I believe that the sea will always be an inspiration to art; it is vast, great, and mysterious. Those who venture out into the unknown and cross over are brave, but what about the other side? What lays waiting there? Beyond a division of the skyline, the meeting of the sea with the sky is…
TMRW Gallery presents Coexistence, a virtual experience exhibition presented as an application that can be downloaded by viewers. Navigating this virtual world reminds one of the original Sims game through the first-person perspective. The show and the artworks demonstrate a fluidity and agility of practice that these artists possess, and have stretched while creating under…
That people labelled ‘coloured’ through apartheid social engineering have been excelling in art, sports, music, academics (in fact, in every arena possible) throughout our history, is nothing new. What is of note is that almost three decades after the first democratic elections, we have yet to rid ourselves of the negative stereotypes associated with this…
To argue for or against. To refute, to testify. To admit guilt or defend innocence. The Public Hearings online festival approaches women’s rights issues through a lens of artistic research practices. Co-curated by Annett Busch and Marie-Hélène Gutberlet in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, the festival was prompted by a research trip to South Africa….
“Johannesburg, a city fathered by gold, mothered by money, then commandeered by white men with cruelty and greed.” “This is what I call redistribution, via back door.” Jerusalema, 2008 There’s something about the collage artworks created by artist Benni Mahlangu who makes work under the pseudonym Izinyembezi, that elicits unnamed feelings that have moved through…
The past few weeks have been really difficult for most of us. To paraphrase Baldwin, to be Black and relatively conscious in this world is to be in a constant state of rage. Between dealing with my own feelings about the police brutality here in South Africa, as well as the world over, and thinking…
There has always been an intrepid yet quiet sense of energy in all that Duduza Mchunu makes as an artist, a channel for her own spiritual essence, her means of communicating revelatory symbolism is through the varying mediums that she employs as a multi-disciplinary artist. Duduza’s advocacy for artistic expression as a form of healing…
How we began to conceptually define these ideas in relation to the group exhibition was to gather a group of diverse artists who work and think through different mediums and have diverse approaches to process and the spaces in which they produce in. When we did this it was evident that the idea of what…
2020 is a big year for South African director’s making films about evil and cursed farmhouses! First out were the cosmic terrors of Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space, that was followed by the Afrikaans drama Griekwastad—based on the horrific true life crimes of Don Steenkamp. And now, Netflix has released Harold Holscher’s 8 (also…
Dust-filled shelves of forgotten memories. The paperwork of people and places half-remembered in the recesses of a long-lived experience. The allure of the archive beckons. It draws you in; through the rustling of paper and hushed tones. Three postgraduate students from the University of the Witwatersrand heard and answered the call. Exhibitionary Feels: Re-membering the…
Across the country and globe there is a visceral sense of frustration propelled by an urgent need for change on a structural and institutional level, even within our economic spheres. South Africa with its complicated history and its inheritance of a segregated economy at the dawn of democracy is no exception. Being declared the most…
Home or domestic space — has taken on additional meanings during South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown. These spaces are seen to be places of safety and comfort but also of danger, concern and nostalgia. Feelings have oscillated between feeling trapped and restricted to feeling protected. Back of the Moon, an offsite show through the Stevenson Gallery…
