11th: So it is time for Sasol New Signatures again. Entered two pieces into the competition and both got in. So it seems that three is not the
magic number after all, or is it? Lets see the year is 2012. Multiply two by zero, add one and two 2 and there you have three. Also last year my one entry got in and this year my two got in. Yes yes I know that makes three. So going on this evidence I would say that without doubt that three is the magic number.
This is almost a repeat of last year where I was stuck without transport for the day. No transport + unselected pieces being left at the submission point = annoyed Nandi.
Here are the bits of waffle that I put with my entries:
Die Oubaas: someone who is senior in
terms of rank or age. A term that has connotations of the period of apartheid
when the whites ruled and the blacks served. A term that can now be said, with
its links to the past, to have negative undertones. entries
In Die Oubaas I wanted to explore the
question of just how white people are perceived in the ‘Rainbow Nation’. They arrived
on the continent with a technological advantage and proceeded to try and mould
what they found to serve their wants. Over centuries they gained control. They
knew what was best and how it should be done.
Then gradually, one by one, nations
controlled by the recently arrived minorities were let go. In the case of South
Africa this was 18 years ago but yet there remains a notion that the Whites are
still in control, that they are living off the hard work of the black majority.
Just recently Zuma stated that, “The ownership of the economy is still
primarily in the hands of white males as it has always been”. This quote came
just as I was putting together some of the basic traits for my white people in
the ‘Oubaas’ series. A list of stereotypes ranging from the mild to the
extreme, each containing just enough truth to reveal a certain resentment. A
disquiet that all too often white people ignore because they know what is best
and they are right. They are the Oubaas.
Man met Zonnebloemen: At the top of the road that I live in
there is a field. Every year in April sunflowers flourish here. As if by magic
they sprout up and slowly grow until the whole field is full of tall yellow
blooms following the sun. The only sign of human intervention is a hosepipe
snaking across the road. The source a tap in a garden of a home. The owner, a
foul mouthed drunk with, it would appear, a penchant for beauty. The one and
only time I’ve seen him he was completely lost in his ranting, the use of a
hooter by a delivery man having launched him into a hyper critical diatribe.
I set up my camera to take a self
portrait. As I stood in the field amidst all the splendor, a vague sense of
unease haunted me. Though in an open field I was an intruder standing amidst
the fruits of another’s labor. This other being in possession of a rage that I
feared confronting. A rage that even all the cheery yellow of the flowers could
not soothe. Fortunately I remained undisturbed and was left with the
incongruity of such beauty being born out of the hands of such fury
