“Why have you done this?
Your hair is beautiful? “
Using the body and its appearance as key signifier, our aim is to problematize society’s growing fixation on appearance, appraisal, classification and unofficial rights of admission. It is evident that these are deeply rooted in the politics of internalized racial and class-based hierarchies, which has been inculcated and incorporated into our daily rituals of adornment and beautification. Based on this, the performance explores how Western/ Eurocentric conventions of beauty, acceptability, appropriateness of dress and bodily features, dominates as social conventions in post-colonial settings. Furthermore the work aims to evoke dialogue around the role of these constructs in the occupation and access to space– be it for work, leisure, transport, recreation, religious spaces etc. The project critiques how the body and its appearance remain a token site where racial and class based ideologies persist.
By traversing these invisible boundaries we address and transgress spaces that are elite and aspirational, the racialized subaltern, as well as newly gentrified locations.
RoA combines personal memory, experiences and observations in order to create a dynamic piece that crosses social and cultural boundaries in order to address and bring to the fore, amongst other things – the normative and widely accepted psycho-political and psycho-sexual behaviours linked to beautification and body related rituals. To achieve this we play with the tensions that exist between ideas of excess and spectacle as well as subtlety within the quotidian experience.
By encrypting the performance with activities linked to what has now become regular daily rituals such as our regular acts of classifying our own bodies, as well as the classification of our own bodies by others, the public and the state; we explore, connect, plant, unpack, and attempt to detangle these seemingly mundane and depoliticized actions.
The project seeks to unravel the social norms of bodily aspiration by looking at extremes, obsession, spectacle, transgression and obscurity. Furthermore, the aim is to unpack the idea of acceptable body aesthetics in order to problematize these normative ideals of beauty that have been cultivated over centuries and how they are interwoven with our quotidian experiences. Lastly, how they contribute to the perpetuation of racial distaste.
Of the issues around performance, spectacle and exoticisms, and our decisions to embody specific racial and cultural aspects, we are well aware. The idea of ‘black face’ comes to the fore here. Our work appropriates the ordinary within our own racial and cultural groupings. By this I mean that we draw on and draw attention to the visual signifiers (specifically sites of bodily aspiration) that we identify with most – that is marginalised hybrid identities including as ‘blackness, colouredness and mixed race-ness’. These signifiers play a huge role in our own histories and the shaping of our own identities. They include hair, skin tone, facial features and body stature. We activate these signifiers throughout the four stages of performance by changing our appearance in the most common way possible - switching from afro hair, to ‘gelled’ hair, to straightened hair, to weave or plaits, applying make-up and donning corsets. The hair transformation, for example, plays with our own ambiguous appearance and our own relentless re-classification on a daily basis (as afro hair is associated to colouredness or mixed raced and weave or plats to black – in the South African context). The work further, looks at the appropriation and the exotisizing of such practices and products by artists – as we as artists buy-in assume and contend with the colonial gaze.
Your hair is beautiful? “
Using the body and its appearance as key signifier, our aim is to problematize society’s growing fixation on appearance, appraisal, classification and unofficial rights of admission. It is evident that these are deeply rooted in the politics of internalized racial and class-based hierarchies, which has been inculcated and incorporated into our daily rituals of adornment and beautification. Based on this, the performance explores how Western/ Eurocentric conventions of beauty, acceptability, appropriateness of dress and bodily features, dominates as social conventions in post-colonial settings. Furthermore the work aims to evoke dialogue around the role of these constructs in the occupation and access to space– be it for work, leisure, transport, recreation, religious spaces etc. The project critiques how the body and its appearance remain a token site where racial and class based ideologies persist.
By traversing these invisible boundaries we address and transgress spaces that are elite and aspirational, the racialized subaltern, as well as newly gentrified locations.
RoA combines personal memory, experiences and observations in order to create a dynamic piece that crosses social and cultural boundaries in order to address and bring to the fore, amongst other things – the normative and widely accepted psycho-political and psycho-sexual behaviours linked to beautification and body related rituals. To achieve this we play with the tensions that exist between ideas of excess and spectacle as well as subtlety within the quotidian experience.
By encrypting the performance with activities linked to what has now become regular daily rituals such as our regular acts of classifying our own bodies, as well as the classification of our own bodies by others, the public and the state; we explore, connect, plant, unpack, and attempt to detangle these seemingly mundane and depoliticized actions.
The project seeks to unravel the social norms of bodily aspiration by looking at extremes, obsession, spectacle, transgression and obscurity. Furthermore, the aim is to unpack the idea of acceptable body aesthetics in order to problematize these normative ideals of beauty that have been cultivated over centuries and how they are interwoven with our quotidian experiences. Lastly, how they contribute to the perpetuation of racial distaste.
Of the issues around performance, spectacle and exoticisms, and our decisions to embody specific racial and cultural aspects, we are well aware. The idea of ‘black face’ comes to the fore here. Our work appropriates the ordinary within our own racial and cultural groupings. By this I mean that we draw on and draw attention to the visual signifiers (specifically sites of bodily aspiration) that we identify with most – that is marginalised hybrid identities including as ‘blackness, colouredness and mixed race-ness’. These signifiers play a huge role in our own histories and the shaping of our own identities. They include hair, skin tone, facial features and body stature. We activate these signifiers throughout the four stages of performance by changing our appearance in the most common way possible - switching from afro hair, to ‘gelled’ hair, to straightened hair, to weave or plaits, applying make-up and donning corsets. The hair transformation, for example, plays with our own ambiguous appearance and our own relentless re-classification on a daily basis (as afro hair is associated to colouredness or mixed raced and weave or plats to black – in the South African context). The work further, looks at the appropriation and the exotisizing of such practices and products by artists – as we as artists buy-in assume and contend with the colonial gaze.