‘Does being white mean I was privileged and thus automatically pro-apartheid’
Does that mean as a white person from South Africa, I must never forget what other white people did?
Does it mean that I must be ashamed that my parents worked hard to become the professionals in their fields and gave me a good life?
Because others didn’t have the life I’ve had?
Does it mean that everything I work for must be seen as ‘well your privileged of course you could achieve that’… Without taking into account that I may of had to work hard to achieve as I have…
Does it mean that I will always be perceived as the ‘bad’ guy no matter what?
Does it mean that the white voice is not allowed in the new South Africa?
The residue that is not the residue…. the show ‘interrupt’ was a complete success, all the work on display was fantastic (more images of the others work to follow). Now for my viva, fingers crossed!!
These pieces are for my thought process (sketchbook) and although you cannot hear there is an audio loop of the events that took place coming out of the floating plinth. The plinth has been painted to resemble the Ndebele houses of South Africa, while the gold doilies are there to represent Afrikaaner ‘doeks’. I was harking back to how during apartheid many were prosperous off the backs of the black workers.
As those were the starting points that lead me towards, finding ways to converse about our country’s volatile history. As well as finding ways to move forward into the new South Africa.
The statement for the work is:
Keep having conversations / gespreken / izingxoxo
(I have hopefully found the correct translations for the Afrikaans and Zulu versions of the word conversations) The idea being that everyone’s voice needs to be present for us to become a community.
This work seems to relate directly to the theme of my show that’s coming up this weekend = panic stations!! As it has been called ‘interrupt’, I’m still working on my statement/viva and as seems to be the usual way of things my ideas are still evolving. Especially as I have my space and seeing the pieces in the space, affects how I think about it. I’ll definitely be posting the Private view pictures after Sunday, until then I may be M.I.A.
artruby:
Sculptures by Robbie Rowlands
