UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
Not a member yet
4792 research outputs found
Sort by
The Front Room ‘Inna Joburg’: A hybrid intervention
Full text linkThe material culture of the front room, created by the Windrush generation from 1948 through to the 1960s, and later by black British families, expresses a shift from the “sacred” codes of respectability, propriety and decorum, to the “profane” stylistic signification of modernity and consumer culture. This dynamic formed the basis of an installation-based exhibition entitled The West Indian Front Room: Memories and Impressions of Black British Homes (WIFR) (2005-2006, Geffrye Museum, London) that I guest-curated. The exhibition evoked and invoked a range of responses from a diverse range of audiences. Many of the responses from black British visitors spoke to their lived experience of the material culture of the front room. In recognition of thetranscultural appeal of the installation, subsequent iterations of The Front Room (TFR) were staged in various locations, the most recent being an installation-based exhibition entitled The Front Room ‘Inna Joburg’ (TFRiJ) (2016, FADA Gallery, Johannesburg). Instead of focusing on the end product, in this article I concentrate on the process through which it was created, looking at how WIFR’s theoretical framework and other TFR iterations informed the curatorial intentions, as well as what practical strategies were developed to support the curation, production and public engagement activities of TFRiJ. Rather than seeing TFRiJ as a replication of WIFR, through this approach, I revisit the process that led to it becoming a “hybrid intervention”
Sojourns in occupied territory: works by Brent Meistre and Jo Ractliffe
Full text linkLandscape has often functioned as a threshold, a zone in which the similarities and differences between painting and photography are evident. At the same time, it has served as the barometer of photography’s constantly shifting place in the art-historical canon; a measure of its ability, on the one hand, to be used as document and, on the other, to be deployed in the service of a conceptual approach to art-making.
South African photography has been explored (and over-explored) as a predominantly documentary form. However, in recent years, it has departed significantly from this trajectory. In this article, I present selected examples of photographic and video works by Brent Meistre and Jo Ractliffe, proposing that these works occupy a liminal zone in the field of South African photography, and, at the same time, signal towards photography as a documentary vehicle and as a conceptual tool. In her recent book and exhibition, As terras do fim do mundo (2009-2010), Ractliffe deploys the language of documentary, and specifically the genres of landscape and war photography, in order to present a project in which she interrogates assumptions about these two fields. In his Sojourn series, as well as in a number of video works, Meistre presents the landscape as both empty and suggestive, a site for performances that write the artist into the landscape in both humorous and deeply provocative ways
The prominence of grotesque figures in visual culture today: Rethinking the ontological status of the (moving) image from the perspective of the grotesque
Full text linkIn this article, I argue that the new – as opposed to habitualised – optical and digital technologies as used in the cinema today have a strong perceptual impact on individuals by creating all sorts of visual distortions that cause a profound deautomatisation of perception and a destabilisation of the ontological status of the image. An uncanny disruption of the perceptual process, a destabilisation of the cognitive routines, a sudden sensitivity to the medium and an instant emotional response are at the heart of these disruptive viewing experiences. I argue that these effects are reinforced by the presence of “grotesques” and “monsters” which are so prominent in visual culture today.
The past is present: a brief report on the 2011 SACOMM conference
Full text linkMore than 170 delegates from throughout South Africa, as well as various delegates and speakers from abroad, attended the annual South African Communication Association (SACOMM) conference. The conference was hosted by the Department of Communication Science of the University of South Africa (Unisa) and took place from 29 August to 1 September 2011 at the Stone Cradle Conference Venue, situated close to the Rietvlei Nature Reserve in Pretoria.
Nation-building-premises in Freedom Park, South Africa
Full text linkThe South African Department of Arts and Culture initiated several legacy and heritage projects post-apartheid, referring to the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – one of those being Freedom Park. By materialising governmentality within a monument, a certain notion of belonging is constructed: a sense of belonging to a national community which is valorised by sacrificial death and naturalised culture, embodied in the architecture of the created public space. The built environment and the guided tours both point to a performativity of spirituality: ‘cleansing and healing-ceremonies’ are part of a policy which tries to reconcile memories through strategic commemoration practices. With reference to Foucault’s idea of ‘heterotopia’, I will argue that Freedom Park can be read as both an illusory space and at the same time a perfect arrangement of select societal structures as compensation for former injustices.
