Mpilo Ngcukana describes himself as “a social capitalist, finding ways to develop the circular economy”. From many an entrepreneur, this might just sound like a jargon-laden pitch. But Ngcukana speaks with authority and insight, with passion and conviction; he has the chops, he has a track record, and he has a vision.
We’re sitting in the courtyard between an art gallery and an urban farm, on the site of what will soon become a sculpture garden and a restaurant. Oh, and we’re in Langa, Cape Town, which — despite Helen Zille’s claim that “to be poor in Langa is probably a thousand times better than to be poor in townships elsewhere in the country” — is not a place South Africans associate with opportunity or success.
Ngcukana is co-founder — with his brother Khanyo, Shaun Williams and Thulani Fesi — of 16 on Lerotholi, a commercial art gallery at the centre of a network of businesses and community projects. They are gallerists with a purpose, using art to drive social and economic upliftment. It starts with the building itself, designed partly as an attraction for visitors to Langa but primarily as an accessible, nonexclusive space for residents of the township.
On any given day, the gallery meets both criteria. Handfuls of tourists arrive throughout the morning, order a coffee and learn about the artists exhibited (they also purchase works — often enough to keep 16 on Lerotholi a going concern). Pupils pop in on their way back from school. Curious passers-by press their faces to the windows or hover at the entrance, stepping aside to allow a farmer to pass by with saplings and seeds in hand.
“There is a calmness that comes with being in the space,” says Ngcukana. “Looking at art makes you contemplative. You think about things differently. And we want to shift the perceptions and expectations of people who live in Langa, as well as disrupt external preconceptions of what township life is like.”
Ngcukana and Fesi are deeply proud of Langa and can rattle off the names of famous South Africans it has produced. But Ngcukana also describes a paradox: the township is not “where black people belong” — this was precisely the segregationist logic of apartheid — but it is nonetheless “a place we’ve made home”. Why, then, is it assumed that townships such as Langa should simply reproduce conditions of poverty and insecurity? And what can be done to change the narrative?
“There are so many skills, so many talented people here,” Ngcukana affirms, “but those skills and talents get exported out of the community; a kind of brain-drain. Chefs. Sportspeople. They leave Langa every day to practise their profession elsewhere. The same with art. So how do we keep it within the community?”
16 on Lerotholi is a mechanism for doing just that. The gallery’s previous exhibition, Natural Habitat, played on the idea of “belonging”: if artists come from the township and their work represents aspects of township life, why shouldn’t this be exhibited in the township? Fesi and Ngcukana are not, however, bound by the logic of ghettoisation. Their partnership with the Everard Read Gallery, for example, gives them access to a global art market.
“We don’t shy away from the business side, the way most social art projects tend to do,” Ngcukana explains. “This can, ironically, lead to the exploitation of black artists. Instead, we want to encourage aspiring artists and creative practitioners, to show them that they can make a career in the arts.” And they want to play the art-as-gentrification game according to their own rules, “to show our community that these few square metres in Langa can generate significant revenue”.
The neighbouring Lerotholi Food Garden, which is leased from the SA Red Cross Society, takes up half an acre — but it, too, has already had a significant economic impact. The SA Urban Food & Farming Trust and the Masakhe Foundation have built a network of more than 30 urban farms, helping Langa farmers to reduce their input costs by 80%.
From harvest days to exhibition openings, the Lerotholi precinct is a truly inspiring and generative arts-and-agriculture hub. If you want to see social capitalism and the circular economy in action, I’d highly recommend a visit.
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