UBUNTU19
It was into Matikwe that I first drove in the middle of April 2020, with a pick-up truck full of cabbages. This marked the beginning of something very peculiar. Of something incredibly beautiful. Of something that nearly broke me many times. This delivery of cabbages marked the beginning of Ubuntu Army. Ubuntu Army began as a truck of cabbages and a Facebook post about the delivery of those cabbages. A simple act that would have an incredible impact on my life, and on the lives of the many thousands who would join me.
The mandated social distancing that was enforced throughout South Africa, and around the globe, did not reach the townships or shanty towns of South Africa. The practice of social distancing did not reach Matikwe, a very poor township to the west of Durban. Poverty does not allow for the luxury of isolation. The danger of epidemic, apparent to the rest of South Africa, and the world, in these under-regulated, under-resourced areas, was likely to be high. As was the expected death toll. Very high.
But, it was hunger that reached the townships first, long before the first wave of Covid really took its toll.
Covid and the lockdowns affected us all. Differently. In my case, I felt compelled to act, to fight. Not due to my heroic virtue, but due to my inability to wait for danger to reveal itself. I am not patient. I don’t like the unknown. I don’t like waiting. I confront the unknown head-on. To get it out of the way. With what felt like war approaching, I charged towards the virus that had reached our shores. Deep into the unknown, deep into Matikwe, I charged, on that warm autumn day in 2020, to deliver cabbages to a community in need.
I spent weeks in Matikwe, but with hunger spreading rapidly across the country, I ventured past Matikwe, deeper into the unknown, deeper into the Inanda Valley. To see how bad it really was. An ethereal experience, I spent the next 6 months delivering food to thousands of starving Durbanites in the valley. As I began to create a foothold in the valley, forcing the hunger to retreat in certain areas, I was called into downtown Durban, into the notorious Point Road area to create food stability for 36 000 stranded and hungry African refugees.
The experience in Point Road is beyond explanation. A study in terror, control, violence, addiction, love, corruption, miracle, resignation, death, I was humbled and broken, repeatedly, by the dynamics of this misunderstood community. Working amongst the refugees on the Point, a close knit, deeply religious, and superstitious community, I became known as the Messiah of the Point, a mantle that was both tragic, and at times, very funny. A story for another day, In my six months on the Point, I managed to create food stability for that beautiful community, despite the corruption, the interference and the constant threat.
In that first year of lockdown, I fed over 200 000 Africans. During times of crisis we give. Unreservedly. Ubuntu.
From downtown Durban, we went national. With the help of social media savvy Ubuntu Army members, we created a digital platform that connected those able to help, with those needing help. Direct connection. “We are Ubuntu Army, please don’t send us your money. Keep it, and connect directly” read the welcome message on our home page. A team of moderators joined me to administer the platform, as did other men with trucks, all dedicated to delivering food to the hungry. It worked incredibly well. It was beautiful.
It was around this time, towards the end of 2020, that I returned to Los Angeles to mount the final assault on the Niemand Collection. With Ubuntu Army operating as an independent organisation, I felt that there was space available to complete what I had started. I spent the next 7 months in east LA, completing the build of the collection, directing the Ubuntu Army teams on the ground, and online, and writing about Ubuntu in an attempt to motivate and inspire continued support for our efforts in the townships around Durban. It was exhausting, and I returned to Durban in May 2021, in need of rest.
By mid-2021, hunger’s grip on South Africa’s vulnerable began to loosen, and peace began to return to Durban, and to my life. This was short lived. In July 2021, widespread rioting and looting, caused by the growing frustration and poverty, driven by the lockdowns, spread throughout Durban. A coup of sorts, the violence interrupted supply chains, destroyed businesses and claimed over 130000 jobs. A familiar desperation returned to Durban, and I once more drove into the unknown, with trucks of food for starving South Africans.
As the violence subsided, and that unnerving sense of peace returned to our lives, a devastating flood hit the Inanda Valley in April 2022. This was by far the greatest challenge we had faced. The scale of the devastation and the desperation was overwhelming at times, but with a team of Ubuntu Army members, dedication, and the strategic use of technology, Ubuntu Army met the desperation, head-on. We served the displaced and homeless, the traumatized and orphaned, for 10 months, and only left the valley in February 2023, once the last of the displaced had been shepherded to safety.
Now, four years after I delivered that first truck of cabbages to the crumbling community room in Matikwe, Ubuntu Army stands as a recognised, registered and most importantly, trusted social justice organization. Ubuntu Army stands amongst the most vulnerable people on the planet. We stand, on the ground, in the mud, with the people suffering. We do not look away. We hold, we hug, we chat, we love, and we try very hard to motivate others to do the same, to help carry the burden. We tackle the suffering, head on.
Ubuntu Army provides a door to the suffering, through which those on the other side of the poverty line are able to enter. In person. UA advocates for connection across the socio-political-economic divides around the world. UA advocates for individuals to reach across their fear, to meet the people on the other side of the street, the other side of the river, on the other side of the poverty line, on the other side of the political aisle, on the other side of the racial spectrum. In fighting hunger, Ubuntu Army established a platform that allowed hundreds of thousands of previously separated individuals to meet each other. I love this.
