Bubblegum Club

Tag: intimacy

  • A story of same sex love // Motswana Creative Director and Writer Tanlume Enyatseng debuts Editorial shoot and short film ‘THEY SHOOT BOYS DONT THEY?’ 

    A story of same sex love // Motswana Creative Director and Writer Tanlume Enyatseng debuts Editorial shoot and short film ‘THEY SHOOT BOYS DONT THEY?’ 

    Intimacy locked in. A moment; an expression of being – an archive of lived experience. An embrace of pure physical; spiritual emotion. Lingering intimacy. A rich kiss shared between two young men. A candid tale of queer love captured on the emulsion of a film roll recorded with the material’s light-sensitive silver halide crystals. Same sex tenderness expressed where it is forbidden.

    Tanlume of bananaemoji.com envelops his audience in a narrative depiction of the realities the LGBTQI+ community faces in Botswana. “Shot and produced in Botswana, the film challenges the taboo of intimacy between two men and highlights the need [to] recognise same-sex mariage.” The title of his Editorial and short film plays on the title of the 1969 film They Shoot Horses Don’t They? by Director Sydney Pollack.

    An extract from the film synopsis on IMDb reads, “A young boy by the name of Robert sees his hillbilly father shoot a horse with a broken leg to put it out of its misery.

    Years later, it’s the Great Depression, the 1930’s. Robert dreamed of being a great filmmaker but is now almost broke. He decides to enter a Los Angeles dance marathon, a craze that many people are falling into in California with the promise of winning cash. It is there that he meets his first dance partner, a beautiful but caustic and bitter woman named Gloria, apparently recovering from a suicide attempt. For her, after years of bad luck with men and no money herself, the dance competition offers her false happiness. Together, she and Robert form a friendship.

    As the competition goes on, it becomes evident that the show host, Rocky, doesn’t have much money himself and, despite showing genuine remorse about it, he frequently exploits and psychologically abuses the dancers and makes a spectacle out of them for the viewers of the show, who pay him a great deal of money every day just to get into the arena. Alice, an aspiring actress, goes into hysterics when her beloved dress is stolen, and a man’s leg becomes paralyzed. When he falls unconscious, he is given castor oil and doused in ice water, and then forced to dance again. A pregnant woman dances and has to race with her husband around a track, often becoming exhausted and collapsing.”

    An interesting analogy made by the ‘THEY SHOOT BOYS DONT THEY?’ auteur. And in some ways, I can see why he thought the title suitable. “…I chose this title not only for the shock value and obvious click bait effect but also because at times being discriminated against by a community can feel as though you are being attacked or shot.”

    I spoke to him further on the project:

    In which way does this film and still image series address this pressing issue and does it in any way provide a solution? Do you believe that this film is a true reflection of the lived experience of queer identifying bodies in Botswana?

    The idea was to depict that there is no real difference between a kiss between, a man and a man versus a man and a woman. It is all affection. In doing so we hope to ignite conversations around set of issues concerning identity, gender, sexuality, spirituality, knowledge and power. In putting the different ‘homophobic’ quotations between scenes we wished to challenge the very people that are against same sex unions with the kind of slurs the LGBTQI+ community are faced with from them on a daily. I believe the film is a true reflection of the queer community as the story was inspired by many of our coming stories.

    Could you tell me more about the process of creating this film? From conceptualization to the completed project?

    The film started as a short story and considering the wealth of the subject matter and its potential I then decided to develop it into a script for a short film. The short film was to act as a 3-minute showcase of the memories shared by the two characters in the short story. The film’s style was heavily influenced by home videos as they served as memories. We took inspiration from artists such as Harmoney Korine. The creative writing and conceptualizing was not the hardest part of the process rather the casting. Most men, gay and straight wouldn’t be a part of the film out of fear of the discrimination.

    What has been the general response by audiences to this project?

    The response online has mostly been positive. I think all the possible insults that could have been hurled at the film were in a way diffused by chiming them into the story with the quotes between scenes. The power was removed. The homophobes were shaken and confused.

    How do you believe that projects such as this can create more visibility for the queer community, enable equal marriage rights as well as create safe spaces for LGBTQI+ identifying individuals?

    When we reflect on representation and visibility, what has aided and amplified people being seen, and their voices added to our cultural landscape is film and photography.

     

    For more info on the project and to view the film visit bananaemoji.com

  • Real Madrid – searching for empathy and unpacking emotionality

    Real Madrid – searching for empathy and unpacking emotionality

    When visiting the Real Madrid website, one is introduced to their work through a background video of adolescents hanging out on a beach, and a still image of a white flower layered onto the video. Black text in the top left corner of the page provides another gateway to experiencing their work. Welcome to their world of ambiguity.

    Founded in 2015 by Bianca Benenti Oriol and Marco Pezzotta, and currently based in Switzerland, Real Madrid’s focus is on collective conditions, sexual development, and their emotionalities. The name plays on that of the Spanish football team, and this choice speaks directly to ideas around branding, authorship and the insurrection of subjugated knowledges or ways of existing. Perhaps one day someone will be searching online for images of a soccer team and among the results will be queer art.

    Photography by BAK

    In an interview, the duo explained to me that their choice to work together came out of casual collaboration. After taking part in an exhibition together in Italy, and feeling how they were able to sync organically, they took on the collective name.

    “With our identity, we question authorship by claiming our status as an imitation of an overpriced brand, basing our practice where politics crash with intimacy. The spectacle of sport is often connected with nationalism by media systems, extending a symbolic competition between nations. The interest in miscommunication led to a name that makes it problematic to spread and track images of the work on any search engine,” they state in a text introducing their work.

    Photography by James Bantone

    Glass, wood, silver wool, ink, bicycles, and fruit. Their chosen mediums vary, with the selection inserting an additional layer of the work to peel open. There is a sense of ambiguity in some of their work, and this empowers viewers to be active in their engagement with Real Madrid’s art.

    Earlier this year the duo spent a month in Johannesburg, interacting with the Gay and Lesbian Archive (GALA). The process of sifting through the research becomes a form of art in itself, searching for the personal, the emotional and entry points of empathy, tying into the fact that their work is mostly narrative-based. Reflecting on their interaction with the archive, they mention that, “You try to create empathy with the document, which is a very important tool for research.”

    Photography by James Bantone

    They spent most of their time inside the Cooper-Sparks Queer Community Library and Resource Centre, which was started over 25 years ago in a community member’s closet. Back then only those who knew about it were able to access it. In their word, the history behind the library brings to the fore questions around what the political aspects are of shifting between a public and a private context, making GALA an archive that transcends these classifications.

    They also expressed that there is a kind of familiarity when traveling to big cities, even though the languages, experiences and, references are different. It could be a kind of familiarity that comes from a sense of being people who live within an urban space and could act as a contributor to their desire to visit the gallery at GALA. Therein recognizing that certain sensibilities or outlooks may be influenced by where a person is from, but there is some sort of overlap in stories. Familiarity in thinking through and possibly struggling to untangle signifiers for femininity and masculinity, and the forced division between these. There is also finding ways of thinking about the emotionality of sexual development, and what it means to be a sexual being.

    To keep up with Real Madrid’s work follow them on Instagram or check out their website.

    Photography by James Bantone
  • WYAA // Providing Platforms for the Emergence of Young Artists

    WYAA // Providing Platforms for the Emergence of Young Artists

    Cantilevered concrete extends into a crisply lit tower foregrounding the bright cerulean winter sky. Tire treads mark the intersection of an arterial road, the pulse connecting the suburbs of Johannesburg to the heart of the city. Adjacent, a narrow side street reverberates the sounds of lorries and delivery vans. The bustling sidewalk is grounded by rectangular forms – interjected by an iron grate ashtray. Indigenous foliage peppers a raised platform of slate stones. This is the corner occupied by The Point of Order.

    The Point of Order operates as a mixed-use project space managed under the exhibitions programme of the Division of Visual Arts at the Wits School of Arts. This year nine students were selected to participate in the Wits Young Artist Award – a prestigious event that aims to provide an exhibition platform for emerging artists. Notions of inherited legacy, gender, sexuality and mapping space were explored throughout the show.

    Allyssa Herman is interested in the way knowledge is produced around the kitchen table and domestic space. A kitsch ceramic canine inherited from her grandmother is central to the work A Shrine for my Bitch. “A shrine for my bitch, it’s just that. A shrine for my bitch. My bitch is an embodiment of me, an embodiment of the woman who have passed, who’s ideals live in me…This bitch has been sitting in my grandmother’s home watching me all my life, she deserves a shrine, she deserves to be praised. My bitch is both dead and alive. She is that bitch. We are that bitch. Bow down bitches!” The shrine, arranged with an abundance of fake flowers, family portraits, candles and doilies pay homage to Allyssa’s matriarchal lineage – the veil between life and death.

    Artworks by Lebogang Mabusela

    “I hate doilies. There is something very suspicious about the cleaning, masking, covering, and the needing to impress that comes with being a woman. The passing down of these doilies happens in those moments when mama’ tells me gore ngwanyana o kama moriri; ngwanyana ga a tlhabe mashata; ngwanyana o dula so, ga a tlaralle” says runner-up Lebogang Mabusela. Lebogang’s response to these crocheted signifiers of femininity and ‘black womanhood’ is to reimagine them through a series of monotype prints. “Doilies are used to conceal flawed and plain surfaces in a more decorative way. They are about dignity, integrity and keeping a seductive, elegant and glamorous home even when things are just falling apart slightly, because Abantu bazothini?” Her work tenderly addresses the transference of societal projections on paper.

    Cheriese Dilrajh also engages the domestic sphere in her work. “A space can feel foreign to you even if it is your home. It can make you question your existence.” Her installation of suspended sarees adorned with paper plants and a video projection of “alien plants of the Internet” challenges tradition and the notion of inherited culture. “People can be thought of as plants. There are indigenous and alien, each determined which is which by the space it is allowed to flourish and survive in. Plants are interesting to me as they sometimes appear to embody human characteristics. My grandmother would also often transfer plants from her house to our garden.” Her interests extend into decolonising the self  – “postcolonial is not only a theory, it is lived and embodied. It is everywhere, and identity becomes distorted and confusing, informing our growth.”

    Installation piece by Cheriese Dilrajh

    Dominique Watson‘s haunting bed installation is a response to a project created by the SADF during apartheid at the time of the Border Wars. Conscripts classified as homosexual or ‘deviant’ were sent to Ward 22 of the Military Hospital in Voortrekkerhoogte. In this ward they were subject to the ‘conversion’ procedures of electroshock therapy and chemical castration. Dominique discovered documentation of these atrocities in GALA‘s archive – including accounts from patients as well as their families. She describes this, “history as a haunting” whereby the medical gaze approached the queer body as one riddled with disease. The red bedsheet bound around the military-style cot has been stained with institutional ink – signifying the oppressive nature of the establishment.

    For his provocative work, Oratile Konopi collaborated with Hip-hop artist Gyre. Oratile’s piece is a visual response to the musician’s single entitled Eat My Ass. “We went about creating an artwork with its own narrative. The narrative of a dinner date in which you would get to know someone, going through two courses but the desert not being eaten rather alluding to the idea that something else is being ‘eaten’.” Oratile explores notions of masculinities central to the identity of black men in his artistic practice – often employing music as a device to create a point of accessibility. The installation offers an opportunity for the audience to engage with the works in a tangible form – adding to what would otherwise be limited to digital interface. Oratile and Gyre use this platform to, “speak on the issues related to gender and sexualities present in the music sonically and extending it visually. We chose the LP format because it speaks to a different moment in time. Complicating the idea that multiple sexualities are something only present in the contemporary moment and did not exist in the past.”

    Installation piece by Dominique Watson

    Framing- white- female- emerging artist- my eyes- camera- images- physical collage- print- in my mind- digital- photoshop- film strips- chance- abstract- representational- titles- When You Swipe Your ABSA Card- overlapping- labour- different people’s labours- my labour- making sense of my surroundings. Sarah-Jayde Hunkin locates herself within the city. Her processed-based work is centred around the transference of images and collaging experience. Frustrated with the lack of female representation in linocut printmaking, Sarah-Jayde is interested in the perception of ‘aggressive’ mark-making. Her print combines techniques of visualising negative space as well as delicate and fine marks.

    Kira De Cavalho‘s MAPPING SPACES articulates locations topographically. The combination of paint and chalk is used to mark a fabric surface. The suspended map spans. “between my childhood homes (Mulbarton, Rosettenville and Kensington). The graphic threaded floor plans overlay the map and symbolise personal dynamics within my living spaces. These dynamics and associated traumas are expressed through different coloured cotton thread and linear layout.”

    ‘MAPPING SPACES’ by Kira De Cavalho

    Nishay Phenkoo‘s Matrimonium study after The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even engages with its implicit Duchampian reference and the union of personified forms. “The deep enveloping gaze of the easels consumed within each other offers insight to the complexities of the marriage, its off-white veil of dust elegantly poised atop the head of its recipient awaiting a hopeful life of bliss and happiness.” Hymn Die Irae by Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner reverberates through the space while, “The recipients deeply intoxicated by the other lost in a subliminal bondage under the warm pink light imbued with parallelisms to the hand of god.”

    This year’s winner, Kundai Moyo, explores issues of consent within the photographic practice. “I became curious about scale and the illusion of intimacy and that often lends itself to things that are small enough to fit in the palm of our hands, the psychological effects of this attachment and whether or not presenting something on such a small scale diminishes some of the problematic notions attached to it.” Her sculptural works entitled, Photo Albums: Vol. I & II are two tiny velvet-covered hand-bound books each containing a photographic series captured in Mozambique last year. Many of the images feature the human subject going about the doldrums of daily life. After producing the series, Kundai contemplated the moral dilemma of exploiting the image of strangers and the inequal power dynamic inherent in photography. She decided to, “construct a mechanism that would allow for viewers to peer into the lives of these strangers in a way that did not leave them exposed to the essentialist scrutiny that often comes with the unanimous viewing by a large audience.” Her photo albums attempt to create a tender moment of intimacy in the interactive piece.

    The exhibition runs until the 7th of August.

    ‘Photo Albums: Vol. I & II’ by Kundai Moyo
    Artwork by Oratile Konopi and Gyre
    Artwork by Sarah-Jayde Hunkin
  • Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragile – A Question to The Art of Photography and its Materiality

    Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragile – A Question to The Art of Photography and its Materiality

    An activation of materiality. A display of careful calculation. Grids and lines are followed in a non-conforming rhythm. Architecture is used as a curatorial device. An installation masterpiece. A photograph as a test. A photograph as a material object. A photograph as a sculptural object. Images untouched by digital manipulation. Welcome to two decades of Wolfgang Tillmans embodied under the title Fragile. Fragility apparent in both subject and material artefact.

    Patient, yet enthusiastic spectators gather to consume the address by JAG’s curator-in-chief, Khwezi Gule, at the press opening of Fragile. As Gule leaves, Tillmans begins to guide his audience, manoeuvring eager bodies through the expanse of his show. Stepping into the first space you are frozen in your tracks by one of his most well-known works, Lutz & Alex sitting in the trees (1992) – a large-scale photograph of two figures, naked torsos exposed, finding minimal cover with their vinyl jackets loosely styled on their frames. But the amazement, appreciation and emotion that his works instil are yet to be explored by us, his immediate audience.

    Tillmans invites his audience to interact with Sendeschluss/End of Broadcast by asking us to step closer to the black and white pixel image. Just close enough to prevent your face from touching the surface. And it is then revealed to the naked eye that this image is constructed of colour. This opening to the show, comprised of over 200 works spanning from 1986 – 2018, invites a word of caution from the artist, warning against first impressions, and encouraging a second look.

    ‘Lutz, Alex, Suzanne & Christopher on beach’

    With work that holds an eminent position in the world of contemporary art, the artist is known for his perpetual redefining of the photographic medium as an artefact of materiality and as an image constructed by light. Led by an unquenchable curiosity, Tillmans navigates the world and reproduces that which he observes with his eye by occasionally placing a camera in front of it. His abstract works and more sculptural pieces include Paper Drop, the Lighter series (one of Tillmans’ very view series of work) and Freischwimmer / Greifbar. Through his experimental approach, Tillmans has developed the photographic medium, both the technical and aesthetic potentialities of the practice further.

    Intimacy, compassion and familiarity translate in image form creating a tangible emotion. An observational modus operandi characterised by a humanist approach to the complexities of the world. Tillmans’ oeuvre comprises of his club culture photographs from the 1990s, abstract works that find their footing in extreme formal reductionism, images narrowing in on the beauty of the everyday, and depictions that display a rigorous perception containing a grounded socio-political awareness.

    ‘Freischwimmer / Greifbar’

    In discussion with the German photographer he elaborates on his interest in objects of the everyday and the narrative of his work by explaining that for him these objects are not necessarily banal objects. His train of thought continues to the value of such objects, “I’m very aware of the values potentially attributed to the things that I photograph, but want to leave the absolute values also quite open.” Explaining this statement through various examples of images in the exhibition, he ends off with the following trajectory, “I choose not to influence. I choose things to settle. It’s the narratives that are usually non-linear objects, and people and places in the pictures and installations. The narratives and associations are definitely more driven by challenging value systems.”

    Reflecting on his work, Tillmans expresses that he does not see himself as a deconstructivist but rather leans towards what he refers to as a nostalgic modernist. “My way of installation at first glance is sort of not modernist but maybe actually it is because there is a certain purity and vigor and a trust in a linear development. Not just in atomization. It looks so super multi varied but actually there are, rhythms, there are recurring themes…”.

    Contrary to tradition, Tillmans does not often work within the frame of series. After the act of taking his photograph, the need to recreate a similar image is worn. “Because I like to make work that is coming from an actual engagement with a subject matter in the here and now and not just from the idea that I should make another one like this.” Tillmans here refers to a feeling of intensity – an instinct to create. Over 30 years of photographing he now has “families of pictures”.

    ‘Deer Hirsch’

    Connecting the works on display to fragility, Tillmans explains that Fragile fulfills the purpose of working as a title and is not a defining label in itself. There are however moments of fragility captured in an expression, in an emotion felt or in the medium of photography. Then there is the fragility of appropriating the world as can be seen in the work Truth Study Centre. Attracted to the economic nature of the photographic medium, Tillmans equally enjoys the ability it has to facilitate conversations around physically concrete and sculptural issues.

    Tillmans sees the art as something that allows him to speak about the physical world and simultaneously penetrate something that is more psychological. “It’s so able to record emotions and relations and it can manipulate a lot and pretend a lot but used sensitively it is an incredibly psychological medium.”

    What draws one to a Wolfgang Tillmans show is more than the images displayed, in part you are pulled by his curatorial method that becomes an artwork in itself. Looking back on his journey with curation, Tillmans explains that his current mode of display was not something which he had planned to be a recurring part of his practice. He states, “I didn’t plan to come up with a way of making art that would leave ultimately only myself to install the exhibitions and it ended up this way.” It was with his first exhibition in 1993 that he first employed this method of display resulting in curators asking him to bring forth his particular grammars and syntaxes in shows. “…it really is to try to represent the way how I look at the world. Which is not just ordered in sections and it’s not all in a line. It’s allowing different attitudes.”

    ‘Paper Drop’

    An agreement to the fragility that defines us as individuals and that influences our relations to one another is viewed as strength. Since his adolescence, Tillmans has been acutely aware of this interplay which is marked throughout the expanse of his artistic practice. Fragile has been used by Tillmans before, as an early artist name as well as the title of a music project he was involved in. Teasing out new ways of making with frailty, failure and rifts, these make reference to the imperfection of life and open up diverse perspectives on the materiality of the above.

    Subjectivity with the potential to transform. Providing an extensive overview of his complex work this exhibition is a showcase of the various shapes of artistic expression of Wolfgang Tillmans. The show includes photography from large scale installations taking up an entire room, to small post card images and even smaller polaroids of 90’s party culture, publications, sculptural objects, video content and the installation practice particular to the artist. Activating discourse, an exchange of reaction takes place when presented with new scenarios. Space is given for mystery, deep emotion and speculation.

    A sculptural practice wrapped around economy. An absolute awareness of the materiality of, not only his medium, but life itself. The deeply psychological nature of his portraits ingrained. To see as never seen before. Attending this show is a perception warp itself and a realization of fragility, a realization of your own inevitable fallibility and life span. If you enjoy walking out of your comfort it is definitely where you should be.

     

    Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragile will run to the 30 September 2018 at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. I promise there is no regretting it.

    ‘Headlight (f)’
    ‘Anders pulling splinter from his foot’
    ‘astro crusto’
  • ‘Close Encounters’ // A group show exploring the multiplicity of intimacy by SMITH Gallery

    ‘Close Encounters’ // A group show exploring the multiplicity of intimacy by SMITH Gallery

    “Intimacy is too often confined with matters of love; yet the word belongs more to trust, to faith. It denotes an act of revelation found in the simple gesture of sharing; bringing that which was previously hidden out from the shadows and into the light. In this exhibition, the artworks chosen explore intimacy in both their content and their form. They touch on universal themes – like birth and love and death – but also on other more singular intimacies; personal histories, dreams and desires. The works reflect on self- intimacy, experienced in solitude, and the intimacy shared between us, be it romantic or platonic, familial or fleeting. There is, too, intimacy of familiar spaces, spaces we inhabit in both the world and in our minds. And then, there is the intimacy of objects, and our relationships to them; a cherished photograph, clothes left lying on the floor, a coffee half drunk, now gone cold, a letter hidden in a bottom drawer. And always an implied subject, who has held and touched these objects, so that each becomes a metonym for something, or someone, else.” – reads the introductory paragraph of the essay on the group show titled The Art of Intimacy by Lucienne Bestall.

    Curated by SMITH’s own Jana Terblanche, Close Encounters, “…encompasses many intimacies. Intimacy between friends, family and even yourself. An ‘encounter’ extends beyond romantic love, and opens the show up to a certain type of multiplicity…” she tells me in response to the exhibition title.

    Terblanche explains further that, “The curatorial strategy seeks to make connections, and guide the audience to experience many versions of intimacy, but not to be too definitive in fixing its meaning.”

    ‘Looking in’ by Banele Khoza

    Interpretation, voyeuristic in its nature, peeks into private scenes in the works of Olivié Keck, Daniel Nel and Banele Khoza. As the viewer uncovers that which is hidden, they are confronted with the image of a sleeping woman with a bloodstain forming between her legs; with figures in a bedroom – dressing or undressing. A nude man cradles his foot in another work. As Bestall points out, the human shapes portrayed on these canvases appear to be unaware of their viewer, unaware of being watched. They are “…absorbed in their own worlds and insensible to ours. From this vantage, we become privileged viewers; seeing yet unseen.”

    Boy in Pool and Creepy Noodle by Strauss Louw presents as photographic montages reflecting on ideas surrounding sensuality and sexuality. The images’ quality can be compared to a fever dream, confused, stripped down. A recurring element in both frames is that of water. Water which is fluid and evokes connotations around spiritual cleanliness, the metaphorical washing away of sin; a baptism that promises new life, a new beginning. The images that reflect one another and in turn speak to one another show an intimacy that extends beyond photographic paper. The signifier, pool noodles and topless male torsos, signify more than the visual cues the artist brings to the fore. Bestall writes, “For him, the gesture of photographing is itself an act of intimacy; the silent communion between the subject and artist shared for only the briefest moment.”

    ‘Creepy Noodle’ by Strauss Louw

    Moments of grave intimacy equally take hold in this group show appearing as recollections of space lost, contemplations on censorship, erasure and that which is muffled. A weapon uncovered from the quite recesses of a grandmother’s bed.

    Returning to the intimacy of childhood, Thandiwe Msebenzi, Sitaara Stodel and Morné Visagie use film, collage and photographs to convey their meaning. Loss, longing and distance oozing from each pigment.

    ‘Unoma xabela ngezembe’ by Thanidwe Msebenzi

    Tapping into the darker avenues of the twisted mind, Michaela Younge and Stephen Allwright craft peculiar scenes of nightmarish fantasy. Younge’s work made from merino wool and felt, bring together eroticism, violence, sensuality and abjection. In this world of felt imagination nude figures, skulls, a doll’s head, the American Gothic and a lawnmower coexist on the same material plane.

    The intimacy of banal objects is considered by artists Gitte Möller and Fanie Buys. Buys’ Unknown Couple at their Wedding (muriel you’re terrible) is a painting of a found image depicting a bride and groom about to cut into their wedding cake. The familiarity of the scene is nostalgic as it is found as such in endless family photo albums.

    ‘Leda and the Handsome Glück’ by Michaela Younge

    Pairing the personal with the universal Amy Lester uses a monotype of a faceless woman that draws parallels with the Venus of Willendorf and other objects and images of fertility. Alongside hangs a photograph of the artist’s birth. This iteration of familial intimacy explores birth and the archetypal Mother figure.

    The viewer is moved from private bedroom scenes to depictions of violence, from a clear subject to an underlying layer of meaning, invited to engage with the scale of works, the theme of intimacy follows distinct threads. “Yet the works exhibited all share the same vulnerability. Something previously hidden is revealed; a secret spoken aloud, a memory described, a dark dream recalled. Such is intimacy, a word bound not to love, nor to the erotic. But rather, a word that denotes a certain knowledge, a privileged insight into the private life of another – another figure, another object, another place. Where some intimacies are lasting, others are only momentary; where some are apparent, others are not.” Bestall ends off.

    ‘Unknown Couple at their Wedding (muriel you’re terrible)’ by Fanie Buys

    The interdisciplinary group show Close Encounters will run from the 4 July – 28 July 2018.

    Join SMITH Gallery on a walkabout of the show on Saturday the 21st July at 11h00.

    Exhibiting artists include: Stephen Allwright, Fanie Buys, Grace Cross, Claire Johnson, Jeanne Gaigher, Jess Holdengarde, Olivié Keck, Banele Khoza, Amy Lester, Strauss Louw, Sepideh Mehraban, Nabeeha Mohamed, Gitte Möller, Thandiwe Msebenzi, Daniel Nel, Gabrielle Raaff, Brett Charles Seiler, Sitaara Stodel, Marsi van de Heuvel, Anna van der Ploeg, Morné Visagie, Michaela Younge

    ‘The Birth’ by Amy Lester
    ‘she looks at you as if looking for herself’ by Jess Holdengarde
    ‘Tonal Tears’ by Jess Holdengarde
    ‘But if it doesn’t have a garden we can’t keep the dog?’ by Sitaara Stodel
  • ‘Come Back To Bed’ – rediscovering intimacy

    ‘Come Back To Bed’ – rediscovering intimacy

    The following is written by Robert Tennent, a young man who is sharing his story of emotional healing after sexual assault through an exhibition and book titled ‘Come Back To Bed’. He hopes that by sharing his story it will provide awareness as well as offer a source of comfort and courage for those going through similar experiences.

    I don’t remember much but I do remember how I felt afterward. I remember getting home that night, confused about everything. I knew that I couldn’t be intimate with anyone for a long time.

    I felt like I didn’t know myself. Questioned my sexuality a lot. Extremely confused and pushed people away so I could be alone. I lost a lot of myself during that time. I developed an eating disorder and put my energy into something negative. I chose to remain celibate until I was sure about what I wanted to do, and also to accept what happened to me.

    I met a man who was a total dreamboat. We clicked instantly and I don’t think I will ever forget him. I had it all planned out in my head about how the night would go, and that was the first time I had thought seriously about having sex with someone again. We finished our drinks and decided to walk back to my hotel. We didn’t end up having sex but I knew I wanted to. I asked him if I could see him again soon and he said,“I’d like that”.

    He made sure I was comfortable. He told me he would stop if it was getting too much. He held me and kissed me to make sure I was okay. It was too much for me. I was getting flashbacks and my body rejected it. I told him I couldn’t do it and he stopped straight away. We fell asleep next to each other.

    A few months later I saw him again and we spent the weekend together. It came so naturally and we had a great time with one another. And this time we had sex. And I was okay with it. I had my camera on the side table next to his bed and asked if I could take a photo of him. He said yes so I snapped one picture of him covering his face. I took another one of his legs crossed. I developed them and saved them on my phone.

    I started doing this to everyone I slept with after this. I asked them beforehand and some were hesitant but most were fine with it. I wanted to make sure they were comfortable with it. I wanted to capture the intimacy in the images. I wanted to be able to remember every detail of my time with them. I wanted to be in control of the situation. I knew this was helping me. I had to go through this in order to move forward. I had to rediscover sex again. I knew this was something I wanted to share with the world.

    I began to write about these men. I wrote about how I felt about them. I also wrote about the man that assaulted me. But I decided to exclude that from my book. I read through it again today and I am choosing to share it. I am holding nothing back anymore.

    ‘A pain I would feel many more times in my life.

    But this pain lingered

    I felt as though my body had been tampered with. You cut the wires that went to my mind and switched off some parts of my body.

    I became a stranger in my own body.’

    I live in New Zealand and I rarely hear about these topics. We don’t speak about them in schools. New Zealand has the highest amount of teenage suicide worldwide. Everyone I spoke to about this had no idea, and I’m sure people reading this didn’t know. New Zealanders tend to look at the outside world and we hear these stories going on in the world but there is almost a ‘thank god it doesn’t happen here’ mentality. I have heard the sentence ‘it is worse in a lot of places’. This is not an excuse for us to ignore it in our country.

    To be able to hold the exhibition in my city was a blessing. I wanted to bring people together to talk about this and to bring survivors together to celebrate surviving. The book was a way to get people to speak about the topic. I used every opportunity I could to promote my story and the importance of healing and looking after yourself.

    I want the conversation to continue. There will be people out there who have no idea who I am but they know about my story and my book. That’s enough for me. If someone is speaking about assault and healing, then I have done what I wanted to do. If this conversation was around when I was going through my assault, I think it would have helped me. I want people to be able to know that there is a life after an assault and that it is hard at the time, but you can get through this.

    ‘Come Back To Bed’ is available online.

  • Using allegory as a conceptual and visual device with photographer Nydia Blas

    Using allegory as a conceptual and visual device with photographer Nydia Blas

    Artist Nydia Blas uses photography, collage, books and video in her exploration of lived experience, history and the limits of social constructs – specifically from her point of view as a Black woman and mother. Her work also touches on unpacking sexuality as well as understandings and expressions of intimacy.

    Using allegory as a conceptual and visual device in her photography, Blas webs together signifiers and articulations of value, power and circumstance through the Black feminine lens. She presents counter narratives, destabilizing stereotypes, and her work becomes testimonies of alternative spaces and identities created by the people she photographs. In doing so she delicately maps out the relationship between resilience and resistance.

    She is a recipient of the 2018 Light Work Grant, a photography program that supports artists working in Central New York. Her work is also featured in the book MFON: A Journal of Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, a commemorative publication that is committed to representing a collective voice of women photographers of African descent with the inaugural issue featuring 100 women photographers across the African diaspora.

    Her series The Girls Who Spun Gold was inspired by a number of factors, the most prominent being a group of women she met while working at a community centre before embarking on her MFA degree. Blas feels that their meeting was a serendipitous moment, as at the time she had just become a single mother of two children, and the women she met were at the age when Blas last remembers feeling a child. The decision to photograph these women came from the desire to maintain a connection, but soon into the process she felt the need to include herself in the series. “The result is a series of images that work to complicate the notion of what it means to be a girl, a teenager, and a mother. I want the subjects to reclaim themselves, for themselves. I want the images to speak to this intricate process that is painful, messy, beautiful, joyful, etc,” Blas expressed in an interview with Strange Fire Collective.

    Her latest series, Whatever You Like, sees Blas capture the people she photographs with an honesty that makes the viewer feel connected to each person. The work aims to unfold the ways that young women of colour learn to reclaim themselves for their own gratification, attempting to undo seeing themselves through the eyes of others. The simplicity of the images creates the feeling that these are moments of reflective self engagement that Blas was invited to monumentalize.

    Through the above mentioned series one can see how Blas takes on moments of transition, learning and reclaiming, allowing the people she photographs to take ownership of the image through their strong presence.

  • Kusheda Mensah’s Debut Collection ‘Mutual’ Inspires Empathy

    Kusheda Mensah’s Debut Collection ‘Mutual’ Inspires Empathy

    Furniture designer and LCC Surface Design graduate Kusheda Mensah‘s bold debut collection Mutual enunciates a maverick approach to both design and human interaction. This concept was originally that of Verner Pathon one of the designer’s strong influences amid 70s design sensibilities.

    During her studies at LCC, she became mesmerized by the designs of Pathon and the interactive spaces he created during the 1970s which made her question why people don’t sit like they used to anymore. Using her craft as a means of channelling her unfiltered emotional discontent with the way in which people interact socially as well as empathy, the young designer has created furniture to improve human relationships.

    As someone who has had experience with depression, Kusheda is of the opinion that creating designs to encourage intimacy could be critical to bettering everyday encounters that affect our mental health. “I really do want my furniture to be for everyone. When I first made the product I was thinking about how we can all better socialise. When we’re kids we’re told to play with toy blocks – it helps us develop socially and mentally – but why aren’t we doing that now?” she expresses in an interview with Another.

    Mutual is a collection that is still in its progress stages. The aim of the collection is to diversify the ways in which space is used at work and at home. The fluid designs can be easily arranged, swapped around and added to. Visually the collection presents an aesthetic evoked by Jenny Saville’s exploration of form, the use of colour for the collection is inspired by Ellsworth Kelly and composition choices are driven by Joan Miró. This collection characterized by its unconventionality stands to challenge our acceptance of impersonal design creations.

    Kusheda has designed her debut collection to mimic the human shape with its curves as she believes that this is more of an accurate definition of modular design as opposed to rectangular and circular shapes.

  • Meghan Daniels – The Photographer capturing honest emotion through the people closest to her

    Meghan Daniels – The Photographer capturing honest emotion through the people closest to her

    Candid intimacy. Grit. Snapshots of personal memories. Longing. These are the descriptions that come to mind when looking at the photographic repertoire of Meghan Daniels.

    Meghan Daniels is a Capetonian photographer whose work falls largely under the wing of documentary photography. Regarding her camera as an extension of herself, Meghan does not view what she photographs as subject matter, but instead a compilation of experiences taking the tangible shape of a photograph. “Basically, I guess I don’t care too much for photography but rather a sense of what I interpret, to be honest,” she expresses in an interview with DEAD TOWN zine.

    Meghan’s photographic practice began as a visual diary of sorts as she is drawn to capturing those closest to her – herself, friends, family, as well as memory inducing spaces. She articulates further that her visual diary acts as a way of capturing her feelings which touch on themes related to sexuality, gender issues, relationships, intimacy, love, pain, mental health and recovery. She sees photography as a mirror of herself and the world around her. “When people ask what I do, it’s difficult to say I’m a ‘photographer’ and that I ‘photograph’.”

    Photography has acted as a medium to facilitate processing the more difficult aspects of life for her. In her personal projects, Meghan captures moments as they unfold with the passing of time. In documentary projects her approach is grounded in research, participatory research methods which including the person/persons the project are centred around, as well as self-reflexivity which plays an integral function. Her commercial practice foregrounds certain visual signifiers that are a trademark of her eye, namely honesty, vulnerability, intimacy and grittiness.

    Meghan works as a photographer and cinematographer in a professional capacity. Her go-to camera arsenals are her Contax point and shoot as well as her medium format Mamiya. She is never devoid of inspiration. She finds it in the work of fellow South African creatives, areas seen while driving and the small details in life such as broken, flickering light bulbs just to name a few. But as is the case with most artists, feelings of melancholy also lend inspiration – trauma, heartbreak and so forth. Meghan often uses her practice to heal her own pain.

    Images of honesty and true emotion. Real people and real events. Meghan Daniels’ practice tugs on the heartstrings as her candid style is one that projects authenticity and the real nature in which she photographs those close to her makes one feel as though you know them or can identify with the feeling they convey.