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Nicholas Hlobo: Drifting Free | Art21 "Extended Play”

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    (gentle music)
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    (radio buzzing)
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    - I like the idea of a radio.
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    'Cause I grew up in an age of the radio
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    where I was when I was a child.
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    (gentle music)
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    It allows one to imagine
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    as opposed to giving them
    everything or almost everything.
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    (people chattering)
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    Sometimes, it's always
    good to just take a risk
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    and just draw a line.
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    From there, the image builds itself.
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    So this is like the ignition,
    allowing the process to guide.
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    I find it to be an approach
    that sets me on the right foot.
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    It allows me to drift free.
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    - Nicholas is an interesting
    person, you know?
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    So he doesn't give you the instruction
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    like you have to do the work and finish.
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    He engages with you also while
    you're working, you know?
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    So it's better to work,
    work, then do other things,
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    then come back to work.
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    Then, when he's around, then he tells you,
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    hey, you can go this way, you know?
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    - I tell the people who are
    assisting me to do the work
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    to always just have fun with it.
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    Don't be too serious about it,
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    'cause when you try to be
    too serious, you won't do it.
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    It's a waste of your time.
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    (soft ambient music)
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    I make these lines, the
    lines are easy to make,
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    but then how you get to force those lines
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    to assume some new role,
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    you do it almost child-like.
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    It brings something to the fold.
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    You get to learn something from it.
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    Occasionally I make a sketch,
    especially for sculptures,
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    I make a sketch, so
    that's what I have to do.
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    But most of the time, I
    always go into the idea
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    of working with a word, with a theme,
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    'cause I believe a word,
    especially nouns and even verbs,
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    they relate to objects
    and what objects do.
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    This is a heel of a shoe last.
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    For this painting, it's
    gonna be named Fak'unyawo,
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    as in insert your foot,
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    like testing the water sort of thing,
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    or stepping up from that.
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    That's Xhosa.
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    It's faka, which means insert, plus foot.
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    So it's faka unyawo,
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    but should make it one word, Fak'unyawo.
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    (bright gentle music)
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    It's important to go astray.
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    'Cause if you are in a
    foreign city and you get lost,
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    then you'll discover some
    alleyways and some avenues
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    that you will not necessarily discover
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    had you been placed on the right path.
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    The silent wind orchestra.
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    Initially, they musical instruments.
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    I thought to have them
    in one of the canvases.
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    And that idea grew that, actually,
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    they could stand by themselves.
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    They are wind instruments.
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    If we have these elongated
    brass and copper tubes
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    that are connected to
    the trumpets, the bugles,
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    they will still be music instruments.
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    And we had to somehow shift
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    that notion of music instruments.
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    And also perhaps, would
    be used as a metaphor.
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    If you think about blowing your own horn,
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    you're too ambitious.
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    (dreamy music)
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    Listen to what's happening around you.
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    You become a little antenna
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    that is allowing everything to flow.
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    Some things pass and you grab
    the ones that are important.
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    (singing in foreign language)
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    Keeping all your doors open,
    that's what's important.
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    (dog barking)
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    (insects chirring)
Title:
Nicholas Hlobo: Drifting Free | Art21 "Extended Play”
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Extended Play" series
Duration:
04:47

English subtitles

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