Interviews between participating artists in Uninhabited Territories , and the exhibition curators Fiona Maxwell and Rachael Watts.

BLACK HEART GANG, ALISON KEARNEY, THANDO MAMA, ZEN MARIE, MARGARET STONE, CAMISSA COLLECTIVE, NONTSIKELELO VELEKO .

24 March 2006

Uninhabited Territories was held at West Space as part of the 2006 Next Wave Festival.

BLACK HEART GANG

1/ Do you see your work as being strongly influenced by any particular style or movement? Or do you see your work of the Black Heart Gang having a unique aesthetic? The Black Heart Gang believes in balanced simplicity, and speaks with its own clear voice. Our vision is a unique new style of fantasy art, which exists, complete and independent, of any other existing form. But we could never have hoped to accomplish this if it weren't for the wide range of influences that have inspired each individual in the gang. Namely; the detailed perfection of Indonesian and the Eastern art, The fantasy artist Patrick Woodroffe, Tim Burton, Prokofiev, Philip Glass, Lewis Carrol and Ian M. Banks. In fact the diverse nature of these influences had lead to the birth of something completely unique.

2/ What do you think is important for your audience to take away with them? I guess you could say that we want to sweep the audience away or rather to yank them out of whatever their in. To, may be just for a moment, take them away from this overwhelming chaos that we've grown so accustomed to. To hold the audience in a state of suspended disbelief. This of course, can only be accomplished by a very high standard and quality of work. So I guess we also want to leave our audience with a sense of awe and respect for the time, skill, technique and simple raw talent that has gone into our work.

3/ How would you describe the work of the Black Heart Gang? The Black Heart Gang is a very practical and well oiled machine, a collective of old friends. I could trap us in a sentence... but I'd rather not, I'd rather engulf the facts with a shroud of mystery and intrigue, and say:

"Me and my half sister Ree trick stories, from Hades or from the Household, and then trap them on paper with ink. I write, while she draws the images that are burned into our mind. She takes the pictures to our cousin Jannes. The two of them, with the help of a hundred or so henchmen, reanimate these inky fossils, so they may move the same way they used to move. I think you call this animation. While I just lie around, whistling, trying to come up with a good theme tune. To turn the stories back into songs."

4/ Why do you think imagination creates such a powerful connection with your viewers? As I said before, it's about being liberated to another realm, not necessarily a better place, just a brand new place. An escape from everything, a place where there is no such thing as cause or effect or gravity or skin colour, taxes, snowmen, car crashes, swords, dragons, giraffes, NASA, spaniels, chocolate bears or doggies.

ALISON KEARNEY

1/ Briefly, what initially motivated the idea of 'The Portable Hawkers Museum'? The Portable Hawkers Museum is an ongoing project that was born out of my investigation of the contexts of art production and display, and notions of cultural value. This interest developed from my visiting art museums and art galleries, and my engagement with the discipline of Art History, which lead me to question why certain objects were included in these contexts to the exclusion of other things. I began to understand these institutions of art [including history of art] as institutions that to a large extent determine cultural value and also influence aspects of cultural production. The Portable Hawkers Museum is the means through which I interrogate issues to do with museum practice, and cultural value through parody.

2/ Through the physical performative interaction conducted in Australia, what issues and insights have come to the fore? Conducting performances in Australia has been an interesting process for a number of reasons. One of the most challenging aspects of this project was negotiating this new context, and at the same time making artworks that resonate with this context, but that also have some relationship with the works I have been making in South Africa. During this process, I became acutely aware of the different cultural practices as well as the subtle differences in the ways in which people interact with each other. The result was that I worked in a manner in which I do not usually work: that is, I was forced to be bolder, to just go out and do things and wait to see what would happen, and to allow the process of making art to be more organic, or at least less controlled.

3/ Has this added and enriched initial explorations? This process of being forced to work outside my comfort zones, and to literally respond to my new environment has been extremely enriching and valuable. This project has enabled me to watch myself making artwork, and afforded me the opportunity to think differently about ways to go about making art. An important lesson for me has been the discovery that sometimes what is required is bold action followed by a process of observation and then response, rather than completing all aspects of the artwork in the planning stages, and then simply executing the plan. Because of this, I am interested to see what effect it has on my art production when I return to my own environment.

