Small Connections in depth
Working on these pieces was a bit of an emotional challenge but also came very naturally as they are based on my childhood garden in South Africa where I grew up. I wanted to express how a place can feel and be immensely safe and creative but can also hold fear and uncertainty. After receiving a few questions, I realized that this may require a bit more explanation as not everyone grew up where I did.
Johannesburg was quite a dangerous place to grow up and even as a young child I was acutely aware of it. I was hugely privileged in so many ways and benefitted from a racist structure that still permeates the country’s psyche. I was never allowed to be home alone or walk outside the gates of my house. Public transport was not an option, and I spent my childhood being ferried from one safe place to another. I lived in a well-off neighborhood where almost every other house on our block had been robbed, some very violently. I spent a lot of time in the garden, trying to be convinced by convention that I was safe, but knowing too much about the context in which we lived, so being frightened constantly.
Add to the mix normal childhood fears - dark shady spots in the garden, the neighbors extremely aggressive guard dogs who would sometimes break through the fencing into our yard. The real life fears converged with my actual childhood nightmares set in this garden that I cherished - guard dogs would morph into wolves, wolves would turn into human hybrid monsters who wanted to hurt my family.
This garden was also where I chased butterflies with my sister, played pretend in the trees and swung on the rope swing that hung off a jacaranda that housed grey louries and big hadidas whose weird screeching reminds me of Sundays and callouses on my hands from the rope. I would get up at 6am every weekend morning, eat a bowl of fruit loops while watching cartoon network and literally spend the whole day in the garden by myself until it would get dark.
Timing is everything and while this exhibition closes this week in Canberra ACT, in Johannesburg there have been riots these past few days over the imprisonment of the last president over corruption charges. All in the midst of a third wave of covid.
As always this is my experience and my privilege needs to be checked. I was a blonde, blue-eyed white girl who was a bit frightened whilst being in relative safety and comfort that many others in the country did not have.
My parents had happy childhoods, were well educated and after university were both fortunate to do well in work. Their black counterparts would not have been afforded the same opportunities, by law.
To this day I’m not sure if my fears were proportionate. I was an avid reader and had a penchant for eavesdropping so overheard adult conversations that most seven-year old’s would be shooed away from. My parents also had a habit of lumping my siblings and I into the same age group so would talk about a reasonably horrific robbery or crime that had happened a few streets away at dinner. My brother who was seven years older could probably rationalize and understand the events whereas I still believed in fairies and goblins and was now being told a very real scary story – I don’t think my child-brain could untangle the truth from the fable so I can’t be sure that any of my feelings were justified.
South Africa is astoundingly beautiful and filled with entrepreneurial people with a sense of humour that I can’t ever explain quite right. People often remark how lucky I am to be in Australia which is true, but probably more true would be to say that it’s the whiteness of my skin that afforded me my life and opportunities.
These works were intended to explore the notion that a place can be both safe and frightening and that is being mirrored in my birthplace more so now then maybe ever before. I can do fuck all about any of this and my white-guilt isn’t helping the people that were killed in the riots or the businesses that were looted or the growing covid cases. But just because a place, a garden or a country is scary in parts doesn’t mean that its not also brilliant and capable of creating lasting happiness.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - The one that never forgets