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Iranti-Org, creating meaningful space for Queer Activism. Iranti-Org is a queer human rights visual media organization based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Iranti-Org works within a human rights framework as its foundational platform for raising issues on Gender, Identities and Sexuality. Read more about Iranti-Org.

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Website launch July 2012
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			Art and Activism ‘I STAND CORRECTED’: TRACING A SOUTH AFRICAN QUEER THEATRE reviewed by Selogadi Mampane A new collaborative theatre work by Mojisola Adebayo and Mamela Nyamza, 'I STAND CORRECTED' (2013), based on a true story, has been making mouths flutter and headlines buzz as it makes its way around Johannesburg, Cape Town and England. The play recounts the events surrounding the marriage of a queer, cross-continental, interracial couple and details their fight for the right to love each other as equal citizens of our democracy. Read more... 'Gone @ 20 – the lucky ones are not yet born!' by Zethu Matebeni Famous people die in their twenties. Many would remember the American Rhythm &Blues (R&B) singer, Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash. She was 22 at the time of her death. Controversial supermodel Gia died at the age of 26. Some still don’t believe that Tupac Shakur is dead. He was 25 when they gunned him down. The legendary Amy Winehouse died at 27. It is believed that she wanted to join the likes of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other musicians who died at the same age. They are now immortal members of the infamous “Club 27”. Read more... Alf Kumalo museum struggles financialy Volunteers at the acclaimed photographer’s museum have sold its darkroom equipment in a bid to keep it afloat. The 82-year old has been forced to rely on the contribution of unpaid volunteers, after the National Arts Council turned down his request for funding. Read more... 2012 Wits Poetry Festival Tsegofatso, moderator and Jennifer-noxolo Musangi reading her poetry at the Lucky Bean, Mellville at the Wits Poetry Festival. The Child that Died by Jennifer-noxolo Musangi The child that died In the shanty-towns of the cordoned heart No longer lifts her fist against her mother For they no longer shout Africa! Shouting the breath Of freedom and the veld The child that died In the streets of her slain pride Cannot lift her fist against her father In the march of generations That no longer shout Africa! Shouting the breath Of righteousness and blood For the child is dead In Nyanga, Mokopane, Soweto, Soeding A child dies again and again The child stays alive To her pain and agony Everyday The child that died Lies in her mother’s house cold With a bullet through her chest A braai fork through her neck Lifeless in her mother’s lap The child that died Forbids us from calling her name For how shall we mention her name In the midst of her mother’s screams And the government’s silence? The child that died No longer peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers For they strike her over, over and over again In her death they have been killing her This child who just longed to play in the sun at Nyanga The little girl who just wanted to love girls in Limpopo The boy who, in Kuruman, just desired to be with boys The child dead before a giant journeys over the whole world That child is nowhere And we die with this child We are dead to this child Everyday How shall we call your name child of our mother? And speak of love amidst hate crimes? The child is dead To herself To us Carrying no hate Source: Adapted from The Child that Died at Nyanga by Ingrid Jonker Human Rights booklet by UN Human Rights Office September 2012. The UN Human Rights Office has released a new publication on sexual orientation and gender identity in international human rights law. It sets out the source and scope of some of the core legal obligations that States have to protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. The 60-page booklet is designed as a tool for States, to help them better understand the nature of their obligations and the steps required to meet them, as well as for civil society activists, human rights defenders and others seeking to hold Governments to account for breaches of international human rights law. Read more about the project online... AND... Download a pdf entitled 'Born Free and Equal - Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Human Rights Law' Media Training for Young LGBTI Activists 26 September 2012 from 11h00-15h00. Iranti-Org, has been in collaboration with media activist, award-winning Nigerian writer, women’s rights activist, new media consultant, and philanthropist, Spectra. She is the voice behind the afrofeminist media blog, Spectra Speaks (www.spectraspeaks.com), which publishes news, opinions, and personal stories about gender, media, and diversity in Africa and the Diaspora. If you are interested please write to Iranti-Org intern, Nqobile Zungu (intern@iranti-org.co.za), who is putting this workshop together. Discover more about Spectra ~ Ero(rrism) September 2012. In the past months of 2012 Iranti-Org has documented and covered the deaths of LGBTI persons in South Africa. The entire LGBTI community was deeply shocked and remain pained and traumatized by the heightened and targeted attacks on our communities. However, we will not be silent and we will not retire to the closets of