Photographs by Catherine Trollope, Anton
Scholtz, Chris de Beer and Francois Knoetze
out of old things. In this way I am able to explore new
insights and understanding of everyday situations.
What is the general inspiration when you sit
down to create?
Henry Petroski notes that, “To scrutinize the
trivial can be to discover the monumental.” When
brainstorming new ideas I usually start small, with
something seemingly mundane, and branch out from
there. Much of what I create depends on chance –
what I stumble upon at dumpsites/recycle centres/
second-hand stores.
Can you pick out one or two favourite pieces
of your work?
My latest project, Cape Mongo, is probably the best
expression, to date, of what I’m trying to do in my work.
I made ‘wearable sculptures’ entirely out of waste,
which I performed in all over Cape Town for two years.
This resulted in a series of short films, each of which
follows the stories of five characters as they journey
through the city of Cape Town. Each Mongo character
is made from the city’s discarded waste – mythical
‘trash creatures’ which have emerged from the growing
dumps of consumer culture. In the films, the creatures
revisit the spaces of their imagined pasts – the locations
associated with their material existence and the
constitution of their social relations – as if walking
against the consumer-driven currents of city. Cape
Artist profile
Mongo is the documentation of these performances
but also pulls together found footage relating to various
issues around housing, food security, inequality and
racial segregation.
Have you won any awards?
I have exhibited work at a number of festivals and
group exhibitions, some of which include the Cape
Town Art Fair (2014), The Big Hole – Cape Town Art
Week (2014), Analogue Eye – National Arts Festival
in Grahamstown (2014), Proposal – Jnr Gallery
Group Exhibition (2015). My work has been selected
for the Absa L’Atelier finalist exhibition (2011), and
the Sasol New Signatures exhibition (2011 & 2013).
In 2012 I was named as one of South Africa’s leading
art publication Art South Africa Magazine’s ‘Bright
Young Things’. In 2014 I was invited to attend the
OpenLab artist residency in Bloemfontein.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on the last instalment of
Cape Mongo, the project I created as part of my MFA
at Michaelis School of Fine Art. I have constructed
a wearable sculptural suit out of broken cellphones
which I will be performing in at different urban
spaces over the next few months. The documentation
of these performances will be used to create a short
film following the cellphone character around the
city of Cape Town. AD
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