4/ In a few words, what would you like your audience to take away from your work in the context of Uninhabited Territories? For me, the work that I have made for this exhibition foregrounds notions of exchange and value through making my processes of observation visible, rather than through making a definitive statement. I hope that after engaging with the work, the audience will have had the opportunity to look at things that are familiar to them with new eyes, not unlike the ways in which one looks at their own place differently when showing visitors around.

5/ In comparison to the other six artistic contributions at West Space, what do you think distinguishes your work? What distinguishes my artwork in this instance is not unlike what distinguishes all artists' work from other artists' work, and that is, my work represents a personal engagement with issues of personal interest, and their work represents their personal engagement with issues that interest them. Also, in this instance, my artwork is distinguished from theirs in that it has been made in Melbourne and represents my particular engagement with Melbourne, as opposed to being a work that is made in South Africa that has been sent to Melbourne. I believe that the context in which an artwork is made and received bears impact on the meaning of the work. In this instance, there are different kinds of cultural exchange at play and the resultant artworks will resonate differently with the audience.

6/ Due to its theoretical approach, your work may appear challenging or unclear to the everyday person on the street. How would you simplify your intention? In my work I try to be sensitive to the audience, and choose strategies, materials and content according to where and to whom the work will be displayed. When I make work in public places, or perform in public with the objects that I make, I communicate my intentions to those members of the public that are interested in what I am doing as clearly as possible. This often takes the form of one- on- one discussion. When I place objects in the gallery space, I communicate my intentions through manipulating the conventions of the language of display. That my work has a theoretical underpinning reflects my own interests, and I do not think that the audience necessarily has to understand the work in the same ways that I understand it. I am happy when after encountering one of my performances people think a little differently about what they are looking at.

7/ In your experience, how do you view the connection between South Africa and Australia through initiatives such as the Next Wave festival? Ultimately initiatives such as the Next Wave festival facilitate cultural exchange and create dialogues between artists from different communities. I understand this process as one of cultural cross-pollination, and I think that it has a positive, informative influence on cultural practice. This has been particularly valuable for me in this instance where I have had the opportunity to live and work in Melbourne, enabling me to interact with artists from here, and learn about the ways in which artists in Melbourne work and the kinds of work they are making. I think these festivals are important in creating connections between the different participants, and hopefully through these festivals future projects will be developed.

THANDO MAMA

1/ It has been suggested that your work is about 'self discovery'. Would you say this is an accurate summation? I think that is true, self discovery in a sense of looking at issues of identity of the self, location and social issues. I tend to look at myself as a starting point in the discourse of the 'African man'. It is looking through this lens that I discover new parts of myself.

2/ What do you like about the medium of film and the moving image? There is an immediacy with the media of films and video/moving image that one can't get from other forms of visual expression. It is also its confrontational nature I think that draws me to it. You are able to work with the concepts of space and time, manipulating and recreating non-narrative stories that have multiple meanings/reading.

3/ What are you concerned about in the world today? Does this find expression in your work? Issues that affect Africa and peoples of Africa, whether these are of political, social or economical nature. Making sense of the situation that this continent has continually been put in, issues of war, famine, lawlessness and corruption.

4/ Your work evokes fear and disturbance, was this your intention? To some extent, as an expression I need to invite the audience to participate and interact with the artwork. I think that the weight and seriousness of the issues I engage with demands that the audience is not passive and is challenged.

5/ How do you feel about the direction of South Africa as compared with ten years ago? How has this affected you as an artist? I think the direction is positive, there is a lot of enthusiasm about the future of the country and more special the youth of this country, opportunities that were no there ten years ago. This gives us as a young nation reason to live and face each coming day with renewed energies to be creative and hope that the world welcomes these young ideas.

ZEN MARIE

1/ Can you tell me a little about your artistic background?My first experience with visual art was through the Market Theatre Photo Workshop in Johannesburg. I went from this to study fine art at the University of Cape Town and ended up majoring in sculpture. For the past three years I have been studying and working from Amsterdam. I work in a variety of media but have recently gone back to working with 2D images, both moving and still.

2/ It has been suggested that as an artist you can be seen as 'skirting issues' by depicting playful and entertaining imagery. How do you react to this comment?
I don't really agree, in the sense that I feel I always do engage with 'issues', or that at least the content of the work is as compelling as the medium it exists in. However I do agree that there is not a direct or straight forward representation of these issues in the work. I definitely am not interested in creating slogans or political pamphlets.

