My Proposal:
Identify the core conceptual and critical area in which you are working
Last year I stumbled across the Huia bird in my research and started recreating its likeness in my art work. I found out in a group crit that what I had done was highly offensive in Maori culture because it was a very sacred bird and I wasn’t giving it the respect it deserves. This exemplified that I don’t know enough about the country I live in and the cultures that it houses. I neglected a deeper research and understanding of cultural differences between my homeland South Africa and my current place of citizenship, New Zealand.
For my honours project this year, I want to revisit what I touched on last year and extend it out to its full capacity by thoroughly researching, understanding and critiquing the information. My art practice is going to be fuelled by research on colonisation (of both New Zealand and South Africa), post colonialism, my British/European heritage (family tree) and the cultural identity politics that I now face. In the process I would like to place myself within a physical and cultural space. I will still consider other options such as cosmopolitical ideas; not identifying with any space or identifying with multiple places.
I ended with the phrase 'I AM' and at the end of last semester I identified with ‘I AM A SOUTH AFRICAN KIWI’ but I have now realised that it isn’t enough. I feel like my situation lends myself to being more like a souvenir, so this is where I will start this project; I am a South African souvenir in New Zealand. I will attempt to incorporate memorabilia such as photos, written memoirs, trinkets and focusing my materials on commonly used South African souvenir materials such as beads, wire, tin cans and wood.
I predict that I will move away from souvenirs quite quickly once my research develops and I have more understanding of where I belong between the two cultures. This will be reflected in the art work I produce.
Outline the intended means of realising the project, methods of developing ideas/ timelines/goals
The first two or three weeks will be heavily based in research which will set the ground work for my project. I will make souvenir type artworks as a starting point for my material exploration. My making will be very dependent on my research, which means I can only move forward if I have completed the section of research.
I would ideally produce one or two major art works and a series of small ones (exploration) by the first critique. I aim for this so I can get as much feedback as possible because I believe that discussion is one of the best ways of learning and would greatly benefit from a wide variety presentation.
I will use mix media as a way of producing art work to present my diverse ideals and heritage though the physicality of materials.
The ultimate goal driving my practice is to end the confusion I currently have about my cultural identity, my place within a place/space/country.
I also aim to work on the essay throughout my art practice as a way of documenting and evaluating my research.
Note any particular hurdles:
Problem: Retrieving information (especially scholarly articles) about South Africa may be harder to access because they are having a massive crisis at the universities there.
Solution: I might have to resort to verbal information from family which may not be 100% accurate but can be further researched online.
Problem: Gaining physical things such as photographs and souvenirs from South Africa. The postage service from South Africa is terrible and unreliable so I won’t be able to get anything sent over to NZ. My family has a few of these but they don’t live in Auckland.
Solution: which means I will have to resort to postage or travel to get what I need or I need to recreate these things myself.
Problem: I am not the best at contextual research and that is what made my art work suffer last year, my lack of understanding was offensive.
Solution: I need to bring up the standard of my research and go deeper into certain topics rather than spreading myself too thin and attempting too many ideas and not doing them well. I need to make sure that when I am dealing with the culture I am less knowledgeable about that I am sensitive and don’t offend anyone in the process.
Brief list of likely texts, artworks, or other research materials that you will include in your research (bibliography , list of artists you are interested in as well as theory)
Artists:
Yinka Shonibare is an artist I found in my first year of Elam and have admired throughout all my projects. The more I look into his work the more I love and understand it. It is relevant to my project this year because the dress sculpture he creates (pictured) are his way of combining the two cultures he associates himself with; British and Nigerian.
Colin Mc Cahon: I discovered his work through last years research about colonisation and how it travelled religion. The phrase I AM was used a lot by this artist (A biblical phrase) and even inspired other artists (such as Michael Parekowhai).
Wuon Gean Ho is an artist who works with the idea of identity and what makes a persons identity and depicts them in beautiful prints representing what is in a persons mind. In this project I might have to figure out who I am (my identity) in order to place myself physically.
Where I am going to start my reading research:
Cosmopolitanism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information Stanford University, Jul 1, 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/ Accessed on 26th October 2016.
Grossberg, Lawrence. SAGE Publications, 1996. Accessed on 26th October 2016.
Eberts, Mary. “Still colonizing after all these years.” University of New Brunswick Law Journal, vol.64, no.37, 2013, pp. 123 – 160.
Alan Lester. From colonization to democracy: a new historical geography of South Africa. St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
