Isaac Zavale: „I want people to know about where I’m from, what shapes me, what got me to make this kind of work. So the world can understand what it is about.“

Isaac Zavale “Jabu goes to Joburg”, 2023

The Mozambican artist, muralist and co-founder of Prints on paper studio Isaac Zavale currently lives and works in Berlin. Zavale presented earlier this year his work „Asithukanga“ at ung-5, Ebertplatz, Cologne and right now (as part of the current group show „Not afraid of Art“) at the ADKDW studio, Cologne.

Hi Isaac, I’m glad you’re taking the time to talk to us. I catch you in Berlin where you currently live. What brought you there?

Isaac Zavale: My wife and I decided to move there to raise our child.

You are originally from Mozambic in East Africa. As most Kaput readers have never been there, me included, maybe you can tell us a bit about your home country, the general socio-political situation and the local art scene.

Yes, I was born in Mozambique. Because both of my parents are Mozambicans. But my mom flew to South Africa in 1989, two years after I was born. So I grew up in South Africa. All of my hard drive, it’s kind of been programmed in South Africa, but, yeah, I am made in Mozambique.

Did you travel to Mozambique since then?

Yeah, I did travel there frequently. My parents wanted us to be in contact with the place we are from. Because sometimes it brings up an identity crisis when you never go back and experience your home country, it can distort you. So my parents were like, „it’s better to take you guys there“, maybe once a year.

How different does it feel for you compared to South Africa, where you were really raised? Is it significantly different?

In Mozambique? Yeah, there’s a huge contrast – like the movement of the people and the society, how people engage with each other is totally different.
South Africa feels like two worlds – the western world and the third world. But when I go to Mozambique, I get the sense of real Africa, you know, because everything is like fading and getting dull, the buildings and stuff. And the lack of white people and their lifestyle is not the same as in South Africa, where you see new cars and stuff all the time, you know, in Mozambique, for example, they don’t manufacture cars there. They buy cars from west world countries secondhand.
Yeah.

When you say the movement of the people and the society is different, you mean the hierarchy within the society, like that you can step up and and do different things in life and are not stuck in a certain box they put you in?

I’m saying, the movement of the people, like how the mind works.

Okay.

Isaac Zavale “Jabu goes to Joburg”, 2023

When I reflect about myself, sometimes I wonder how I would be if I had to grow up in Mozambique – what kind of vision of Isaac would I be? Maybe in Mozambique, I wouldn’t pursue art how I pursue art in South Africa. Because the opportunities for artists are slim there compared to South Africa.
To give you an idea, in South Africa I was skating when I was a teenager. When I went back to Mozambique over the years, it was hard to find people skating, it was a niche, something for people who’ve traveled around the world. Until maybe 2010, now you can see also a few skate parks in Mozambique, kids are skating there now. But in South Africa, skating started there in the 80s.

I get what you mean. I was also socialized closely with the skate scene in Stuttgart, the town I am from – even though I was a very bad skater, I mean you can´t even name it skating… Anyway, what I wanted to say: the skate scene was connected to the hardcore/punkrock music scene, it was part of the counter culture. So I get what you say, in some countries the idea of rebellion against the cultural mainstream started earlier than in others.

True. It felt the same to me when I came the first time to Cape Town in2013, I felt like I was in Europe.
I started to see the transitions of people from the townships and people from the city – as an artist you have to spend so much time in the city because how to make money in the townships with art? There is all about surviving. When you go to the disadvantaged communities, it becomes like a utopia, you know?

I have never been to Johannesburg, just to Cape Town, which was quite an experience as everybody told us not to walk through the city in the nighttime, not even downtown.
How did you experience living in Johannesburg?

My parents moved to South Africa during the apartheid time, you know, the transition of apartheid, it happened while I was there in South Africa. So I I saw the civil wars and all of those things. And I experienced the crime rates rising after the independency in 1994 (Isaac refers to the first general election on April 27, 1994, that lead to African National Congress party in power and installment of Nelson Mandela as first black president). The crime rate started to go high because most black people, they started to see the inequality – there are people who have money, while we don’t have money, white people, they have wealth, we don’t have wealth.

Isaac Zavale “Jabu goes to Joburg”, 2023

I hear what you say, being in Cape Town a few years ago really shocked me as segregation was still in full effect. It didn’t feel like an equal society to me. In the downtown restaurants all the customers were white and all the people working there were black.

True.

It felt the same to me when I came the first time to Cape Town in 2013, I felt like I was in Europe.

