2012 Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Winner’s Solo Exhibition
The French cultural network of Alliances Française
in Southern Africa, together with ABSA L'Atelier Art Competition, in collaboration
with Alliance Française de Durban and artSPACE Durban, is pleased to announce “Umlambo Uzizwa nge Dondolo”, an
intriguing solo exhibition presented by winner of the prestigious 2012 Gerard
Sekoto prize, Bambo Sibiya.
-->
The solo exhibition Umlambo Uzizwa
nge Dondolo - a traditional isiZulu expression literally meaning “to test the waters, in the hopes of deciphering someone or something’s character” -
is an exploration of the various aspects of township life, with particular
emphasis on single-parent households and the position of men within these
households. Within this discourse, Sibiya explores the lifestyle of migrant
labourers who had left their families and moved to Johannesburg at the peak of
Apartheid, in the hopes of finding work.
Sibiya’s visual and conceptual compositions are
influenced by the characters which have become an impressionable part of his
experiences being one of three children raised by a single mother in KwaThema
Township, just outside of Johannesburg. In his works, Sibiya captures women’s
eternal fight for finding ways of feeding, nurturing, and protecting their children
and families. In the series of children’s faces, Sibiya invites us to celebrate
the beauty and promise that children hold for the world, but never forgetting
to make the viewer aware of the responsibility that one holds in shaping the
future of South Africa. Sibiya further pays homage to the township men who he
and his siblings were surrounded by during childhood. Amongst these men, were migrant
workers referred to as omuSwenka (the
swenkas) who would regularly take
part in amateur fashion shows to flaunt their immaculate fashion sense and
cheeky attitude.
The exhibition ends on Saturday, 1 August at 2p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment