Sarah Britten | |
|---|---|
 Britten in 2012 | |
| Born | Sarah Jane Britten [1] [2] 31 August 1974 [3] [4] Johannesburg, South Africa [5] |
| Occupation | Writer, artist, communication strategist |
| Nationality | South African |
| Alma mater | Wits University |
| Genre | Young adult fiction, non-fiction |
| Website | |
| www | |
Sarah Jane Britten (born 31 August 1974) is a South African writer, blogger, lipstick artist and communication strategist. [6]
Britten attended Bryanston Primary School and Redhill High School in Johannesburg and studied Drama at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she completed a BA(Hons) in Dramatic Art in 1996, a MA in Communication Studies in 1997 and a PhD in Applied English Language Studies in 2005. [2] [7] [8] [9] At university she explored her interests in national identity and humour with a Masters Research Report on South African humour, focussing on the Madam & Eve comic strip, and her PhD thesis One Nation, One Beer: The Mythology of the New South Africa in Advertising. [1] [10] [11]
She worked in journalism and advertising prior to becoming a freelance communication strategist. [3] [5] [8] [12]
Britten has authored two young adult fiction novels and three non-fiction books on local insults. [13] [14] [15] [16] In 2012 she wrote "... insults are also markers of collective identity. This is why I started collecting South African insults back in 2004: I wanted to understand what makes us who we are, and insults are one prism through which to view the national self ...". [17]
She regularly contributes to Thought Leader , a news and opinion website run by the Mail & Guardian newspaper.
She wrote the chapter How Not to Emigrate in Should I stay or should I go? To live in or leave South Africa, having returned to South Africa after emigrating to Australia in 2008. [18] In the editor's introduction to the book, Tim Richman writes: "Many of the contributions in this book are deeply personal; such is the nature of the topic. For Sarah Britten, there was no other way to approach her traumatic and disastrous emigration experience, one that ultimately destroyed her marriage. Or, as she suggests, perhaps it extended it beyond its sell-by date. Sarah is candid, open, honest, raw – uncomfortably at times. But hers is a necessary and hugely revealing piece, clarifying both the extent of the life-hold that emigration can exert on individuals and families, as well as the stresses it can generate." [19] At the time, she wrote about her emigration experience on her Thought Leader blog which she named Gondwanaland after the ancient Gondwana supercontinent that included Africa, Australia and Antarctica. [12]
Britten paints cityscapes and other subjects, namely still life, bulls and bears (stock market trend symbols), dogs, cats, horses, sharks, crocodiles, rhinos, Nguni cattle and dung beetles, with lipstick. [20] [21] Her art is influenced by Zoo City , a science fiction novel by South African author Lauren Beukes. On her art website, she says: "Set in Hillbrow, the zoo city of the title, it features characters mysteriously attached to animal familiars as a form of punishment. Zoo City is riotous, chaotic and completely crazy and I loved the way it brought to life the animal energy that lurks just beneath the surface of the city. After reading the book, I started experimenting with placing animals in cityscapes, both the kind that are found in cities (dogs and cats) and those that exist in Johannesburg only as metaphors – sharks and crocodiles, for example. I’ve used a limited palette of black, grey and red to evoke the dystopian atmosphere of the city, its grey grittiness a contrast to throbbing red life. The Zoo City series led to my experiments with Ngunis, which have taken me in a more colourful direction." [22] The first public exhibition of her lipstick art, named Pulse of the City and inspired by a Land Rover marketing campaign, was held at Velo gallery café in Braamfontein in July 2012. [4]
Johannesburg is the most populous city in South Africa with 4,803,262 people, and is classified as a megacity; it is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa. Johannesburg is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. Most of the major South African companies and banks have their head offices in Johannesburg. The city is located within the mineral-rich Witwatersrand hills, the epicentre of the international-scale mineral, gold and (specifically) diamond trade.
Bryanston is an affluent residential suburb of Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa to the north of Johannesburg. First named as an area in 1949, it was established in 1969 as a suburb of Sandton and provided with tarred roads and municipal services, but after municipal boundaries were revised following the end of Apartheid, Sandton was merged with Johannesburg to form part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The multi-lane N1 freeway forms its northern boundary with access at the R511/M81 off-ramp. It is located in Region E of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.
The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. It is divided into several branches and departments in order to expedite services for the city. Zulu is the most spoken home language at 23.4% followed by English at 20.1%.
Leipzig Zoological Garden, or Leipzig Zoo is a zoo in Leipzig`s district Mitte, Germany. It was first opened on June 9, 1878. It was taken over by the city of Leipzig in 1920 after World War I and now covers about 27 hectares and contains approximately 850 species. By 2020, the zoo featured six different theme worlds, aiming at providing habitats appropriate for the species on display.
Anneline Kriel is a South African actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss South Africa 1974 and was later crowned Miss World 1974. She is the second of three South African women to hold the Miss World title after Penelope Coelen in 1958 and before Rolene Strauss in 2014. In South Africa she achieved "icon" status where she became known as a "Princess Diana" figure and also appeared in several local film and television projects such as Kill and Kill Again in 1981. She was also in a high-profile marriage (1980-1985) with the late South African hotelier, Sol Kerzner.
Lipstick feminism is a variety of feminism that seeks to embrace traditional concepts of femininity, including the sexual power of women, alongside traditional feminist ideas. The concept emerged within the third-wave as a response to ideals created by previous movements, where women felt that they could not both be feminine and a feminist.
Dorothea Sarah Florence Alexandra, Lady Phillips was a South African art patroness and promoter of indigenous culture. She was married to Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Baronet, a mining magnate and politician and was known by one of her middle names, Florence.
Hermann Niebuhr is a South African artist who lives in De Rust. He utilizes oils on canvas in a classical painterly style to document urban decay as well as rural landscapes.
Zoo Lake is a popular lake and public park in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is part of the Hermann Eckstein Park and is opposite the Johannesburg Zoo. The Zoo Lake consists of two dams, an upper feeder dam, and a larger lower dam, both constructed in natural marshland watered by the Parktown Spruit.
Lauren Beukes is a South African novelist, short story writer, journalist and television scriptwriter.
Zoo City is a 2010 science fiction novel by South African author Lauren Beukes. It won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 2010 Kitschies Red Tentacle for best novel. The cover of the British edition of the book was awarded the 2010 BSFA Award for best artwork, and the book itself was shortlisted in the best novel category of the award.
Nandipha Mntambo is a South African artist who has become famous for her sculptures, videos and photographs that focus on human female body and identity by using natural, organic materials. Her art style has been self described as eclectic and androgynous. She is best known for her cowhide sculptures that connects the human form to nature.
Doreen Southwood is a South African artist, designer, and boutique owner based in Cape Town. She works in a wide variety of media in her artwork, producing sculptures, objects, prints, film, and more, which she often bases on personal experiences and self exploration. Her candidness regarding personal flaws and the cycles of repression and coping that accompany conservative, middle class, Afrikaans upbringing inform much of her work, calling attention to ways in which women are silenced or otherwise repressed in that space.
Jodi Bieber is a South African photographer. Her photograph of Bibi Aisha, a woman from Afghanistan whose ears and nose were severed by her husband and brother-in-law, was selected as the World Press Photo of the Year in 2010.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Johannesburg, in the Gauteng province in South Africa.
Mary Sibande is a South African artist based in Johannesburg. Her art consists of sculptures, paintings, photography, and design. Sibande uses these mediums and techniques to help depict the human form and explore the construction of identity in a postcolonial South African context. In addition, Sibande focuses on using her work to show her personal experiences through Apartheid. Her art also attempts to critique stereotypical depictions of women, particularly black women.
Penny Siopis is a South African artist from Cape Town. She was born in Vryburg in the North West province from Greek parents who had moved after inheriting a bakery from Siopis maternal grandfather. Siopis studied Fine Arts at Rhodes University in Makhanda, completing her master's degree in 1976, after which she pursued postgraduate studies at Portsmouth Polytechnic in the United Kingdom. She taught Fine Arts at the Technikon Natal in Durban from 1980 to 1983. In 1984 she took up a lectureship at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. During this time she was also visiting research fellow at the University of Leeds (1992–93) and visiting professor in fine arts at Umeå University in Sweden (2000) as part of an interinstitutional exchange. With an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University, Makhanda – Siopis is currently honorary professor at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town.
Sheep-shagger is a derogatory term, most often used to refer to Welsh people, implying that the subject has sex with sheep. In a court case in Britain, the use of the term directed at a Welsh person was ruled to be a "racially aggravating" factor in a disorderly conduct offence. It has been used in South Africa to refer to Australians and by Australians and New Zealanders to refer to one another.
Yewande Omotoso is a South African-based novelist, architect and designer, who was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria. She currently lives in Johannesburg. Her two published novels have earned her considerable attention, including winning the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, being shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature, and being longlisted for the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction. She is the daughter of Nigerian writer Kole Omotoso, and the sister of filmmaker Akin Omotoso.
Senzeni Marasela is a South African visual artist born in Thokoza who works across different media, combining performance, photography, video, prints, textiles, and embroidery in mixed-media installations. She obtained a BA in Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1998.
The Pulse of the City exhibition of Johannesburg cityscapes in lipstick was inspired by my involvement with a campaign to launch the Range Rover Evoque. I had been painting with lipstick since 2002 when it started by accident. Over the years I focused on still life, and it would never have occurred to me to attempt cityscapes were it not for Land Rover. To thank Land Rover's marketing director for choosing me as a brand ambassador, I presented him with a painting of my interpretation of the campaign. That first cityscape led to others, and over time my style has evolved in several different directions. The exhibition is divided into several themes – Cityscapes, Zoo City, Ngunis and Sisyphus in Johannesburg. The Ngunis, for example, represent pop art meets 18th century English farm animal portraits meets 19th century naturalists' notebooks meets social history. Each painting features the Johannesburg skyline.
During the day Sarah Britten is a communication strategist; by night she writes books and blog entries. And sometimes paints. With lipstick. It helps to have insomnia.
Sarah Britten, geboren 1974, wuchs in Sandton auf einer Vorstadt von Johannesburg, Südafrika. Nach ihrem Studium an der Universität Witwatersrand arbeitet sie derzeit als Insightmanagerin in einer Werbeagentur.
Sarah Britten has written two books on South African insults and is working on a third. She is fascinated by nationalism and national identity; the title of her PhD thesis was One Nation, One Beer: The Mythology of the New South Africa in Advertising. She tries not to feel too guilty about the fact that she promotes the evils of consumer capitalism for a living.
She wrote her Master's research report on South African humour (with a focus on Madam & Eve) and has a doctorate in Applied English Language Studies, the title of her thesis being 'One nation, one beer: the mythology of the new South Africa in advertising'. Her area of academic interest relates to national identity and comedy, and the concept of 'National Intimacy', as defined by the anthropologist Michael Herzfeld.
I've spent most of my working life in the advertising industry
Sarah Britten has written three books on South African insults. The latest has a yellow cover and would make a perfect Christmas present. And yes, Julius Malema gets a chapter to himself.
These days, using lipstick on Triplex – the thick, shiny cardboard used by advertising agencies to mount layouts and also by architects to build models – she paints cityscapes, bulls and bears (Britten's grandfather worked in Diagonal Street), fruit, flowers and animals, including cats, horses, rhinos and Nguni cattle.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
