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Joburg feels endless. There is so much noise, so much to do while we are so young and carefree. It is easy to feed off its energy. From the proliferation of graffiti, we experience when we are in a car that goes under a bridge, which charms us with the raw talent it shows, to the street vendors who sell either mangwinya on a cold winter morning or seshweshwe attire for weddings on the long weekends back home, to the office spaces where we make our mark, whose corners have witnessed the brightest streetlights and the wildest street fights.
Aftermath: Exploring the Unseen Narratives is a group exhibition that invites us to deeply reflect on the journeys we walk in the everyday hustle and bustle against the city’s glorious backdrop. As one walks from one room to another inside the Houghton Estate office space, where the exhibition is staged, the alumni artists of Artist Proof Studio, offer fragments of personhood and neighbourhood that are shaped by life in this city. The graduates, from this famous inner city printing studio that offers an art education in this medium, whose work is on show include Ben Mphande, Betinho Mokwane, Hlavutelo Ngobeni, Samukelo Gqola, Thabo Skhosana, Tshogofatso Nkhumeleng, Seza Zitha, and Bekezela Mabena.
Ngobeni reminds us that we carry our original homes with us in the many buildings we enter, and we should take pride in our heritages as we grace those who pay us attention. At times we are fish out of water forever finding our own places, reconfiguring ourselves within the city’s dynamics, and hoping for a better tomorrow in Mphande’s dystopian take on the current social and physical environment. Other times we came here chasing the gold beneath the Earth and stayed for the character of the towers above our heads affirms the layering of Mokwane’s printing process, which draws attention to the depths of our dreams and encounters.
Mabena, who works out of a rooftop studio at August House, a building full of artist studios in Doornfontein, further emphasizes our special relationship with the city through the perspective and practice of journeying.
“My entire life was grounded in travelling and there are traces of that in my work. There are depictions of movement, elements that seem like water flowing from one point to another. Think about the crossing of [a] river, being a border jumper and then a foreigner. Think about the water and how it interacts with identity in that sense. Water is in the paint I apply in my paintings and in the land. We are divided by water, yet water is also used to build societies. People can also have a spiritual relationship with this natural element,” says Mabena.
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