Featuring simplicity: jargon and access in contemporary South African art
- Authors: Bereng, Lerato
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60479 , vital:27784
- Description: The focus of this paper is an exploration of curating and its various forms as understood in a South African art context. In order to understand this context I examine definitions of South African publics as well as different curatorial models. I raise questions around art and accessibility as well as the functions of language as a gate keeper within the visual arts. Through a practical exploration of curatorial methods of engagement, I assess the curator's role as disseminator of information. My final project Conversations at Morija that was held in Morija, Lesotho faces the challenge of curating within a space that has a strong creative platform, but lacks a visual art audience. The exhibition was held during the 2013 Morija Art and Culture festival which is dominated by its music component. Despite Morija being the country's creative centre and sole museum, there is little support for its programme both monetary and in terms of attendance. Through a series of conversations several issues pertaining to Morija, Lesotho and the diaspora were addressed. I look at the absence of creative platforms and alternative curatorial methods that engage the public in a participatory manner. Briefly exploring questions of migrant labour and definitions of what constitutes a diaspora. I look at relatable ways to engage the local audience whilst maintaining a creative core in which to spark dialogue around pertinent matters relating to the country.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Bereng, Lerato
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60479 , vital:27784
- Description: The focus of this paper is an exploration of curating and its various forms as understood in a South African art context. In order to understand this context I examine definitions of South African publics as well as different curatorial models. I raise questions around art and accessibility as well as the functions of language as a gate keeper within the visual arts. Through a practical exploration of curatorial methods of engagement, I assess the curator's role as disseminator of information. My final project Conversations at Morija that was held in Morija, Lesotho faces the challenge of curating within a space that has a strong creative platform, but lacks a visual art audience. The exhibition was held during the 2013 Morija Art and Culture festival which is dominated by its music component. Despite Morija being the country's creative centre and sole museum, there is little support for its programme both monetary and in terms of attendance. Through a series of conversations several issues pertaining to Morija, Lesotho and the diaspora were addressed. I look at the absence of creative platforms and alternative curatorial methods that engage the public in a participatory manner. Briefly exploring questions of migrant labour and definitions of what constitutes a diaspora. I look at relatable ways to engage the local audience whilst maintaining a creative core in which to spark dialogue around pertinent matters relating to the country.
- Full Text:
FyaMoneka: exploring the erasure of women within Zambian history
- Authors: Kalichini, Gladys Melina
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Women -- Zambia -- Historiography , Women -- Zambia -- History , Women -- Political activity -- Zambia , Women -- Zambia -- Social conditions , Collective memory -- Zambia , Death in art , Feminism -- Zambia , Male domination (Social structure) -- Zambia , Sex discrimination against women -- Zambia
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63186 , vital:28371
- Description: This Master of Fine Art submission, comprising of an exhibition and mini-thesis, explores the erasure of women’s narratives from Zambian history and collective memory. As a point of entry into the broader conversation of narratives of women marginalised in certain historicised events, this research analyses the narratives of Julia Chikamoneka and Alice Lenshina that are held in the collective memory of Zambian history. It focuses on the representations of narratives of women during and beyond colonial times, while hinging particularly on these two characters’ encounters with and against British rule in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Titled FyaMoneka: Exploring the Erasure of Women Within Zambian History, the mini-thesis examines the representations and positioning of women’s political activities within the liberation narrative that is recorded in the National Archives of Zambia (NAZ) and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) Archives. This mini-thesis highlights the fact that women have been written out of Zambia’s liberation narrative in the NAZ and the UNIP Archives, and remains mindful of the inherent modifications and erasures of women’s accounts over time, including the obfuscation or the absence of certain archival materials. This mini-thesis prospectively reconstructs Chikamoneka’s and Lenshina’s narratives using traces of their histories within collective memory through re/visiting processes of re-archivisation. The exhibition, titled ChaMoneka (It Has Become Visible): UnCasting Shadows, explores death and representations of death, where death is conceptualised as a metaphor for the erasure of women’s historical narratives, whereas the body represents the narrative. Based on an exploration of the relationship and tensions between collective memory and history, death within this exhibition is thematised as the course of fading away and a continuous process in which women’s narratives are erased.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kalichini, Gladys Melina
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Women -- Zambia -- Historiography , Women -- Zambia -- History , Women -- Political activity -- Zambia , Women -- Zambia -- Social conditions , Collective memory -- Zambia , Death in art , Feminism -- Zambia , Male domination (Social structure) -- Zambia , Sex discrimination against women -- Zambia
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63186 , vital:28371
- Description: This Master of Fine Art submission, comprising of an exhibition and mini-thesis, explores the erasure of women’s narratives from Zambian history and collective memory. As a point of entry into the broader conversation of narratives of women marginalised in certain historicised events, this research analyses the narratives of Julia Chikamoneka and Alice Lenshina that are held in the collective memory of Zambian history. It focuses on the representations of narratives of women during and beyond colonial times, while hinging particularly on these two characters’ encounters with and against British rule in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Titled FyaMoneka: Exploring the Erasure of Women Within Zambian History, the mini-thesis examines the representations and positioning of women’s political activities within the liberation narrative that is recorded in the National Archives of Zambia (NAZ) and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) Archives. This mini-thesis highlights the fact that women have been written out of Zambia’s liberation narrative in the NAZ and the UNIP Archives, and remains mindful of the inherent modifications and erasures of women’s accounts over time, including the obfuscation or the absence of certain archival materials. This mini-thesis prospectively reconstructs Chikamoneka’s and Lenshina’s narratives using traces of their histories within collective memory through re/visiting processes of re-archivisation. The exhibition, titled ChaMoneka (It Has Become Visible): UnCasting Shadows, explores death and representations of death, where death is conceptualised as a metaphor for the erasure of women’s historical narratives, whereas the body represents the narrative. Based on an exploration of the relationship and tensions between collective memory and history, death within this exhibition is thematised as the course of fading away and a continuous process in which women’s narratives are erased.
- Full Text:
“Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda”: reciting performative memories at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument
- Authors: Mama, Luthando Vukile James
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Memorialization , Collective memory in art , Memorials in art , Memorials -- South Africa -- Dimbaza , Imperialism in art , Ntaba kaNdoda Monument (Dimbaza, South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63866 , vital:28499
- Description: “Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda”: Reciting Performative Memories at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument serves as a theoretical examination of the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument as a commemorative marker. My mini-thesis unpacks the notions of memory and performative memorialisation at a nationalist memorial in the former Ciskei by examining the concepts of place, memory and memorialisation, which are theoretically integral in my professional practice. This research initiates an investigation into the effects on memory in a situation where the construction of the Monument disrupted an efficacious memorialisation by the communities of Ntaba kaNdoda. In my accompanying MFA exhibition Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda, I explore notions of place, memory and memorialisation through installations of a variety of photographic processes that are based on what I call ‘de-monumental’ and performative monuments (Widrich2014). The written component of my MFA submission relates directly to my professional art practice, developing and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis, I consider photographers working with notions of place, memory and memorialisation. Lebohang Kganye and Nassim Rouchiche’s works retrace and recall past memory in the present, while David Goldblatt and Cedric Nunn, who have photographed the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument, point the viewer to the values and histories of the communities most affected by colonialism and apartheid. These photographers’ works operate as mnemonic devices that seek to translate a lived experience at a particular place. I use Widrich’s (2009; 2014) conception of “performative monuments”, Lippard’s (1997) “sense of place” and Nora’s (1989) “lieu[x] de mémoire” and “milieux de mémoire” in approaching my professional art practice and my research into the Ntaba kaNdoda memorial. Using these entwining nodes of theories in formulating what I term ‘demonumentalisation’ in my photography practice at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument, my photography functions as both performative memorialisation and de-monumentalisation. Remembrance, using photography as a vehicle to represent this notion at Ntaba kaNdoda, transcends the materiality of the Monument. My exhibition, in conjunction with this mini-thesis, therefore reframes and reconfigures theNtaba kaNdoda Monument as a multiplex memory place.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Mama, Luthando Vukile James
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Memorialization , Collective memory in art , Memorials in art , Memorials -- South Africa -- Dimbaza , Imperialism in art , Ntaba kaNdoda Monument (Dimbaza, South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63866 , vital:28499
- Description: “Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda”: Reciting Performative Memories at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument serves as a theoretical examination of the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument as a commemorative marker. My mini-thesis unpacks the notions of memory and performative memorialisation at a nationalist memorial in the former Ciskei by examining the concepts of place, memory and memorialisation, which are theoretically integral in my professional practice. This research initiates an investigation into the effects on memory in a situation where the construction of the Monument disrupted an efficacious memorialisation by the communities of Ntaba kaNdoda. In my accompanying MFA exhibition Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda, I explore notions of place, memory and memorialisation through installations of a variety of photographic processes that are based on what I call ‘de-monumental’ and performative monuments (Widrich2014). The written component of my MFA submission relates directly to my professional art practice, developing and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis, I consider photographers working with notions of place, memory and memorialisation. Lebohang Kganye and Nassim Rouchiche’s works retrace and recall past memory in the present, while David Goldblatt and Cedric Nunn, who have photographed the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument, point the viewer to the values and histories of the communities most affected by colonialism and apartheid. These photographers’ works operate as mnemonic devices that seek to translate a lived experience at a particular place. I use Widrich’s (2009; 2014) conception of “performative monuments”, Lippard’s (1997) “sense of place” and Nora’s (1989) “lieu[x] de mémoire” and “milieux de mémoire” in approaching my professional art practice and my research into the Ntaba kaNdoda memorial. Using these entwining nodes of theories in formulating what I term ‘demonumentalisation’ in my photography practice at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument, my photography functions as both performative memorialisation and de-monumentalisation. Remembrance, using photography as a vehicle to represent this notion at Ntaba kaNdoda, transcends the materiality of the Monument. My exhibition, in conjunction with this mini-thesis, therefore reframes and reconfigures theNtaba kaNdoda Monument as a multiplex memory place.
- Full Text:
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