Ubuntu Army advocates for direct, in person connection. The connection, and not the resource exchanged, is the secret to fighting poverty. We have shown that connection is at the core of solving poverty. Not fighting poverty, but solving poverty. Connection is at the core of unity. At the core of policy. At the core of healing. Connection is at the core of solving most, if not all, of the problems we face on this planet. And. Our findings have been validated by academics, social scientists and activists across the planet. We have unlocked a secret to our future, and we are committed to sharing it.
Poverty is not a lack of resource, it is a lack of connection, a lack of community. With community we can solve the issues of food, water and shelter, but without it, we have only politics and charity left, and neither solve anything.
Within this context, I guess that it is no surprise that, as an artist from Durban, I have created a body of work that advocates for connection. My search and advocacy for connection is rooted, I believe, in the disconnection I suffered during childhood, due to the apartheid laws that existed in SA at the time, and due to the fact that I suffered a great deal of abandonment as a young child. These traumas have shaped my life. Have shaped my whole being. When apartheid and abandonment meet, and disconnection envelopes you, the search for connection becomes the ball game. The whole nine-yards. Everything.
In my search for connection, two pillars of equal strength rose from within me. In my art, I have designed and built a collection of work that celebrates connection, that advocates for togetherness. I built the Niemand Collection, as a tribute to my humanity. To our humanity. As a tribute to our capacity and agency. In Ubuntu Army, I created an opportunity for myself, and for thousands of others to connect with each other. To once more see each other, through the haze of division, anxiety and tribalism. To discover purposes and engagement. To heal ourselves and others, by allowing compassion to be the guide.
Art and the Army are intertwined. The two represent me, they represent who I am. The search for connection is me. It is my whole purpose. It has solidified me. And it’s simple. It involves me, and you. It involves us, the individuals, the ordinary everyday people, reaching out, past the awkwardness of introductions, past our insecurity, past our fears, past all the static, to meet each other. It’s so simple.
I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain my search for connection as I began the fabrication of the Niemand Collection, or as I drove those cabbages into Bhambayi. I understand this now. It took time for my pain, and for the pain of my community, to reveal this to me. This in itself is beautiful. I have navigated a lifetime of pain. I have navigated disconnection. Otherness. Aloneness. Anxiety. I have navigated townships, poverty and unimaginable human suffering. A long arc of self discovery. An incredible journey that led me home.
At Ubuntu Army we build connections by building Ubuntu Links. Building an Ubuntu Link is the single most important act of kindness we will take in our lives. It is an act of strategic empathy, of matching love and action. It is a simple, uncomplicated act. It is an act of compassion, an act of connection, an act of community. It is an act that destroys division, directly fights poverty, and heals pain. It is an act that will save us, our society, our country, our humanity, and ultimately, this creaking planet of ours. It is an act of revolution. It is an act that lies at the core of the Compassion Revolution.
In the Niemand Collection, I advocate for social proximity, for connection, for humanity. I have created objects that allow you to share a seat with a stranger. With an-other. With the-other. It’s that simple. Please touch the art. Please take a seat in the art. With a stranger. And chat. This adds value to each piece, as the oils from your skin and the lint from your clothes, as your humanity and imperfection polish the steel. Please touch the art.
A long, but necessary preamble to establish the context in which I built Ubuntu19.
In building Ubuntu19 I have blended the two pillars that rose from within me. I built Ubuntu19 during an isolated Los Angeles winter. Locked down during a lonely December and January of 20/21, I completed the build of U19. A design that in truth had been shaped by a decades long search for a salve to the disconnection, the arrival of U19, as a defeated virus, advocating for connection during a time of unprecedented isolation and separation, seemed poignant and perfect. The timing of U19 is perfect.
Ubuntu19 is a husk, the dried-skeleton of the defeated virus. A virus that caused so much pain, U19 is a monument to our agency, our ingenuity, and our resilience. In the face of incredible challenge. In the face of the unknown, we rose, each in our own way. U19 is a monument to our personal and collective capacity. It is a monument to every person who lived through the pandemic. It is a monument to their pain, to their growth, to their survival. It is a monument to their own Matikwe.
Ubuntu19 advocates for social proximity, for social cohesion. It is diametrically opposed to social isolation, Covid related or otherwise. U19 is a monument to all those brave enough to look beyond their fears to a future where suffering is challenged, unity considered and personal capacity celebrated. Challenged. Considered. Celebrated. U19 is a monument to our humanity. It is a monument to connection. It is a monument to love. Please take a seat. Please touch the art.
Ubuntu19 is heavy. It is built from heavy duty, high quality, high schedule carbon pipe. On the inside, where you sit, it is polished, smooth, velvet, shiny. On the outside, U19 is stark, impersonal, industrial. The inside is treated, and with use, will remain polished. The outside is untreated, and over time will oxidize, and will develop surface rust. This contrast is essential. Over time, with use, through connection, the inner surface of U19 will remain vibrant, alive, inviting. Over the same time, the outside will deteriorate. The legacy of the virus, the disconnection, the isolation, the pain, will deteriorate and slowly leave us. The legacy of the virus will rust, the disconnection will rust.
In the husk of this defeated virus, a virus that caused us all so much pain, I invite you to share a seat with the-other, with an-other, with the stranger, and introduce yourself. I invite you to reach past your fear, your difference, your judgment, your separation, mandated and otherwise, I invite you to reach past yourself, to meet the other from whom you have always been separated. In the husk of this defeated virus, I invite you to connect. I invite you to keep the seat warm and shiny, a ringside seat from which I invite you to watch the virus leave, to watch the isolation rust away.