I feel like if I grew up in Cape Town, the work that I’m doing would be different. Because the beautiful part with Johannesburg – we understand there’s segregation and all of those things. In Cape Town, it feels hard to have those kinds of open conversations about it. You know, a white person and a black person talking about wealth and whatever. In Cape Town people still feel offended by that.
Jabu, the character in my work „Jabu goes to Joburg“, is getting robbed – this happens to him not cause he is black, white, black, we all experience this in Johannesburg.

When I go to Cape Town, I feel black. I feel black, especially when you talk about restaurants. Sometimes I get stopped, you know, like, „hey, don’t go in.“ Then I have to express myself in an aggressive way to the bouncer (who is black), you know, „yo, man, what are you doing? Are you becoming a puppet for the white people? Don’t judge me by how I look or whatever.“
I remember going to a restaurant with a white friend, that was 2020, before the pandemic. It became strange. Everyone looked at me. My white friend is in his 50s. So we went to this restaurant and we were sitting more than 15 minutes waiting for the waiters – they were serving other people, white people. Then I was laughing at him, like, „wow, you’re gonna suffer because you are with me.“ He had to voice it up, like, wave a hand, like, „hey, guys, we’re here.“
In Cape Town, it’s still like that, you know. And it’s very different compared to Johannesburg. In Johannesburg, when you’re in the restaurant, everyone is in the restaurant, you know. There you can meet black everywhere, even if you look trashy with your working clothes, as long as you have money to spend, it’s fine.

When an Asian friend of mine, who I met in Cape Town, visited me 2022 in Johannesburg, he was surprised when I told him that he is safe in the city. Like, „what do you mean?“ – Because they’re not used to Asian people, they won’t know how to approach you.
Anyway, the safe thing is to be on the bicycles, you know, because on the bicycles we move faster than walking. If you walk in Johannesburg, especially if you don’t know where you’re going, like looking around, you become a victim to be robbed. But when you walk with confidence and you know where you’re going, even if you don’t know where you’re going – this is also applying for a white person –, no one’s going to rob you.

Isaac Zavale “Jabu goes to Joburg”, 2023

One of the worst things I ever experienced in my life happened in San Diego in the 90s. I was traveling with a friend and we passed by a group of black kids in downtown. And as just said, I walked by them looking down, doing my thing, but he stupidly approached them, talked to them, like trying to be friendly but somehow giving them the impression of a white person wanna show kindness to black people – so they beat him up in front of me. Two put me aside and even said, „this has nothing to do with you.“
Everything went so fast, like maybe 20 seconds, but no one touched me. It was so brutal and I needed to take him to the hospital afterwards. But there was nothing I could do.

Yeah. It’s the same as with stray dogs, you know. When you walk by stray dogs and look at them maybe because you’re scared or whatever, they will read your energy. And then they will try to intimidate you. It’s kind of like that, you know?
So my Asian friend was like, „Isaac, in Johannesburg, you use all your animal senses! When I’m in Europe, I forget about my animal senses.“ So true. Because when I’m in Johannesburg, I have to have like animal senses. There are predators, so to become safe I must play around the predators, I must tease them, you know. I must know where I’m going to drink water or to get my food, you know, then I will survive because it’s more like a jungle. You have to use certain surviving skills as a human, animal surviving skills. This applies to everyone, even our president. Because in South Africa, you’re not safe, even if you have like security and all of that, you’re still not safe. That’s why most people in Johannesburg drive in cars. And when you’re in the intersection, you close your windows and put the aircon in the car on, because you don’t want to open the windows. Sometimes even if you’re in your car, you’re still not safe because someone can break your window and take your bag in your car, so you better always put it underneath the seat, so they don’t see anything.

Isaac, now I totally get the context of emergence of your work series “Asithukanga” that is currently on show at ADKDW as part of the group show „Not afraid of Art“.

Asithukanga means „we are not scared“.

The picture series ends with a happy ending. Your protagonist is attacked – but then one person helps him. Would you say that you are a positive, even optimistic person?

