Michaelis Graduate Exhibition
Honours in Fine Art | 2017 | Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Body of Water
Has anyone ever noticed how people only love the ocean when the sun is out? Once darkness settles, breeze kicks in and sharks come out to play, no one wants to swim among its waves. - Alondra P.
Let feelings lap. Stop being afraid of the waves. Start learning to live with the ocean inside you.
Collapse the notion that softness is seen as abject:
That which is of the body, but believed not to belong to the body; That which is difficult to contain and crosses bodily borders; An external menace, somehow contained of the body; Simultaneously powerful and vulnerable.
The abject should be seen and accepted.
Destroy the idea that a soft body is synonymous with a weak body. Destroy the idea that femininity is synonymous with weakness. Destroy the idea that the containment of bodies and thoughts is the ultimate form of control.
Destroy the idea that tears are synonymous with weakness when the ocean is one of the most powerful things on the planet, and they are both made of salt water.
Destroy the idea that distance is a good vantage point. Destroy the idea that aloofness is synonymous with power. Come closer, Touch and feel. Stop telling people to harden up. Stop telling people to man-up.
Destroy the idea that containment governs the ideal. That which can be contained cannot be powerful.