Untitled (Youth Day)

There is a shift in awareness amongst the youth (15-35 year bracket) of South Africa where there is an attempt to transcend the legacy of apartheid and colonialism by transforming contemporary South African society through art, music and public debates - music such as the Rhodes Must Fall movement.

As a woman born in the 1990s, I investigate myself in relation to space and time. In The Public Holiday Series (2013-2014) my aim was to highlight the significance of black women in the South African (political) landscape by asserting my body in public spaces, as a living sculpture, through the process of temporary monumentalisation.

This further alludes to women’s unwritten (or limited) participation in the liberation of the country within memorialised public spaces by performing on South African (political) public holidays. Historic events are contrasted with current issues in an exercise of memory, and through this process expose how history often repeats itself.

For example, Human Rights Day in 1960 (previously known as Sharpeville Day) can be closely aligned with the massacre in Marikana (2013). The characters I have created engage the significance of these holidays combined with similar western histories through iconic imagery, i.e. Lady Liberty that, re-imagine these histories within a global context, and include ‘Zulu’ motifs and dress, as these form a strong part of my identity.