It’s just over a week since I dismantled my performance installation in Pretoria , and 4 weeks on from the actual performance of the work informed by my Master’s dissertation. Both were immense tasks of endurance, physically and mentally. The rising of the frosty new stubble on my head marks the passing of this time, [...]
Tsundoku: the act of leaving a book unread after buying it; typically piling it up together with other such unread books. This singularly perfect Japanese word wonderfully describes my present condition. This is not to say that I am not reading. No, on the contrary, I am reading (and writing) in vast amounts. But it [...]
My final year students are in the process of conceptualizing in order to create a body of work for an exhibition at the end of the year. One of them is dealing with social media and this resulted in me reflecting on my own troubled, ambivalent history with this post-modern form of interaction. I thought [...]
Remember when you were a kid? Remember when you got back to school after the holidays the teacher would get each of you up in front to tell the class what you did? Remember show & tell? I do, I especially remember in class one (grade one) getting up and telling the class that my [...]
So What?! Above: 40rty by swany (2016) OK, so here is probably the most uncomfortable lesson, art as an academic pursuit has presented me with: the “so what?” lesson. “So what?” is uncomfortable because it immediately makes you aware of the dissonance within your world and you cannot help but find yourself outside of your [...]
LABOUR OF LOVE: The phrase is often used when viewing artists work. The meaning is given to be a task done for pleasure, not reward. Implicit in that phrase are 3 things – time, hardship/opposition and extreme personal involvement. Linking them all is the artist’s commitment or investment to a specific project. What you have [...]