3/ Can you describe the importance of cricket in South Africa and for most South Africans?
Cricket in South Africa is complex. It is a sport that enjoys widespread appeal while at the same time largely remains accessible to only those with the necessary resources. In South Africa this quickly translates to a black and white racial split - much the same with many other platforms. The 'fine-art' world in South Africa too reflects this dominance of white South Africans. Even though South African society and institutions are changing, there are many problems yet to be solved.

4/ Can you explain your piece and how it has come together? Death By Numbers was an attempt to document Lords cricket ground in London on the occasion of the 'Ashes' tour. I was interested in the tournament and the metaphor of the 'death of English cricket'. I was not able to document the match itself, so had to make do with images of the stadium taken after the series, and shots taken on match days around the stadium and in Regents Park - where the game was televised on a big screen.

5/ What would you like your Australian audience to take away from your work exhibited at West Space? To be honest I have no idea what an Australian audience would read into the work. It is completely coincidental that this piece is made around the Ashes. There was no attempt to construct this piece for any specific national audience. In terms of interpreting the work, I think that it could be read in many ways - certainly this Ashes series would mean different things for English and Australian fans, and would be completely perplexing for those who don't know or understand cricket.

What is interesting for me is setting up the parameters to make the work, and trying to bend the final product to my intentions - knowing full well that I will most likely fail. In this case I didn't even get to see the match! - which I had initially thought was important, only to realize later that the emptiness of the stadium was what I really wanted. The work then becomes for me more about the space and architecture of Lords and the people who either are trying to get in or remain outside.

The thing that I am also interested in is the difficulty of representing the Ashes, both physically and narratively, especially considering the layers of policing, mythology and history that obscures or cordons off the event.

MARGARET STONE

1/ Can you tell me a little about your artistic background? Art was always my favourite subject at school and when I moved to York High School in George I took photography as my practical subject. I decided to go to university straight after high school and completed my Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at Michealis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2003. Cloneurbia was my honours year project. In 2004 I co-ordinated a video art exhibition called Best Before and managed a website that advertised and networked the event. At the end of 2004 participated in the annual "Sex en Kultuur" Queer Arts festival. In 2005, an experimental stop motion was exhibited in Japan with a video art collective. Last year was difficult for me as I struggled to find a day job, however it was a year where intense dialogue continued with three other women Artists for a collaborative group exhibition that would travel South Africa. The collaborative project created dialogue but an exhibition never materialised. I went on an overseas holiday for six weeks travelling to London, Reykjavik and parts of Ireland. In September last year, I found a job as a photographic studio manager and have been working there ever since.

2/ What were your influences in creating Cloneurbia and how did the series come together? Many things influenced me consciously and unconsciously. At the end of 2002 I was fascinated with the media attention given to the Raelian Cult, the scientists that claimed to have cloned the first human. I found the whole thing amusing but very scary at the same time. I started watching a lot of sci-fi horror like Village of the Damned for inspiration for my shoots. Almost choosing sculpture as my major sometimes the photographic medium frustrated me, I liked to construct images through photomontage, the next step was cut and paste, manipulating reality in Photoshop. I enjoyed playing around with the "truth" associated with photography. I present my work as truth documents of banal suburban scenes however on closer inspection the clones reveal themselves.

3/ What would you like your audience at West Space to take away from your works? The feeling of the uncanny, that weirdness to makes them aware of their individuality, not to take it for granted, and not be complacent to a future homogenised by globalisation. I would also like the audience to see themselves in the photographs and be able to laugh at themselves.

4/ Can you explain the technique/s used to produce your clones? In the beginning of the project, I worked with twins, as they are natural clones. With my medium format twin reflex camera, I captured them moving within a scene. The film was scanned to digital format and I made composites in Photoshop. I started working with middle class families in housing developments, which inspired the name of the series Cloneurbia . I also created family portraits using the same method but they weren't as effective as the everyday neighbourhood scenes.

5/ How do you view South Africa in 2006? I view it through my optimistic blue eyes enjoying all its natural beauty, rich diversity and freedom that make the rest of Africa seem like acirfA, but sometimes I view it through my sceptical 35 -80mm lens.

CAMISSA COLLECTIVE

1/ Can you explain the origins of the Camissa Collective and why you think such an initiative is important? With a country in transition period, it is important to establish platforms to launch people, young and old, taught and self taught, with opportunities in the arts. The more opportunities there are the better, people that shine will further themselves.

Social transformation, growth and opportunity are pillars of the Collective. Success should not be measured by the amount of cash you make but by the difference you make to yourself and others.

