ground, be strongly established and recognised across the multiple genres and roles in which they bring their work to the public sphere. More power to them as their creativity in whatever form refuses to be ignored, effaced or relegated to the background. We celebrate them in this issue of Agenda.