Exhibition Update: Works in Progress...

About artefacts and new assimilations 

To date there has been really exciting progress relating to the production, planning and directing of the After Math exhibition.

The sculpture production, in the last 1.5 to 2 months, have resulted in 3 sculptural installations nearing completion! These were produced from sheet metal (2mm to 3mm) in various aluminium alloys - ranging from the 1200 grades up to 5000 grades. I am fortunate to have encountered the amazing properties of these alloys. One such quality is this metal's marvelous malleability. Once annealed (meaning softened by heating), aluminium is buttery soft and offers little resistance to the fold forming and raising techniques I have employed.

To the left is a sneak preview of a work titled 'Potret'; the Afrikaans word for portrait. In this image the components for the installation is stacked on top of each other. However, the work measures more than one square meter when laid out flat. These canvas type tablets will form the foundations (blank canvases) for an abstract composite family portrait. It will be installed into the space as a wall piece. At the moment it is more than three quarters of the way complete. I will reveal more on the meaning and significance of this work during my scheduled walk-abouts of the show. The dates for these will be published on the blog and other media soon: so watch this space.

The production of the video work (in collaboration with Mocke) will commence during my Uni vacation starting in about a week and half. My lips are sealed on the concepts for these, for now. (Wink wink)

The intense but highly productive brainstorming sessions for the performance (in collaboration with Thami) is finally beginning to unfurl and amalgamate. I am anxiously awaiting our first creative production session at the venue this Friday.

As far as planning goes:  much of the logistics for the show seems to be in place, though many hours of work still lies ahead.   An exciting development here is that the Apartheid Museum, in collaboration with the After Math project and relevant UJ staff, will be hosting a public seminar that is intimately related to the concept of the exhibition. I will reveal more here in the very near future...as I said: WATCH THIS SPACE!!!

Please feel free to comment or to ask any questions.
Greetings.

Sculpture with Fanonian roots

...and at the theoretical foundations of the After Math© project.... Frantz Fanon...

At the core of After Math©, reside the theories and concepts of psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925- December 6, 1961). Fanon (1952) in his book titled Black skin White masks unpacks the devastating psychological consequences of colonialism and broader, racially oppressive political regimes. He coins a key concept referred to as the “colonisation of the mind” and identifies a resulting neuroses i.e. “black neuroses”.  “Colonisation of the mind” is the process whereby the colonised, due to broader political racial inequalities, is violently dispossessed of physical, material and cultural effects (Hook, 2004b: 88). The empowered coloniser and the disempowered colonised settles into what Fanon refers to as a “psycho-existential complex”. For the colonised the elimination and degradation of all forms of wealth, manifests psychologically as distaste, subordination and inferiority.

 As such, Fanon (1952) argues that the “black neuroses” is caused by an elimination of black/native culture and its replacement by the favoured Eurocentric culture as the only standard or model to aspire to. In other words, the self loathing aspect of the oppressed identity is forged by the coloniser. Fanon’s “black neuroses” refers to the black man’s[1] aspirations to be accepted by the coloniser; or even to become the coloniser.  Hook (2004a) extends this condition to the South African context in the following quote: “apartheid may be considered a particular extension or variation of the basic politics and conditions of colonialism”.

He refers to Bertoldi (1998) who claims that the basic constructs of colonialism i.e. politics and conditions, apply to apartheid. In a similar way, the South African “black neuroses” becomes a variant of the original Fanonian condition.

As previously introduced, the After Math© project is a sculpture, video work and performance based social intervention that explores temporality, wounding and consequence. The project aims to contribute to post-colonial and post-apartheid discourse by visually unravelling, unpacking and tackling the process of wounding, inscription on the physical and mental body; as well as its aftermath. It proposes to explore the after affects of racial discrimination within a South African context through the process of narrative re-enactments which manifests here as sculptural installations, video work and performance art. The project through its major outputs aims to critically engage the viewer around the subject of temporality, wounding and its consequences. 

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[1] Subsequent psychoanalysts, such as Loomba (2005), notes that Fanon’s writing is gendered. She insists that post-colonial critique is inclusive of both genders and all classes and sexes. 

The image of Fanon was taken from: http://repeatingislands.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/frantz_fanon_memoire_d_asile_0.jpg?w=500

Exhibition 2012... 'in the beginning'

The short essay below titled 'of things unseen' marks the first concrete writings (in the beginning of 2011) of the concept for my current work. It evolved from my interest in the intricate relationship between psyche and soma, mind and body; and the effects or consequences of external influences. On the other hand, the manner and processes by which the artworks physically manifest, has been a 10 year long exploration and experiment of material and form.

From 'of things unseen'(2011) by Farieda Nazier

Writings on the ontological problem of mind-body dualism can be traced back as far as Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas. A major contribution in the study of ‘forms’ can be attributed to Descartes, a philosopher, physiologist, and mathematician; who in the 1600’s discovered the reflex theory. This discovery in combination with the aforementioned precursors, laid the foundations of Cartesian Dualism; which speaks of the mind as an independent entity to the physical body. Descartes argued that the brain was merely the organ of the mind and that these distinctive ‘materials’ interacted. However, even though these two entities were considered separate they related through causality - body affecting mind and the mind affecting body. Subsequently, many other philosophical psychological and oppositional theories developed. Psychoanalysis, for instance, predominantly referenced bodily experiences in a number of its concepts. In the contemporary novel ‘Something to tell you’, Hanif Kureishi quotes Proust within the context of a psychoanalysts’ reflection on his sessions: “Every hour of the past is inscribed on the human body, indeed makes up the body (Kureishi, 2008:147).

My current work evolved from my two previous exhibitions which explore a planar shape and its transformation into form (a body). The preliminary examples presented mainly ‘virgin’ or ‘unscathed’ forms and the endless physical possibilities of unaltered basic geometric shapes. Later on in the work, the shapes were symmetrically incised on major intersections and angles. By assigning symbolism to these geometric shapes, the process of manufacture evoked and gave rise to new metaphors and narratives. This methodology and approach provided the groundwork for my present concept.

Within the South African context as with many other analogous contexts, personal histories are undeniably engrained with discrimination and its consequent wounding in one form or another. The premise for the exhibition is rooted in the broader investigation of South Africa’s oppressive socio-political history and its traumatic effects on the lives of the individuals exposed to it. The project aims to contribute to this discourse by attempting catharsis: visually unravelling, unpacking and tackling the process of wounding and its aftermath.

“While there was therapeutic value in the cathartic release of emotions ...this notion of ‘catharsis’, crudely involves an oral purging of a sick body riddled with traumatic ‘secrets’, which can enable victims to ‘master the past’”.
(Field, 2007: 5)