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the ambivalence of a de-natured world. As Ignatieff affirms, “The truth if it is to
be believed, must be authored by those who have suffered its consequences.”^
However, Gittoes refuses to undermine the victim’s subjectivity. Every
image provides an intimate account of the victim’s life as a way of facilitating
their existential retrieval. His use of personal testimonies is reminiscent of South
Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which victims of apartheid
were able to exercise their political and historical agency in a system which had
systematically deprived them of these."^
Bom in Sydney, Australia, in 1949, George Gittoes was invited to New
York by Clement Greenwood. Recognising a need to create art which reflected
the powerflil social and political unrest of the period, Gittoes privileged the
metaphoric commentary of his art in order to attract wide public appeal. His
experiment proved successful. The veracious quality of Gittoes’ art was visually
challenging and distinguished him from other urban artists of the period.^
Gittoes’ attitude towards art approaches Katzman’s discussion in which
she avers the necessity for art in the “coming half-century” to reassess moral
values: “Whether we place our own convenience above the life-stmggle of
backward nations”(p. 53).^ Gittoes’ call for suspending intellectual obfuscation
of art accords with William James’ concern with a pragmatic inquiry of events
and their possibilities for changing the world.^
Synonymous with the passage rites of tribal neophytes which demand
that they confront the dangerous and vital powers along the margins of society,
Gittoes ventured to the world’s conflict zones which witnessed some of the
worst human atrocities of the twentieth century. For him these liminal arenas
facilitated his creative force. In one interview, he acknowledges that his forays
into the deadliest human theatres were “to confront humanity with the darker
side of itself’.^ His explicit references to confronting the ‘darker side’ of
humanity elicit an intuitive faculty akin to liminality.*^ Within the ambit of
liminality 1 would include excess, or the disregard of moderation (Greek:
souphroseiie) which can have a devastating impact on individuals and societies.
If bodies are tied to social systems then what impact do such bodies undergo by
the loss of moral restraint by national and trans-national agents?
Metaphor of the Body and the Land: Landmines as Bio Power
Apparent in Gittoes’ works is the metaphor between the body and the
land. The crippled semblance of landmines victims mirrors the disrupture of the
land. The body as an embodiment of the land corresponds with Merleau-Ponty’s
notion of “flesh in the world” which emphasises the reciprocity between the
human and non-human world. Thus, the boundaries between body and land are
interwoven and share each other’s fate. As Merleau-Ponty avers, “The presence
of the world is precisely the presence of its flesh to my flesh”.
Gittoes’ convergence between reality and metaphor allows us to reflect
upon the kinds of contesting imaginaries being played out in the global theatre.
‘Minefields’ shows that the personal body is never a monad but overlaps the
“communal body, and body of the land.”“ The correspondences between