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Since 2020, “The Family in the Sun” artwork by Siphiwe Ngwenya has been on display in the Meierhof Lobby of Schloss Leopoldskron. Ngwenya attended the Cultural Innovators Forum in 2015 as a Fellow and in 2019 as a Facilitator.
The residency and exhibition of the artwork is part of an ongoing curation project aimed at ensuring that the richness and diversity of Salzburg Global's programs and Fellows are manifested at Schloss Leopoldskron.
For three weeks in June and July 2022, Ngwenya undertook an artist residency at Schloss Leopoldskron bringing his artwork to life for guests, board members, and staff. He reflects on the experience below:
"I experienced an unparalleled journey."
I started preparing for my exhibition 20 years ago, not knowing the outcome. I did this because I wanted to create a body of work that celebrates my talent without the constrictions of time. I also did not want to do a hit and run, meaning I did not want to do artwork that didn’t work. Artwork that did not have an economic and spiritual meaning to the communities where the artwork gets made. Keeping this in mind, I produced a single artwork over a period of 10 years. I recorded music with some of the most creative musicians. I explored Antarctica on an arts science expedition. I turned homes in townships into art galleries. I experienced an unparalleled journey.
When launching separate elements of the exhibition, I realized that this was going to be another journey of its own. All my multimedia content produced from this process was going to become another entrance into an exciting portal when published. The artwork that I created for a period of 10 years, for instance, found a home in Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria, and was presented during Salzburg Global Seminar's 75th anniversary. The artwork is the overarching piece of the whole Townships into Towns hybrid exhibition. This exhibition is meant to chart the way for the first arts residency at Schloss Leopoldskron. I was the resident artist. This is a part of my story.
Arriving in Salzburg for the third time, I was clear that I didn’t want to experience it as a Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar, nor as a facilitator, but as an entry level resident with nothing to fear. Before I delve into that, there is a side note that I would like to offer. My life is filled with synchronicities that I cannot explain. Synchronicities that prove to me that I am in the right path, making my journey interesting and actually quite miraculous.
As I arrived, I was greeted ceremonially by Daniel, as he does to many, in his Austrian Lederhose. As I waited for my room, he introduced me to Richard Schabetsberger, a photographer working together with Salzburg Global Seminar, and by himself an excellent Leica photographer. Our story progresses during my stay to eventually symbolize an authentic synchronicity that showed me that Salzburg still has more to offer. Richard and I would later conduct a photography collaboration.
The Schloss was alive with guests from all over the world. Some, like Adam de Sola Pool, are now well beyond their 50s, but the first time they arrived at Schloss Leopoldskron, was when they were 10 years of age. I met with people who understood a profound history of the place and of the Salzburg Global Seminar program. I was honored to have guests like these as people I could share my story, exhibition and artwork with, even beyond my stay in Salzburg.
The crux of my residency was connecting with universities, institutions and individuals in the arts and travel market. The reason for this is that I wanted to create a mental map of the landscape, join the dots and create a long-lasting international program.
I first met with Patrick Schaudy, head of the arts department at the Mozarteum University. When I met him, I gave him an invite to an exhibition of a friend of mine, Angelika Wienerroither. He looked at the invite and said, “This is my office!”. I didn’t get it at first but when we arrived at his office, I saw that the venue of the exhibition was next door to Patrick’s office. Immediately after our meeting, we stepped right into my friend’s exhibition and marveled at the small world we all occupy.
As part of my exhibition, I also have a musical product, made up of music and dialogues about the history of South African Hip Hop. The best place to launch this was the head of the Red Bull offices in Fuschl am See, because of its history in music and presence in South Africa. As part of the launch of the virtual exhibition, I included prominent South African hip hop artists to tell stories of special segments of the South African Hip Hop history. As part of this dialogue, my intention was to highlight the successes, challenges and future solutions of music preservation, such as hip hop, within the developing communities of South Africa. This by itself proved to be a successful endeavor as we learned how and why to turn “Townships into Towns”.
It has been a well-known fact in South Africa that organizations need to do better than the PR they serve to the outside world. This fact has been the single driving motivator to many organizations that I engage with. My vision is and has been to see how large corporations can go beyond their stated mandate to turn and be a part of the journey of turning Townships into sustainable Towns.
"Seeing how communities can transform into shining examples of success is a little bit of magic that is unparalleled."
Destination development of emerging communities around the world has been a primary pillar in my exhibition. Seeing how communities can transform into shining examples of success is a little bit of magic that is unparalleled. Using tourism and the arts has been a recipe that has led me to public participation and mediation, all the way to an international award-winning destination development program. To develop a destination, people need to know that they are part of full and inviting ecosystems that have their best interests at heart. It is in this philosophy of belonging that I created emancipation mapping workshops to guide people into legitimately getting a perspective of belonging in culturally testing environments.
The Townships into Towns exhibition features the emancipation mapping workshops and I was honored to host one for a group of Salzburg Global staff. It is impressing and revealing how knowing one’s perspective of a place can unravel the foundations to be laid bare to its visitors and inhabitants. It, in its own way, is a healer to participants or people who yearn for a feeling of belonging.
As I returned home, I thought deeply about my residence that I had just experienced. I saw a 360-degree swerve in my life and career. I wondered how possible it was that I could have returned to the beginning of a passion in my life through an exhibition that I really didn’t see possibly happening. With this, I knew that I really wanted to be a destination developer, aiming at the zenith goal of the principle of transforming communities.
After my residency, I exhibited my own artworks in my gallery homes in Johannesburg for the very first time after opening nearly 100 gallery homes for many artists in South Africa except for myself. This was part of my exhibition. Through the South African government, I was able to employ 150 people in Alexandra Township, the neighborhood I was born in, to be part of the Town and Township arts and travel supplier development program.
"Is this not a small world? Is it not great synchronicity? To be able to find family and home far from home."
COVID-19 played a significant part in curbing down our activities. Our gallery homes had no tours. This was a frustration to all the many community members in our value chain. When the exhibition happened in the township after my return from Salzburg, we opened the gallery homes in Alexandra Township for tours. To my surprise, the first visitors were guests from connections of the Salzburg Global 75th Anniversary celebrations.
A small world indeed, small enough to connect Fellows to travelers and travelers to Fellows! In staying with the small world, one more thing happened. Remember Richard that I mentioned at the beginning? Well, a day before I left Salzburg, Richard invited me for supper at his home. After about an hour, I realized that in the background, a framed photo looked familiar. I asked if it was Cape Town and he said yes. I looked closer at the picture and lo and behold, it was from Mpande, a friend of mine.
Is this not a small world? Is it not great synchronicity? To be able to find family and home far from home. The residency proved that I have still much to do in connecting Fellows and transforming neighborhoods, not only in my country but around the world too. The work that we have done with Salzburg Global Seminar, kick-starting the research in the destination development of neighborhoods across different places in America is finally finding its legs. My residency cemented my passion in this great work that will see Townships turned into Towns around the world through culture, the arts, travel and a great group of visitors.
The Townships Into Towns exhibition video can be seen here.