volume four
support the students
Sunraise is "a space where artists and businesses unite to raise awareness and funds for social ills. Our current action is for university students currently displaced, unable to graduate and awaiting funding through activations and events."
low altitude is free to read. instead, we encourage you to mobilise and support pertinent causes:
notes from the editors
THERO MAKEPE
Thero Makepe was born in 1996. He was born and raised in
Gaborone, Bostwana. Currently, he lives between Gaborone, Cape
Town and Johannesburg.
It’s Not Going to Get Better is crafted as a response to a wave of global electoral fever. 2024 was a year that saw more than 100 countries, and approximately half of the world’s population, heading to national polls. Focusing on the Botswana General Elections, Makepe interprets the tenor on the ground of a country that is often held as the poster child of a peaceful African democracy. Despite promises of freedom and opportunity, in this late-capitalist moment, the lead-up to the election seemed bleak.
photographs from his debut collection
It's Not Going to Get Better
second iteration hosted at the Center for African Studies on the 29th of May 2025
Learning the Alphabets
Today we were learning the alphabets in class
We began
A is for angst, anguish or even anxiety
The teacher then explained that the B in sound in Biphobia is the same as the one in Bible
C is not to be confused with quarter life crisis but is indeed crises
and the same in cry…
As for the D in dopamine, he only comes once in a while
In the form of dread, dead friends and the ever so soothing smell of sniffed or burnt things
E is the ecstasy you feel on a ride to F
Fuck fuck fuck these 20s
And G for God’s sakes, why is there so much H- homophobia?
I I I is an affirmation not to be swallowed whole by the joy of the J
The same that evades you on dim lit dance floors
Or on a Sunday night before the K
Yanga Gceya
Jojo's Photos
Jonathan Inglis is a 20-year-old photographer, born and raised in the woods of Pietermaritzburg. He is currently in his third year of a Bachelor of Arts degree at UCT, majoring in Screen Production and Film studies.
For a year now he has captured local artists, as well as his social and natural environment, and doesn’t show signs of stopping. Jojo is inspired by the potential that a photograph holds to capture not just what is seen, but also what is felt. This has contributed to the emotional depth found in his photographs, no matter what space he is in.
the frantic search for community
in a new place
-Steff Malherbe
Moving to a new continent has been wonderful and challenging in so many ways. My mind has pretty much felt like a piece of clothing in a washing machine since I arrived; spinning around and around, struggling to grasp onto anything for too long. Which has been pretty great to be honest; I haven’t really felt homesick yet, but at the same time, I feel like the move here is not permanent. I am in a kind of dream state, living a life that isn’t mine. However, the one thing that has managed to ground me in Bristol, has been my frantic search for community.
passion gaps
N1 laps
consider yourself in gold.
the northern chambers lispy air
choking on hate so old.
dried grass
the cops pass
‘jou poes’ etched in wood.
clipped feathers
family tethers
we’d fly if only we could.
father who
father what
Godless chamber of spite.
roll on south
you’ll flee with doubt
but a green lawn will get you right .
brown bottles
in sandy dunes
kids hold em ‘tween their teeth.
if only Ma Hendricks had triple locked the door
she wouldn’t be used to teach.
militia markings
lollipop reflections
we’ll never know who made this jol vol .
body found
familiar ground
janne i should’ve called.
sky blue citi golf
Jaydon Murray's
Fanie Buys
Fanie Buys
"What are these ideas? It’s a free association game with female character actresses and homosexual ephemera. For myself, and a lot of gay men, there is a tendency to inhabit a feminine role as a means of self-expression: whether its to empower, protect, or avoid ourselves. In many ways that’s also been the role of portraiture historically. These works use painting as a genre to consider a contemporary gay sensibility through images: Julianne Moore and PrEP, cowboys and oranges, Anna Nicole Smith’s concerned eyes and a douche bulb.
In some respects this is very much tied to my own sense of self, but because of the way media
informs society, that sense of self is tied to so much external noise: through images. When that
sense of self is transgressive, the images become a secret language, in my case the language of camp. The works use images (and titles) as witty rejoinders charmingly delivering concerns about self worth, gender, and having it all in the 21st century."
On Choking and Revenge
by K Wilde
Why do men like choking women? What is this strange interplay between sex and power? What does it say about our society, about how women are taught to please and men are taught to take? Are our desires even our own—or are they just porn-soaked projections of patriarchal bullshit?
Maybe some of it is internalized misogyny. But here’s the truth: even if I know that, even if I understand that intellectually and politically… I still want it.
- interview - interview - interview - interview -
Sun Raise: Where Creativity Meets Crisis
Low Altitude sits down with Andrea Davids and Lois Flandorp
Ashley Allard
Sun Raise, led by North North Social Club’s (NNSC) Andrea Davids and Operation Khataza’s own Lois Flandorp, held its first event on the closed Breë Street on Sunday, the 16th of March. Sun Raise activated the street, hosting Slam City’s open mic poetry and various comedians from the Cape Town comedy collective That’s Not Funny. QR codes to donate to the cause were plastered on every possible surface, and cardboard boxes collected material donations for students in need. Gina Levi offered group drawing lessons and sold their artwork alongside Lyrique Adams and Lerato’s Ferniture, while Zizipho Bam and Thandiwe Nqanda sold and performed their soul-stirring poetry. All the money raised was donated to students in need of funding.
Anaphor for a Reckoning
I wish I could remember your mandorla eyes,
your crescent nose and, just beneath,
your lips shaping the soft air in Serena,
then your jaw, an exquisite line –
your face was a sacred geometry and
your body a map of Africa. I wish I could remember
how you lay still like a breathing statue that night in
September five years ago – how your hands were
cold and wet when I placed them on my chest –
how my imagination was tied to a man
who dimmed with the stars into
useless dawn. I wish I could remember
how we made a sacrifice in water,
and I was wholly yours for a moment –
Beth Rowley
Ayandamacirha Kanise is a polymathic artist whose work spans photography, film, television, and live performance. His photography, rooted in documentary with elements of contemporary imagery, explores the unsaid—uncovering the layers of African life beyond colonial and external narratives. Influenced by his love for visual arts, theatre, and motion picture, his work seeks to challenge dominant perspectives, offering raw and unfiltered portrayals of African identity, culture, and everyday existence.
By blending observational storytelling with an artistic sensibility, his images evoke a sense of intimacy and urgency, capturing the complexities of the world around him. His photography has been published in The Guardian, The Witness, BirdLife International, among other prestigious global publications, and he has co-curated exhibitions in esteemed galleries, contributing to the showcasing of internationally renowned artists from across the continent.
Ayandaamacirha Kanise
Diary entries, penned across the stillness of three Kramer evenings that stretched too long
One day the Black Body with its inherent majesty, will no longer be a reference for subjugation, but a tenant of history– as it has always been. It will longer be one with oppression and silence but demand volume, drawing the world to its will. For this body we are talking about is not just a thing. Think of it from this said perspective: That this Black body is but a much more artful, violent, stubborn fire. A radical beating heart of the living. A true testament that we ought to seldom concern ourselves about tomorrow. Black people never know what tomorrow will look like for them. But we will be there. Blackness, is an animal of its own, mahn. A true testament that indeed, no force, no power, can ever extinguish its flame. We will rise on the Sun.
Lufefe Radebe
Tanya Sternberg
Sausage food
I realise now that it was
a mistake; I should have never
left my heart for you on the cutting
board in your kitchen.
As you returned from the bhai,
you left the top of the dutch-door
open, inviting the cold air
to dance around the flames
of your gas stove.
You prepared our last meal,
adding sugar to your braising onions.
my heart was tearful,
swelling in the process,
imbibing your aroma.
Zubayr Charles
Review*Review*Review*Review*Review*Review*Review
"It’s arresting and unsettling. It is simultaneously unputdownable."
