Last year's Internship as inspiration for this year.

The inspiration for my programming with WAAS was my art-making experience during my time in Johannesburg around this time last year. The first couple of days were very dense with political artwork, such as the Apartheid Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum.

Apartheid Museum Entrance (pics were not allowed inside)

Both places opened my eyes to some realities of racial political violence, and to the way museum exhibits can educate and inform people on the lived experiences of others. 

View looking out of a window in the Hector Pieterson Museum.

After visiting those two museums, I walked out informed with facets of the political reality of human rights in South Africa.

View looking out of a window in the Hector Pieterson Museum.

The political reality of the state of human rights, as expressed through museums visited above left me feeling helpless because of the stories told through the exhibits, but motivated by the fact that, when done collaboratively, museum exhibits can effectively inform on harsh realities of political violence.

The remaining time was spent visiting local artist collectives/studios/makerspaces in Johannesburg. 

I was moved by their ability to use art to bring people together to collectively express their shared trauma and make art as a way to cope and move past hard times. 

Imbali Visual Literacy Workshop

It was incredibly inspiring to enter a space where the goal is to use art-making as a way to heal emotionally, rather then using emotions as a way to heal artmaking.

Where the process is the artwork, and the finished product becomes a byproduct. 

As an euro/western academically trained artist, making art has a sour taste in my mouth rather than the sweet and indulgent I experienced in Johannesburg.

I don’t feel I should make art with the purpose of expecting critique, therefore making art which generates dialogical critique. I should, will, have been making art since those workshops with the goal of materializing my emotions.

Because emotions are universal, then it should automatically make a perfect candidate for endless amounts of dialogue. To create art for the sole purpose of creating dialogue is daunting, scary and useless if not executed in a successful formal manner.