I try to be polite. You know, xenophobia is big in South Africa. So for me as a Mozambican artist, as an outsider, who like all the other people from neighboring countries like Nigeria, Mozambic, or Zimbabwe who come to Johannesburg to seek for a better life. we all get bullied, and sometimes attacked. South Africans are very frustrated. So with my work, especially, I like to break that barrier, you know, I try to bring harmony. So that’s why my character Jabu gets robbed by South Africans – and in the end, he got help from the Nigerian guy. Because these other persons in the street can understand your situation and empathize with you.
By giving the story this beautiful ending, I try to bring people together. Because in Johannesburg, sometimes what happens, when you get robbed, people will stare at you, look at you, not say a word.
It’s not like before, when like in the 90s or early 2000s, when you’ got robbed, there was a word to say, even as a white person, and then the robber would run away: „Vimba“ (the isiZulu word means „stop“).
That word, it will get you safe, actually. You’ll retrieve your phone, because a person who’s running is getting all the attention on him – – because in Johannesburg, you are not allowed to run.
So yeah, with the work I wanted to create harmony. My protagonist is from the township and he is experiencing the hard city life, the misery. But within the misery, he just gets someone who saves him.

Is your art about giving people positive signals along the way? And not to create a nihilistic present and future scenario?

Yeah, this is my approach.

Isaac, how did moving to Berlin feel for your family and you in the first place?

It did take a long time to climatize – even now. Dealing with the society, and the people is not easy in Germany. The people here are not like the people I know in South Africa. And on top there is the challenge with the language.
The people here are like islands. they keep their own space to themselves. It’s not like they are open, especially in the bigger cities. In South Africa, being for example in public transport, you’re starting to talk, like, “where are you from?“ You know, there’s a conversation, even if it’s not something important.
In South Africa, they teach us when we are kids, you have to greet people you meet, especially when you see old persons, even if you don’t know them you should try to make eye contact and greet. These rules bring people together. If something happens, like you faint or you got an epileptic attack, people will help you.
But here there is no contact and no one wanna help you.

I hear you, people here are avoiding eye contact. Especially Berlin is a cold environment, people are not really helpful in the city. They rather do not wanna see things happening.

Yeah. It can be a brutal city.
They even normalize the depression, you know. Compared to where I come from – there depression is not normalized. Like, „don’t tell us about depression – there’s people who are struggling more than you!“ You know, we deal with crime, we deal with poverty – and then you come with a lame excuse and all these things that you have to worry about.

In your work, you deal with the role of public space for social structures. What does your research process look like for this? Is your perspective primarily based on your own observations or do you also explicitly read urban sociological works or literary explorations of the topic?

I do like research, but it’s more like me observing, you know, observing and dealing with the space. I try to become a part of the environment, engage with the space and the people, look at every small detail, like even the floor, the cigarette butt, or the chewing gum that stucks on the floor, or the pothole, or the broken traffic light, all of those things. I take a lot of photos during this process.
You know, my work talks about informal trading. So those guys who are robbing Jabu, they’re also doing informal trading – which is crime. Because this is the way to make money for them.

The current group show at ADKDW, in which five of your works are shown, is part of a three year program entitled „Not Afraid of Art“.
What do you connect with this title?

“Asithukanga” means „I am not scared“. So I can connect well with the title.
I realized in 1992 that I can draw and whatever. But I didn’t know how to start a career until 2010. When I went back then to the printmaking school – because I was originally a printer before I started to paint –, they asked me a very important question: „Why are you doing art?“
I was like, I want to understand art, I can draw, but I want to understand art. And then me and my friends, we started to break through it and try to find a way where we don’t have to deal with galleries, we do things in our own way, because we have the skills, we can share the skills with other people. The question was, how do we make this our career, how do we satisfy our souls without a downfall?

That’s where for me that statement comes in: I’m not afraid of art. Sometimes you have to believe in yourself. To be afraid to express what you have to do —- it’s more like you are shy to deal with the society.

I’m not afraid of art means to me, I’m not afraid to express what I want to express to the public. And I have to express the good message, I want people to know about where I’m from, what shapes me, what got me to make this kind of work. So the world can understand what it is about.

And also: I wanna speak for especially – black informal artists, like sign writers and people who didn’t go to school. I want them to be acknowledged as artists, you know, because it is art.

Because when you take it to the Western world, it’s called pop art. But when we do it here in Africa, it still doesn’t have any title. Sometimes they will take it to the museums, and they will say unknown artist, unknown, yeah, you know. It’s made by someone, maybe they didn’t put so much effort to do a research, but if it was made in the Western world, they would know who it was.
So with my work, I’m trying to build that bridge.

You just mentioned it, you used to work as a muralist and sign painter. How do you classify these activities in relation to your work in the art context? Is there a hierarchy for you? Not really, right?

My friend and artist colleague Minenkulu Ngoyi and me, we started 2010 a collective together named “Alphabet Zoo” and publish a street culture zine with the same name. The basic idea was to share our skills, because we come from like a disadvantaged country. And we didn’t want to become like super selfish with our skill. Because in South Africa, there’s so many black kids who don’t have like skills or who don’t have access into certain things. So we organized workshops for like printmaking, creating zines together.
As you mention the murals, yes, I started to make murals in high school. I was doing graffiti, but I didn’t like the ego side of graffiti, so my drifting into street art by doing murals, I allow the public to share my work. And art in the public, it brings harmony to the world and sometimes it can inspire another kid who used to see these things.

Isaac Zavale: Asithukanga, 2024, Foto: ungefähr 5

In addition to your works that are currently on display in the exhibition space of the Akademie der Künste der Welt in Herwarthstrasse, your group of works “Asithukanga” was also shown in the showcases of the UNG-5 at Ebertplatz subway station until the beginning of September.
Was that your first „official“ work in a public space?

I really liked the idea of showing my work at Ebertplatz. Because normally my work is like 2D, but there I was trying to break it into 3D.

To what extent have you dealt with the history of Ebertplatz, which was called Adolf Hitler Platz during the Third Reich and where, unfortunately, there were two fatal clashes, two black people died there?

I did not know that. I mean, I remember the first time when I went there, I saw so many dealers. And the other time I was roaming around there, another kid came to me like, “hey, where can I find weed?”
Then I understood, “ah, shit, I’m in the nest.“
My work there made suddenly more sense because when I saw the space first, I wanted to send a message to the people to include the people who are there. First it felt like I was going to be commissioned, you know, like working on a briefing, executing the brief and deliver the work. But I wanted to share a certain sense of where these African guys you see come from. And also, the Black people who are there, they can reminisce about home easily. Like, “ah, this reminds me of home,” you know? So it’s more like sharing the space to both sides, with the white people and the guys who are there. So they can get to understand how other African spaces look like, or what this trading spaces – how we call those places – look like. And also commemorating the message to the dealers. To make them feel like, “ah, we are also being presented here.“

With my work, I leave it to an observer to discover certain things at some point, not like immediately. Because my work is too busy. But if you understand my artistic statement, what I’m talking about, then you will start to see those elements.

Isaac Zavale: Asithukanga, 2024, Foto: ungefähr 5

That’s kind of true for life in general. Like people are way too fast in making their opinions and having their perspectives. Like people coming to Ebertplatz and thinking they understand right on what’s going on. But that’s not true. There’s so much more to experience, because there’s all these stories of all these people. Their lifelines, their biographies. Life is not just like a still picture. It’s a moving picture.

Maybe a weird question: Has there been a specific artwork or a group of works by an artist that triggered a feeling that could be read as fear?

Yes. This work by Jane Alexandra, a South African sculptor, a white woman. The title of the work is „Butcher Boys“. I’m scared of it. It’s one of those works, you look at it in museum – it is on the collection of iziko museums of South Africa in Cape Town – and then the lights switch off and you maybe faint. It’s very powerful. It’s a sculpture of zombies. Her work is kind of dark.

Maybe a weird question: Has there been a specific artwork or a group of works by an artist that triggered a feeling that could be read as fear?

Yes. This work by Jane Alexandra, a South African sculptor, a white woman. The title of the work is „Butcher Boys“. I’m scared of it. It’s one of those works, you look at it in museum – it is on the collection of iziko museums of South Africa in Cape Town – and then the lights switch off and you maybe faint. It’s very powerful. It’s a sculpture of zombies. Her work is kind of dark.

Isaac, as we talked before about your past as a printer and muralists, since when can you live from art?

Since 2010, when I was in printing school. That year the World Cup happened in South Africa. We had to make prints, like linoleum prints – and suddenly they bought my prints, for maybe like 200 rands, which is quite equivalent to 10 euros. I was so happy.
I was like, „wow, I can make money out of this“. Because I used to make paintings, drawings, all of those things long before I took art serious. Sometimes I’ll give it to a friend, you know, I wouldn’t value it until that time. That’s when I started to value my work.

Do you perceive that as pressure?

No, I didn’t feel the pressure. I felt like it gave me the strength to produce. Someone acknowledged me as an artist. I had to value it because someone else valued it more than me.

Isaac, thank you so much for this conversation.

ADKDW Studio / Isaac Zavale: Jabu goes to Joburg, 2023, Foto: K. Illner