The Franschhoek Literary Festival
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Two interrelated works combining text, sound and image were exhibited at Ebony under the auspices of IS Gallery, during the Franschhoek Literary Festival. Conversations … (2000) consists of digital reproductions of original documents. Eighty pages of written notes form the basis of conversations held during the last two days of the artist’s mother's life. She was in hospital, in intensive care. She had been living off a ventilator for thirty-nine days. She could neither speak nor hear hence the dependency on the written word. The conversations are loaded with the knowledge of her impending death. Their ordinariness covers the gentle deceit about her imminent passing. The ventilator was switched off at 18h40 on 11 July 1995. The red poems were written shortly before and after her death. Allegro con brio was written and recorded with piano in 2000. This latter element makes up the sound component of the installation. |
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The melancholic mood is explored further in The Nurse of the Mad (2000 -2011). Sixteen black and white drawings work in conjunction with text alluding to states of melancholia, dementia and hysteria. The words act as stream of (sub)consciousness - a poem littered with references to demons, she-wolves, pomegranate trees and the eponymous nurse.
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