Loftus as Afrikaner heterotopia: The life world of rugbymentality
Full text linkThe aim of this article is to explore the nature of contemporary Afrikaner identity philosophically through the topos of Loftus and the game, the spectacle, and the experience of rugby. I suggest that Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria is a heterotopia for many Afrikaners. The concept of heterotopia, as suggested by Foucault, represents a place where the ideas of utopia and dystopia exist alongside each other. An analysis of Loftus as heterotopia offers a number of novel insights about the place (both physical and mental) that the stadium represents. Loftus acts as a mirror to the lifeworld of Afrikaners, termed here as so-called ’rugbymentality’: Loftus reveals that Afrikaners have moved economically beyond apartheid, but that their political voice has become almost insignificant. Loftus represents the expression of this economic advancement with simultaneous political regression. The result is an invented tradition and postcolonial nostalgia that reveal what it means to be an Afrikaner. Loftus and rugbymentality function as the attempt by Afrikaners either to insulate themselves (laertrek) from post-apartheid South Africa, or to become part of the cultural mosaic of South Africa, which could both be expressed through achieving excellence in rugby.
Editorial
Full text linkThis issue of Image & Text highlights some the new shifts and focus areas that have come to encompass the study of visual culture. While the first few decades of Image & Text predominated in content that sought to understand and interpret popular culture (see Lange 2012), the more recent issues of the journal contain content that engages in postcolonial readings of archival material and art historical works, opening up novel dimensions in understanding and probing the representations of identity, as well as providing an ongoing platform for design discourses
Developing citizen designers
Full text linkAs the design industry evolves, so too does design education. Design, as a discipline as well as a mode of reasoning, essentially responds to the needs of people. Owing to the complex nature of problems that humanity faces – such as global warming, poverty, racial discrimination, to name a few – it is not surprising that socially responsible design has reached a critical moment and underpins contemporary design ractice. Accordingly, it follows that design education has a responsibility to train and nurture students with a socially-minded and empathetic mindset so that they can be mindful of making ethical design decisions. Essentially, the role of a designer’s response to a complex social, environmental or political problem is to move people to action, beyond mere awareness
Discursive cuts, receptive wounds Notes on the reception of Inxeba/The Wound
Full text linkThere is a specific strain of queer theory seeded in Southern African soil – a permutation that, for its specific geo-affective location, seems all the more lived, more humanistic-centred, more humane. The work collected in this themed issue arose from a panel discussion and a set of papers presented during the 2018 iteration of the February Lectures conference series (februarylectures.co.za), a platform established to showcase what happens when queer theory is brought to bear on the lived experience of queer peoples of the global South
Afrofuturism and decolonisation: using Black Panther as methodology
Full text linkThe terms Afrofuturism and decolonisation may both occupy prominent positions in the contemporary moment but they are not often projected into the same conceptual space. While the task of decolonising the curricula at South Africa’s tertiary institutions looms large in the contemporary moment, for the particular disciplines of art history and visual studies, the task of creating new curricula has often taken on a temporal valence as there is a certain anxiety about making references to historical African culture in the present. Afrofuturism, however, seeks to create fissures in the present moment by using references the past to envision futures that counter a negative historical imaginary. Following an analysis of the art historical curricula at tertiary institutions in South Africa, this paper seeks to discuss the notion of both Afrofuturism and decolonisation as temporal dislocations and discursive disruptions. By looking at the film Black Panther and its numerous references to historical African art and visual culture this paper proposes that the concept of Afrofuturism may provide a method for the study of contemporary art forms through the lens of the historical and as such a potential approach to discursive decolonisation