calendario eventi  :: 

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25/7/2011

Three exhibitions

Kznsa Gallery, Durban

Angela Buckland
LOCATION - Block A, Thokoza Women’s Hostel

THOKOZA BY PROF RODNEY HARBER 2011

Ever since the colonial era Africans have had an ongoing struggle to reside in cities near to their workplaces. They were initially coerced into working by having taxes imposed but still had to stay in designated ‘locations,’ outside the city boundary. An exception were single sex hostels, exclusively for male workers, which were built within compounds at the mines, harbours or major industries. Men could also serve as a domestic ‘houseboy’. Hundreds of migrant workers carried ‘passbooks’ and would be confined for a stipulated period after which they had to return home. The living conditions in hostels were harsh and outwardly macho with the men sleeping in large dormitories. This often led to drinking and social violence.
Since the first democratic elections in 1994 there have been initiatives to replace hostels because they were a symbol of the past and also the scene of political manipulation. Hostels were to be transformed into family units. However this social scar still prevails today mainly because traditional land tenure is forfeited unless a spouse is resident thereon. This implies that the wife is generally homebound in a rural area.
This account is about a very different hostel known as ‘Thokoza’, the isiZulu word for ‘happiness’. It was the first hostel built exclusively for women in South Africa and opened in central Durban eighty five years ago. It remains the most densely inhabited residential site in the city and consists of small bedrooms stacked four storeys high around a courtyard and ablution facilities. Thokoza is crowded with African women seeking independence from the pervading male dominated society. They comprise domestic servants, street traders, students, bead artists, washer women, office workers and pensioners.
Women enter off the street through a single, controlled entrance leading into the secured surroundings. Temporary visitors hire wooden pallets to sleep on for a few cents an evening. They lie down in the courtyard, under the clothes lines or along corridors. Residents may apply for permanent status. After waiting for months for vacancies to occur they move into a dormitory and eventually onto the floor of one of the bedrooms. From there they eventually get allocated one of the three beds and pay a monthly rental.
The iron bedstead has a coir stuffed mattress and is flanked by bare wall.
The organizing principle of this photographic record are the numbered doors that protect each of these bedrooms. They are solid, surrounded by peeling walls and have cryptic signals of the political and religious allegiances of those secured behind them.
These photographs demonstrate how women gain ownership of their stark bedsteads with spontaneous homemaking which also expresses individuality in dozens of different ways. A clock often serves as a reminder of the monotony of rising at 4 am to wash, catching transport to work and returning at dusk to cook food, socialize briefly then retire once more.
The beds are normally covered with clear plastic to deter bed bugs and avoid damp or damage since this is their only space allocation. The bed serves as a table for food preparation and eating. As a wash stand for relative privacy away from the open showers or as a space to earn a living from. For example by supporting a dress-maker’s hand operated sewing machine.
A feature of the bedsteads is that they are invariably raised off the floor on old five litre paint tins. This is done to gain more space for storage below. Behind the neatly layered bed drapes one gets glimpses of the utilitarian aspects of their lives.
The women residing in Thokoza mostly stay there by choice, exiled from external life to retain control their own destiny and their individuality. The dignity and composure in the portraits demonstrate this. However these are contrasted by images of exhausted workers or others curled up pensively on their beds, the only little space they have secured ownership of.

Angela was the recipient of the Emma Smith Scholarship and completed her M.A. from Birmingham University, she has won numerous awards and was nominated for the international photographic award, Prix Pictet in 2010 and for the DaimlerChrysler award for South African Creative Photography in 2003. She has held solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her work is held in public and private collections. She has published two books, Zip Zip My Brain Harts, and Light on a Hill, both published in 2006.

Her personal practice focuses on private stories of seemingly ordinary people and “the lived experience”, how we interact with friends, lovers, our families and even with strangers; how we desire connectedness and a sense of belonging.

And in-between this she is just, mom.

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Phenomenal engagement
Chris de Beer

"I’ve been developing my metal smithing skills and did not quite know what to say with them. Now I’ve reached a stage where I realise that I am using these skills to engage with my immediate environment. I can comment, observe, engage, reflect and examine phenomena in my life through the skills and materials that I employ…
“The collaborative selection of work forms part of an auto-poetic and phenomenological exploration of identity with the understanding that identity is uniquely embedded within social, cultural and personal experiences. While the objects allude to wearable jewellery and its intimate association with the human body, the intention is to re-conceptualize the traditional understanding of jewellery.”

Phenomenal engagement
Marlene de Beer

"Traditional conceptions of jewellery have inherent restrictions due to the historical functions and the intimate relation of jewellery to the body. As a female artist/jeweller I use the creative process, which includes the choice of subject matter, manufacturing materials and techniques as a symbolic reconstruction of female identity.
The collaborative selection of work forms part of an auto-poetic and phenomenological exploration of identity with the understanding that identity is uniquely embedded within social, cultural and personal experiences. While the objects allude to wearable jewellery and its intimate association with the human body, the intention is to re-conceptualize the traditional understanding of jewellery."

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Lolette Smith
Isomorphicintergrammar – Code switching

By tying together language codes and by making the invisible, visible Lolette Smith enriches our understanding of communication. Visual language used by the Deaf is a meaningful spatial language, which conforms to all the syntactical, grammatical and morphological features of any spoken, verbal language.

Image: Angela Buckland, Room 146: Philisiwe from Ndwedwe, cashier. Resident 6 yrs

Opening: Tuesday 26 July 6pm

Kznsa Gallery
166 Bulwer Road - Durban

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