The Gugsblog

Looking at the Space Through a Magnifying Glass

“Upstairs Downstairs” is being characterized by works dedicated to the theme of space, both public and domestic, it is to be highlighted that the pieces in the exhibition primarily dealing with the discourse of space from a township point of view.

The work titled “A Building is a Man ” to be exhibited at the AVA deals with domestic spaces allotted to generations of black people by the apartheid regime. Scores of families migrated into secluded dormitory housing complexes on the outskirts of the townships of Langa, Gugulethu and Nyanga. These people literally, for generations raised their families from dormitory beds. The work is dedicated to their continuing plight, a plight planned in the board-rooms they have never laid eyes on.

The works at TaMlami’s Place “Downstairs Upstairs”are inspired by another crucial space in township settings, the school as a space of socialization and education, just like the domestic space plays a significant role in the social and psychological make up of an individual. The book instillation, the chained desk, and the floating office, demonstrate the disillusionment rife in township schools. The disillusionment with personhood and the disillusionment with the content of the education system echoes the calamitous days of the 1970’s and the 1980’s, buried within the characters of the schools is an imbalance that post-apartheid South Africa has not accounted for, it’s the very same imbalance that the state then, wanted solve with aggression.

The performers are kind of mysterious characters, stuck in an invisible wall, their presence within this wall would bring the book instillation to life. They embody the disillusionment, there is nothing with embodying the disillusionment, for it might be the mystery lurking beneath the condition of the modern day school in the township. The performance is titled “The Birth of the Disillusionment”, the question we have to ask ourselves is whether invisible wall is broken down by the dancers.

The Outreach Program that accompanies the up coming exhibition resonates with countless enthusiastic conversations within Gugulective in implementing such programs within township schools. Working with the theme we are working with at TaMlamli’s Place, this exhibition seems to be tailor made for Gugulective.

The issue of space is our daily bread, it is a legacy forced unto us by apartheid. It has been a legacy we have come to accept, and a legacy that has become difficult to disown, for generations families have grown rooted into the spaces.

An element we hope the audience considers from these pieces is their immediate relationship the scores of people who interact with these spaces. Whether it is the nature of a rigid and austere that affects the collective socio-psychology of families and individuals who where forced into these structures, remains a mystery to us, but a mystery we are yet to uncover.

A Building in a Man

“Downstairs”, the art work at AVA, attempts to make clear to the viewer the degree to which space cages an individual, depending on the architecture of a building. In a building you always interact with space in relation or engagement with other people or person who utilizes that particular space. It becomes clear then that one residing in a small space with other bodies interacts with space in a very constricted manner, in that it becomes difficult to assert oneself through the space, one is barren of the freedom to create a private space for oneself, one is also limited in terms of movement through the space.

The materials on the wall are not commemorating those who residing in such conditions, as a work of art, it seeks to put to the fore their dignity. By utilizing the objects in a space with the social and cultural standing of the AVA, we are traversing spaces, not just physical space, but ideological space as well.

Mamphele Ramphele’s monumental study “A Bed Called Home” is research based in the townships of Langa, Nyanga and Gugulethu, and as she journey’s through peoples’ lives, she stumbles upon the notion of “wholeness”, and words such as dignity, self-respect and individuality connote this notion, what she brings to light to the reader is the lack of such characteristics amongst the people who reside in such spaces. Her work echo and testifies to the voices that acutely eyed black people’s circumstances in the past, but never reached relevant ears, or to be historically correct were barred from voicing their work. It also attests to the fact that no group of people would consciously subject themselves to circumstances disparaging to themselves as a people.

The amalgamation of objects on the wall, their clustered nature, seeks to make clear the extent to which individuals in a single hostel room seek completion or an individual presence within the surrounding atmosphere. The informal settlement is an extension of the conditions of the typical hostel dwelling, as time passed families could not accommodate more bodies within the hostel space, they were forced to erect provisional “homes” to accommodate family members migrating from the Eastern Cape and other provinces. In a typical hostel dwelling the items do not belong to a single individual, they do not belong to a single family, more often than not they belong to individuals within families that are resident on the beds. In an informal home, the security of a family’s valuables depends on the surrounding humanity present, neighbors become more than just neighbors.

The dormitory architecture typical of any hostel shares the same characteristics as the housing structures in townships in general. This particular architectural style has a destructive feature, a feature proven to have destabilizing affects on one’s being and this is due to the minute distribution of space. Citing research done in other parts of the world on people residing in similar conditions as the township hostels, in places like South America, the favelas in Rio Brazil, one resident states that “One has to be an artist to survive as a poor person…you have to imagine space where there is none”. The point that Ramaphele is making is that the energy that can be utilized in improving one’s being, one is forced to focus his or her energies on surviving. The issue of space then, it becomes clear is a global issue.

Through violent coercion generations of people learnt to call these tiny spaces home. From these destabilizing conditions a number of brilliant individuals emerged, masters of their differing endeavors, from these conditions emerged masters of political rhetoric, artists, musicians, business men, proves that before one triumphs over challenges, one has to first learn to call with pride and humility – even a bed – home.

Our acute collective eye also spies, the dormitory character of the township house-hold, is present in the architectural execution of the typical school, the typical jail-house, your typical psychiatric ward. It’s all there, in the diminutive rigidity and the uniformity.

During our last exhibition last year at TaMlamli’s Place, Kemang Wa-Lehulere stated when he was opening the event that our work deals with issues affecting our community. Downstairs is no different. We feel the need to mention this for the purposes of reminder to those who attended the event, and we appeal for understanding in this regard and would prefer that our work be criticized or intellectually engaged with, with that particular context in mind.

We would like to introduce ourselves as the creative intellectualism of a society whose value system is grounded on notions of community or the collective. We do not to claim to be pioneers, no, like every aspect of a society or community, we have inherited this. Our acute collective eye, spies a grave lack of change in these times of transformation. This lack of change also has a stance in spaces outside our community, even in institutions of higher learning. Post-apartheid South Africa is failing to realize transformation; such an exhibition provided space for interrogation and scrutiny for this lack of change. At this point in this country’s history we need to ask ourselves, how do we learn and teach each other that the ideologies that divide us are not necessarily a basis for ostracism or prejudice. Such an exhibition, with it’s freedom to traverse ideological space destroyed the superficiality of division we seem to think is the basis of our ideologies.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

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