Embracing Africa’s Rich Creative Culture at LAPA

By Lorraine Kinnear

Perched at the heart of Brixton Johannesburg, the Goethe-Institut funded LAPA strives to relate to neighbourliness, environment, and home. LAPA is a communal, experimental thinking space created specifically for ideating and hosting different forms of gathering and forming community around like-minded people. It is an offering for reflecting on restorative artistic and communal Pan-African histories and practices. LAPA prides itself in championing artist-led community engagement. As a residential community, the residency experience is timed by the everyday commotion of life. The tale of LAPA Brixton is told by Tammy Langtry who serves as LAPA’s Project Manager.

Unpacking the essence of LAPA

LAPA as an artist residency space consists of a co-working space that houses a dedicated workshop area and a reference library. Enacting the term LAPA, which is a ‘many-meaning’ word referencing a homestead, a homing within community or a form of restoration, the residency program is a space of communing, exploring memories of home and world-making. It is created with the process and artistic research in mind; such that cultural producers and artists may apply to LAPA’s annual open calls and after being selected by a jury, are provided space to determine their method and work-plan as motivated by the demands of their research application.

“A part of existing and organizing is about collaboration, and we partner with organizations, artists, makers, thinkers to expand questions of pan-African ideologies and contemporary contexts. We are supported by the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg who support local, South African projects and regional exchange in Africa.” iterates Tammy.

At the core of LAPA’s mandate is allowing creative expression from different cultural backgrounds to thrive. Artists have developed artistic projects on the role of family archives and histories of mobility on the continent, questions of the geography of urban cities in Africa and now, LAPA is hosting two artists who are researching Cosmograms of the Bakongo and other cultural and spiritual belief systems. Artistic practice is used to think of new ways of defining and understanding our humani- ty and giving new vocabulary to our current times.

Bearing in mind that creativity progresses, the space also serves as a residency fellowship, where artists can develop and find new ways to articulate ideas and cultural contexts. LAPA through support from the Goethe-Institut provides funding support for artists to travel, produce new work and network with wider artistic communities. While we see these kinds of opportunities outside of the continent, there is a big push to enable networks and working space in the continent.

Appreciating varied forms of creative expression

Importantly, the team at LAPA doesn’t see artists as only painters or sculptors but encourages and welcomes artists working in different mediums and concepts, from post-independence histories, cultural memory, knowledge systems, practices of collectivity and more. LAPA has committed to facilitating this by offering funds to produce various works, provide creative space, supportive programming for discussions, and connections to other art professionals. The residency program is supported by an organiser and mentors who share resources with moments of reflection and critical feedback. With an understanding that residencies are not measured by the time the artist is there but by the ripple effects which happen after, LAPA is ever keen to see how these become projects of fostering the discourse within Africa.

LAPA Brixton is an initiative for artists by artists. “We understand that artists have been deeply affected during these challenging years, so it has been important to us to find an approach that would make the residency available as a critical support. We are honoured to have hosted some inspired and critically engaged, talented artists at LAPA, whether as residents or as mentors, jury, or other kinds of professionals. The residency program continues to provide infrastructure and support, essential to nurturing artistic practice.” shares Tammy.

She adds that the program has afforded various artists the opportunity to create work in an inspiring environment situated in a creative hub in Africa. Reflecting on the key milestones since inception of LAPA Tammy further shares:

“LAPA has played host to various cultural workshops and artistic programmes including artist collective, MADEYOULOOK x documenta15 that brought forth Lumbung.Jozi, which featured various artists who exhibited in Kassel, Germany. The selected artists foregrounded the question of Land as an inspiration and point of contention for contemporary lives with workshops, film screenings and discussions,” Tammy cites.

Looking into the future, LAPA is steadfast on highlighting and supporting multiple forms of collaboration to think about connected ways of living and working.

“We support artistic communities to realise new ways of making space to react to pressing realities within African experiences,” Tammy says.

LAPA continues to pursue work which supports artists and underserved research. On a longer-term, LAPA will continue working as a residency, progressively offering space, and creating essential networks on the continent and within the diaspora. Beyond having their network connect at the Centre in Brixton, they hope to continue LAPA through the artists and professionals who go on to other projects and for them to share and emphasize the sustenance of cultural work.