Motherbox is an artist-led, non-profit organisation that initiates, supports and produces artistic work from an African and Global South perspective. We pool our collective resources, networks and skills to realise our own work and the work of those in our communities across many kinds of artistic practice and research. We use our imaginative and practical training and experience in the arts to operate as a decentralised arts organisation, developing creative strategies on a project-to-project basis.
Mmakgosi Kgabi (s)he/they a.k.a Ouma is a founding member of Motherbox Organisation for Co-Operation in the Arts. The grandmother soul of multiple-qualification. She completed her MA in Solo Dance and Authorship at HZT, Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch (HfS) in cooperation with TanzRaumBerlin, a network of the professional dance scene, in the Winter Semester 2019. Her research proposal was to approach language as a choreography/dance, the mouth as the dancer opening up a possibility to move closer to the ‘dance’ which is ‘language.’ ‘‘If you can walk you can dance, if you can talk, you can sing’’ Sophie Mgcina. She has a broad portfolio engaging in work as a Dramarturg and Voice Artist with a keen interest in Acting for the Camera. She is a trained actress, performance facilitator, and also a physical theatre and improvisation performer. She trained with Causing a Scene(JHB), Performance of a Lifetime(POAL-NYC), and Clowns Without Borders South Africa(CWBSA). Her BA was Theatre at Rhodes University with Choreography, Dance Repetoire and Acting as her majors. She has developed her skills in the Industry, both in South Africa and Internationally as an on Screen Actor and a Stage Actor. Ouma also excels in organisation, logistics and fixing of projects and events and is currently working in the Hebbel-am-Ufer (HAU) Production Office in Berlin.
www.mmakgosi.com
Lindiwe Matshikiza is a multidirectional artist working with writing, directing, dramaturgy and performance in a variety of media and modes. She uses her background and training in theatre-making as a base from which to approach other kinds of work, often collaborative, exploratory projects that take on more than one form over time. Lindiwe’s work is characterised by a strong emphasis on the holistic process, with the awareness that each process comes with its own set of challenges, circumstances, environments, people, community needs…. She has worked with a variety of creative partners using this experimental approach, including children and youth participating in Hillbrow Theatre Project, Market Theatre Laboratory and Market Photo Workshop students, groups consisting of both professional theatre-makers and untrained members of the public, and temporary interdisciplinary collectives of artists developing a shared practice as they go. For Motherbox, Lindiwe brings a wealth of creative expertise and vision, as well as decades of experience organising diverse groups of people in the Arts and the complex administrative and people-based skills that come with it.
www.lindiwematshikiza.com
João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga is an artist, composer and maker of physical and virtual “things” that play with reality by deconstructing it, shifting expectations of standard uses or purposes of objects and processes.
Through experimentation and improvisation Orecchia explores sound’s connective capacities through both its physical properties and material preconscious properties, seeking a balance between computer technology, field recordings and traditional musical instruments.
Orecchia’s background as a self-taught musician is in improvised performance and composition for video art, film and theatre. His practice extends to public performance and intervention and the completion of a master’s degree in Digital Arts brought a shift towards a more spatial and physical approach to composition, where sound, vibration, space, music and audience become connected in experience.
Orecchia participates in gallery and museum exhibitions with installation, video, drawing and printmaking. Orecchia has received a South African Film & Television Award for sound design and has published in the Leonardo Music Journal and the Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies.