INTERCHANGE - Artist's Residency Exhibition

Jack Heath Art Gallery, 2022

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This series emerged from discussions and interactions with an artist’s group formed during lock down between three Durban-based artists - Doung Jahangeer, Matthew Ovendale and Michelle Stewart and Egyptian Artist in Residence (UKZN), Sherif El Azma. The residency began when South Africa was placed at Alert Level 4 of the Disaster Management Act, to combat the spread of COVID – 19. Thus, with all learning and working having moved to the online platform, we decided to go ahead with the residency in the same manner, online. To connect Sherif with local Durban artists we formed an artist's group, which met online every Friday evening over a period of 5 months in the latter half of 2021. Our dialogue focused on a cultural exchange by ‘proxy’ - using a set of key words that we felt connected us and our two cities – these included: psychogeography, street dogs, garbage, colonialism, trauma, memory, fragments, statues, facades, street kids (among others). Most of these sessions were recorded and included seminars by each artist on their past work and current ideas. We used these sessions to formulate our ideas for a work or a series of works that could culminate from the exchange. We used an archival approach sharing photographs, video, sonic recordings, works in process and texts. Coming together each week, during these strange and dislocated times, broadcasting from opposite ends of the continent, was a vitalizing and memorable experience. The recordings of these sessions are not just a valuable archive of a cultural exchange but an historical document of shared experiences during a global pandemic. While the key words were a catalyst for starting the dialogue, the main areas of discussion that emerged were creating and sharing artworks ‘by proxy,’ representing identity and memory and the notion of visual and psychological fragmentation.  

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A focus was on materials that could be shared by 'proxy' – such as 3D and 2D digital image files that could be sent and printed as well as video and sound files. Thus, I decided to create a series of  three 3D sculptures that could be sent as digital files, digitally screened as animated turntables, and printed as 2D prints on paper and/or 3D prints in polymer plastic. The final works for the 'Interchange' Exhibition were presented on digital screens as animated turntables and as 3D sculpture, printed in polymer plastic. The series is based on fragmented childhood memories of Durban beach front and a long-term interest in the local history, colonial past and developing aesthetic of the Rickshaw pullers. The work is a re-conceptualization of past paintings and drawings and is based on a deep-rooted fascination with Durban Rickshaw pullers and a childhood memory of being chased by an enraged Rickshaw puller – at age 9 – after my brother took a photograph and could not produce the R10 fee. I have long since reflected on this experience – which changed my child’s perception of a colorful and friendly tourist attraction to a nightmarish confrontation with the ‘other.’  For this work I interviewed, discussed my proposed artwork, and photographed a Rickshaw puller (well-paid this time!) and his cart - from uShaka beachfront. I used these as visual references for the 3D sculptures, especially for the wheels of the carriage and the horns from the headdress. While refurbished, the carriage and headdress are least 80-90 years we surmised, having been passed down his family for generations. The feet are from a combination of photographs of his feet and images of Rickshaw pullers dating from the late 1890's. This series alludes to my fragmented childhood memories but also reflects on the hazards of the job, especially from the 1890’s to early part of the 20th century when Rickshaw pullers were a means of transport on Durban’s streets. Rickshaw pullers could not sustain the job for more than three months at a time and often succumbed to pneumonia brought on by the grueling nature of the job. Those who survived the job needed to be especially resilient – and tended to develop large calf muscles and sturdy feet – as alluded to in the sculptures of the legs and feet and accentuated by the cow hide thong tightly tied around the top of the calf - an adornment from the early days. The horns were introduced as an aesthetic by the Rickshaw pullers themselves – the visual connotation this has to oxen pulling wagons is unavoidable and for me has always presented an uncomfortable visual irony within the context of South African history.