2/ Can you describe the artistic and creative climate in Cape Town?

"Until the Lions have their own historians,

Tales of hunting will always glorify the hunters"

afrikan proverb.

This saying sums it up; creatives are coming up from the ghettos.

3/ What do you like about the medium of photography? There are no rules to what is and what is not. Photography is now giving power to the people. Photo or darkroom, its accessibility is what is really awesome. It has been growing since the first image was captured and printed. Now I have the freedom to construct and deconstruct a situation in Photoshop.

4/ Can you describe some of the works to be exhibited? From last years showcase exhibition in Cape Town and the one approaching, the photo works are more concentrated on sharing what the photographer's eye sees, the sights of the ghetto, portraits, landscapes and more.

The overall choice of genres is portraiture both straight and environmental (documentary and street photography). The style alternates between one photographer and the other, at times perfectly exposed and sharply focused, its all personal.

NONTSIKELELO VELEKO

1/ Your work has been described as 'confronting existing racial stereotypes'. Do you agree with this comment? Yes! These racial stereotypes have been around since I was born and are growing changing daily over the world.

2/ Do you think you are facilitating a voice for the young black person's position of South Africa in your work? No! I am facilitating a voice for all mixed racial groups in the world but in my project, the subject being me. I went through being called not black enough and am still going through it in both black and white societies. If I was a white person this project could have easily be called www.notwhitenough.lolo

3/ How important is the influence of Popular Culture in your work and in South Africa? Popular culture is important to my work because it is what the masses hear, see and probably understand because of its simplicity. Whether it is in the rural or urban areas, young and old people are exposed to a global world somehow, growing up in an urban situation popular culture is a language I understand better than anything else.

In South Africa popular culture is important too, hence during the difficult times of apartheid I got to know about Mandela being in prison through the use of graffiti. I integrate graffiti in the work because it still is a medium of social commentary and is used in public spaces to get important messages across. South Africa is still a conservative country and still, some things aren't easily spoken about including identity issues.

4/ Is your mixed identity (coming from a tribe in amaXhosa) influential in dictating your subject matter or themes in your work? Yes! it is because I find myself having to explain to people about my Xhosa tribe and about the different groups within amaXhosa like the one I belong to which is amaHlubi as little is known of them in South Africa. This tribe is made up of three tribes, which are Zulu, Sotho and Xhosa due to intermarriages. Not only am I mixed within 'black' tribes but also my grandmother's great grandfather was white. This is still a sensitive issue to speak about and accept in my home and South Africa. I also have an accent that other individuals can't place; some think I'm British whilst others think I might be 'colored' (in South Africa 'colored is an equivalent of a child born of white and black parents).

In the www.notblackenough.lolo project I go beyond just me as a subject but wonder if a child is born of Chinese and black parents or German and Australian etc what could they be called? In South Africa I guess that all falls under 'colored' but I'd be curious to know in Australia what names are used to describe such groups. I use stereotypes 'name calling' and comments that people in general would use in defining mixed people. The way I dress constructs a certain identity and alienates since there is still a way of thinking that black people should be dressed in a certain way and if not then you are not quite black or as my project states 'notblackenough'.

5/ Briefly, can you explain your work Not Black Enough? At face value the www.notblackenough.lolo project it is made up of self- styled, posed photographs I took of friends, colleagues and me. It is a personal project yet it becomes personal to those who have been through worse treatment than I have been. I integrate graffiti using my hand writing to scribble all the comments and criticisms directed towards 'mixed' people by society. I also look at fashion in how it constructs a certain kind of identity and comment on history and inter relationships and marriages.

Not Black Enough is made up of a lot of layers for example if a black person within a community has become educated and exposed to different lifestyles and is well traveled some black people don't identify with him/her. Somehow being black to some black people is associated with no education, no progress and a lot of low self-esteem.

I chose to look at fashion instead of the actual mixed people because some would rather just live without looking at their identity as it is often made fun of and a painful experience for some due to a lot of socio-politics.

Black people are expected to dress up in a certain way anything new is not black enough.

Taking all the racial comments I grew up hearing from my school teachers, friends and colleagues, writing them on a black board as I comment on the educational side of this mentality and write all the comments that I often hear personally or would take from other mixed people I come across. I leave a chalk in the room where I show this work in a black painted room so people who have access to the exhibition can comment on the work. Somehow others feel guilty as they see some of the things they often say on the wall whilst some think I am racist.