Round Corners’ bi-monthly mini-interviews explore culture by asking artists about their life in the arts, and which artists in other media stimulate them. MICK RAUBENHEIMER hones in on KHADIJA HEEGER – a Cape Town poet involved in the funky Naked Word Festival in Observatory.
When did you first identify as a creative artist?
“From a very young age, but my earliest memory is 6 years old.”
Outside of your medium, what branch of art most stimulates you?
“I love improv, mixed-media improv, music etc. Sculpture. installation art, acting. Acting was my first love.’
Which artist/s in said discipline have significantly inspired you, and why?
“So many, can’t think … Jane Alexander’s Butcher boys. Willie Bester, a woman called Tracey, umm.. a UK artist… can’t remember her surname.”
What, to you, is art’s most important function?
“Depends on the country, place, space. Art must expand consciousness, say the things no-one wants to say but that needs to be said; Recognize the muted, make visible the invisible… Yet art is also about expanding beauty, understanding Self. Not self-indulgence though!”
Local creatives (in any medium) that currently excite you?
‘As Is’ are interesting: Outlandish, deep, on-the-spot creating. Rehearsals are simply about getting to know each other. All musicians, some odd, indigenous instruments. Some mainstream instruments being used in different, non-mainstream ways. This is the kind of stuff I love.
The off- key, distorted, open-up challenge. Live ‘As Is’ is Niklas Zimmer, Manfred Zylla, Lliezel Ellick and Garth Erasmus. I’m currently working with them. They are expanding me. Terrifying and amazing.”
What specific work – be it in literature, music, or visual art – do you return to again and again, and why?
“At the moment I’m working in what I think I can call deep trance improvisation. Everything in me wants to stay with this. But I suppose I do return to acting and poetry all the time. I’m an experimenter.”
Any current project you’re unveiling/wrapping up?
“Next collection of poetry recording … ‘Heritage work’.”
What: Round Corners
Who: Khadija Heeger
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butcher_Boys
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Bester
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