“Struggling for Equality”
The Creative Change Laboratory | Cape Town, South Africa
The Creative Change Laboratory’s Story
THE CREATIVE CHANGE LABORATORY (CCOLAB) WAS CONCEIVED AS AN IMMERSIVE LEARNING SPACE IN WHICH YOUNG PEOPLE COULD EXPERIMENT WITH UNCONVENTIONAL SOLUTIONS TOPROBLEMS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES. UNLIKE MOST ARTS-BASED PROJECTS, CCOLAB WAS DESIGNED AS A LONG-TERM INTERVENTION, ONE THAT WOULD INTRODUCE PARTICIPANTS TO DIVERSE CREATIVE MODES AND ALLOW THEM TO DEVELOP AND TEST ORIGINAL PROTOTYPES.
CCoLAB’s genesis can be traced back to the Creative Resistance toolkit – authored by the CCoLAB facilitators – itself a product of many years of arts-based activism across southern Africa. While the workshops that inspired Creative Resistance had been successful in many ways, their potential to catalyse social change was constrained by multiple factors (limited resources, capacity, time and so on). This led the facilitators to wonder what could be achieved with a bigger budget and an extended period of engagement. How might young people think differently about change if they had more time to be creative? Would the ideas and products that emerge be different if a workshop wasn’t focused on a specific issue? What if participants were free to experiment with multiple art practices? And so the CCoLAB seed was planted …
In many ways, CCoLAB was conceived as an experiment. Its overall objective was to test different ways of using art to support processes of learning, thinking and doing. Unlike previous projects, CCoLAB would expose participants to multiple ways of analysing and responding to our positions in the world.
Turning the CCoLAB dream into reality wasn’t easy. First, there was the task of finding a cohort of young people willing and able to participate. Then there was the practical side of things: we had to source materials, find venues, organise catering, arrange transport and so on. From a logistical point of view, it was near impossible to find a venue that could accommodate twenty people for six months – especially when paint, glitter and scissors were involved! There was also the challenge of developing an appropriate pedagogical framework and a coherent workshop schedule – a process that took many, many months. Finally, there was the problem of training and expertise: some of the proposed art practices required specialised skills and so guest facilitators had to be identified.
Drawing on theories of popular education, especially those developed by Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, the final CCoLAB methodology prioritised collective and experiential modes of learning that were grounded in lived experiences. The sessions were divided in three distinct yet related learning blocks – Co-think, Co-create and Co-curate – each of which had specific objectives (see individual panels for further details). Organising the project in this way demanded a lot of the collaborators, most of whom were still at school, but it also brought many benefits, including an opportunity to form close bonds and to practise new skills outside of the formal workshop.
The zine displayed here are only a taste of what emerged from CCoLAB. This is because some prototypes do not lend themselves to book format, or because collaborators decided to launch their creative work in a specific space and/or community. It is impossible to do justice to the energy, passion and dedication of the collaborators, or to capture the dynamic processes of learning, thinking and doing that occurred. As expected, some aspects of the CCoLAB experiment worked and others did not – something that is also difficult to represent in one creative produce – but all had value and helped inspire the products showcased here.
BIO
Gabriel Hoosain Khan (they/them), Office For Inclusivity And Change, University Of Cape Town, South Africa
New solutions are needed, in a world defined by persistent problems. Gabriel specializes in developing creative interventions (using art, drama and creative writing) to facilitate dialogues, conduct participatory research, build leadership skills, and develop strategic responses to inequality. Gabriel has experience in managing and implementing both national and regional social justice projects in southern Africa.
Gabriel last worked at the University of Cape Town, where they piloted the innovative Creative Change Laboratory. As the stream leader for inclusivity capacity, Gabriel worked to ensure gender and racial transformation, inclusion and diversity within teaching, learning and research spaces.
Prior to this Gabriel worked as a regional gender advisor at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Gabriel worked to ensure that humanitarian and development actions responding to conflict and crisis in southern Africa were gender transformative.