victimhood. South Africa in one of the most violent countries in the world, the recent murders of the 44 mineworkers at Marikana, the ongoing rapes and murders of women and the 12 murders of LGBTI persons over the past three months point to a country that is in deep crisis. The State is in violation of the constitution by not protecting its citizens. Trauma is political and we will not pathologize our pain. Rather, we use all avenues to express our frustration and anger. Ero(rrism) was born from this anger. In a private space, a group of friends, feminists, queer and transgender activists expressed our anger and outrage. We decided to take our private outrage and make it public. This art project was born from the platform of our trauma. We will remain, sex-positive and assertive that we have the right to exist. Click here to view the video art project. ReFiguring Women 2012 August and November 2012. Gender and the Visual Arts Workshop ~ ReFiguring Women website. Iranti-Org in partnership with the Goethe-Institut and the Johannesburg Art Gallery will host the 2nd gender and visual arts workshop. The theme for this coming workshops is titled, “Refiguring Women”. The word ‘figure’ unfolds multiple meanings – as a verb, to appear, be mentioned, be a symbol of, imagine, pattern, calculate, understand, determine, consider – all remultiplied by the word’s hospitality to prefixes. Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, and Graeme Reid, Refiguring Archive, 2002 TIME: All workshops start at 18h30 WORKSHOP DATES: Wednesday. 1 August 2012: A Question on Women and Power Wednesday, 8 August 2012: Locating the Body Wednesday, 15 August 2012: The Queer Subject beyond Gender and Sexuality Wednesday, 22 August 2012: Tensions between the documentary and the activist dimension in the work of art VENUE: Parking Gallery, 5th floor, 289 Fox Street, Johannesburg FOR MORE INFO: refigurewomen@gmail.com Read more about ReFiguring Women 2012. Queerness, Identity and Sexuality within the Arts 15 August 2012. The expansive definition of the subversive has reached beyond certain hetero-feminist definitions and has had to include other practices of subversion such as defined by Munoz as “Disidentifications”. These disidentifications expand beyond the traditional definitions of man and woman, male and female, but rather to disassociate from the labels. This disassociation affords all artists the space to exist within this art system, in order to challenge and critique these gender constructs. In fact more spaces ought to be created for what ordinarily could be understood as “lower ranked, frivolous” arts practices, to continue challenging traditional notions of what art is. Visual artists thus play an important role in bringing such issues to the fore. Their continued critique of gender binaries effectively draws on issues of inequalities and power constructions. This scope therefore allows for space to discuss issues of identities such as race, sex, geo-politics, culture, sexuality and class through the medium of the visual arts. Presenters Stanimir Stoykov, a Bulgarian born, Joburg-based queer film maker. His/Her film (Snakes) starring Carl Beukes, Robert Whitehead, Brian Webber, David Pretorius and Yolande Sinder. Music by David Driver. Snakes is a queer comedy about a lesbian TV evangelist and criminal Sheila Brown. Things go wrong during a live broadcast when her long lost son unexpectedly appears, demanding money for gender re assignment surgery. Dr Antje Schuhmann is Senior Lecturer of Politics. Her work draws from Critical Race Theory and Whiteness Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Masculinity Studies, the Study of Sexualities, and Feminist Theory and Practice. Her main fields of interest include the intersection of power with various body politics, and the historical roots and today’s legacies of systems of violence and domination. Antje’s research focuses on how the interconnectivity of gender, race, sexuality, and class manifest themselves in everyday experiences and politics of representation. Antje is active in international feminist, anti-racist networks, has produced film and audio features, published in various journals and newspapers, and is the co-editor of Blackness and Sexualities (2007, LIT Verlag). Currently, she is writing a book on imperial feminism and the racialized gendering of nation building. She will use the work of several artists as illustration for possible interventions into normative understandings of sex and gender, and gender roles, biological essentialism, the myth of difference, and discuss the possibilities of queerness as a challenge to the notion of a two-sex system. To undermine this system are can be subversive to heteronormative and homonormative understandings of sexuality and identity and open up new spaces for social change. Gabriel Khan from Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action will present on the history of LGBTI issues in SA and specifically the important role played by the archives. GALA was part of two exhibitions, namely Tracks and Home Affairs. Jabu Pereira will moderate the panel.		On this page Selogadi Mampane reviews I Stand Corrected Zethu Matebeni contributes 'Gone @ 20' from her blog Alf Kumalo Museum 2012 Wits Poetry Festival in Mellville Human Rights booklet Media Training for Young LGBTI Activists with Spectra Ero(rrism) ReFiguring Women 2012 Seminar: Queerness, Identity and Sexuality within the Arts Highlights Training young LGBTI activists with Spectra Speaks. Read more.