Festival to bring creative accessibility in rural Mpumalanga ahead of Human Right’s Day

In a little over a week South Africa will celebrate Human Rights Day and one of the most neglected rights, is that of equality.

People residing in rural areas tend to be denied access to a myriad of opportunities, juxtaposed to their counterparts in urban areas.

When it comes to the arts, there’s more access to creative and artistic development opportunities in the country’s biggest metros than you’d come across in some of Mzansi’s remote areas.

Being Human Rights month, the My Body My Space ( MBMS) Public Arts Festival has made time for Mpumalanga’s creative communities, and not big cities such as Mbombela (formerly Nelspruit), Witbank and Mkhondo (former known as Piet Retief) but in the province’s crevices where most don’t usually tred.

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Accessibility

My Body My Space: Public Arts Festival is a large-scale international festival of public performances, exhibitions and cultural events, curated by The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC).

From its initial inception in 2015, the festival has continued to grow from year to year by developing a unique rural identity deeply entrenched in the Emakhazeni Communities and bringing people to the art and communities rather than following urban conventions.

Festival founder PJ Sabbagha said FATC moved to Mpumalanga after realising the need for artistic opportunity in the province.

“We live and work here, we intentionally moved here to make art more accessible to the marginalised,” he told The Citizen.

The organisation was previously based in Wattville, Benoni. MBMS is a festival focused on public performances, exhibitions and cultural events.

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Social impact

The MBMS festival focuses on social cohesion in an area that still lacks in socio-political and socio-economic integration bringing the diverse rural citizenry of Emakhazeni together by perforating and disrupting the familiar ways in which people traverse shared social spaces.

“We are profoundly excited to see this incredible festival and its unique voice continue into its 9th year as we work to inspire and engage audiences bringing a diverse range of rural artists and South African artists at large to work across disciplines.”

The festival kicked-off on Monday and will run until the weekend. “The first few days are focused in school and community centres,” said Sabbagha.

The founder said he has seen continuous growth throughout Mpumalanga’s art community, comparing it to when FACT arrived in the province nearly a decade ago.

“It felt like there was no [artistic] eco-system when we arrived. But now young people are running their own organisations… the people who were young artists back then, are not our partners and collaborators,” averred Sabbagha.

By integrating existing organisational programming, the festival primarily engages children, youth and people with disabilities in Machadodorp/Emthonjeni, Belfast/Siyathuthuka, Dullstroom/Sakhelwe and Waterval-Boven/Emgwenya communities.

It boosts the local economy and tourism, and arts and culture by developing local audiences, and attracting wider national and international visitors.

“We celebrate vulnerable members of communities and bring them into the mainstream, our programme – which is  this year curated to  focus on human rights and the environment during a critical election year – delivers on art’s purpose in constantly questioning the status quo and demanding a higher standard of accountability and care for everyone,” said Sabbagha.

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