31 MAY - 1 JUNE
2021
MAKING AND INTERPRETING ART IN 2021
A CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION FOR HONOURS AND MASTERS' STUDENTS IN THE VISUAL ARTS
Hosted by the South African Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture, University of Johannesburg
Image is of ‘Exodus’, courtesy of Angelique Bougaard (2019)
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Making and Interpreting Art in 2021 brings together current work by postgraduates and artists in Southern Africa as they explore and contend with many of the urgent issues of our times.
This virtual conference and exhibition, focusing exclusively on Honours and Masters’ students in the Visual Arts and Art History, is hosted by postgraduates and postdoctoral research fellows with the NRF Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
The conference is designed to allow Honours and Masters' students to experience and participate in an academic conference while receiving guidance, feedback and support in navigating these spaces.
The exhibition offers postgraduates an opportunity to develop professional skills for proposing and exhibiting their artwork.
PROGRAMME
MONDAY 31 MAY 2021
09:00
Online meeting room opens
09:15 – 09:45
Welcome and introductions
PANEL 1
Issues in contemporary South African curation and exhibition
09:45 – 10:15
“Supranational identity and decoloniality in Andrea Lewis’ Filling in the Gaps exhibition (2019)"
Heidi Erdmann (MA Visual Studies, Stellenbosch University)
10:15 – 10:45
“DigiBition art technology”
Victoria Machipisa (MPhil Digital Curation, University of Cape Town)
10:45 – 11:15
“Portraiture drawing as intervention: Strategies of creating participation in Anthea Moys’ Portraiture Exchange (2015)”
Odette Graskie (MA Visual Arts, University of Johannesburg)
11:15 – 11:30
Morning tea break
PANEL 2
Engaging with gender-based violence and its aftermaths
11:30 – 12:00
“South African intimate femicide: Art as absent-presence”
Andrea Walters (MA Fine Art, University of South Africa)
12:00 – 12:30
“Healing and reconciliation processes expressed in the works of Peter Musani” Herbert Chibvongodze (Masters in Intellectual Property, Africa University)
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch break
PANEL 3
Reflections on identity: Narratives of family and self
13:30 – 14:00
“The African polyglot: Of Autobiography and fictional perspectives on identity”
Bontle Tau (MA Fine Arts, University of the Free State)
14:00 – 14:30
“How do I make work out of love when I have been burnt and turned into white gold? A seventh-generation Durban Indian indentured labourer descendant’s questioning of embodied trauma via oral narratives”
Shamil Balram (MA Fine Arts, University of Cape Town)
14:30 – 15:00
“Conversations with my Father: On isithakazelo, Meadowlands and acts of self-writing” Tsholofelo Moche (MA Fine Art, University of the Witwatersrand)
15:00 - 15:15
Afternoon tea break
15:15 - 16:45
CONVERSATION 1
Session with past and present postgrads “I wish I’d known beforehand...”
16:45 - 17:00
Late afternoon break
17:00 - 18:00
Virtual Exhibition Opening of Making and Interpreting Art in 2021
(Open to conference delegates and participants and to the general public; details and link on Exhibition invitation)
18:00
End of Day 1
TUESDAY 1 JUNE 2021
09:00
Online meeting room opens
PANEL 4
The roles of the image and the object: Past, present, future
09:15 – 09:45
“Epistemic images: Exploring scientific and artistic image-making practices”
Leon Witthuhn (MA Fine Arts, University of the Free State)
09:45 – 10:15
“Curious image objects and South African social imaginaries: Place, desire, power”
Johandi du Plessis-Kleynhans (MA Fine Arts, University of the Free State)
10:15 – 10:45
“Posthumanist interpretations of the human-technology interface in a contemporary jewellery praxis”
Luché Eléne Oberholzer (MA Visual Arts, Stellenbosch University)
10:45 – 11:00
Morning tea break
PANEL 5
Memory and time in the public and the personal
11:00 – 11:30
“Imagined memory: Contemporary jewellery as embodiment of remembrance”
Lara Daryl Landsberg (MA Visual Arts: Creative Jewellery & Metal Design, Stellenbosch University)
11:30 – 12:00
“The Struggle of memory against forgetting: Afterlife and memorialisation of imagery surrounding South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission”
Madeleine Bazil (MA Documentary Arts, University of Cape Town)
12:00 – 12:30
“Artistic relationships with time and change”
Lilian Elizabeth Brink (BA Fine Art, University of the Free State)
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch break
PANEL 6
New worlds: Landscapes within, beyond, revived
13:30 – 14:00
“Circular economies in artistic practice by Otobong Nkanga and Ibrahim Mahama”
Chrisél Attewell (MA Visual Arts, University of Johannesburg)
14:00 – 14:30
“Inhabitation of the land: Picture objects of stone”
Louiza Combrinck (BA Hons Art History & Visual Culture Studies, University of the Free State)
14:30 – 15:00
“Between worlds: The Illustrated fantasy world as crisis heterotopia for transitional experiences”
Neil Badenhorst (MA Graphic Design: Illustration, University of Johannesburg)
15:00 - 15:15
Afternoon tea break
15:15 - 16:45
CONVERSATION 2
Session with artists from exhibition Making and Interpreting Art in 2021
16:45 - 17:00
Farewells and close conference
17:00
End of Day 2
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
Exhibiting Artists
Andrea Walters
Angelique Bougaard
Angie Lazaro
Bridget Modena
Carola Friess
Chrisél Attewell
Corné Venter
Lara Landsberg
Leon Witthuhn
Lilian Brink
Luche Oberholzer
Neil Badenhorst
Nicole Fraser
Odette Graskie
Oliver Hambsch
Shavaun Dippenaar
Tshepo Moloi
ABOUT THE SARCHI CHAIR
Prof Brenda Schmahmann is the South African Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture (or the SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture). Hosted by the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) and integrated with its work, this prestigious position is funded by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and administered by the National Research Foundation (NRF).
The SARChI Research Chair serves as a forum for initiatives in research by not only Prof Schmahmann but also postdoctoral fellows, postgraduate students and others working with her.
The spacious facilities of the SARChI Chair, including a small art gallery, are located at 33 Twickenham Avenue, Auckland Park, 2092 (opposite UJ Kingsway Campus).
The SARChI Chair hosts annual conferences as well as exhibitions and events.
Research falling under the ambit of the SARChI Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture is primarily in art history. Work included here is also, however, in disciplines and fields which are cognate to it, such as design history, fashion theory and visual communication. Some postgraduates associated with the SARChI Chair are pursuing postgraduate qualifications in only theory while others involve art or design practice as well as theory.
The SARChI Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture is particularly interested in research and projects within the following three rubrics:
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Gender and Visual Culture
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Public Art, Curation and the Political of Representation in the Public Domain
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Art and Design in the Context of Community Projects
The call for MA and PhD Scholarships with the SARChI Chair: South African Art and Visual Culture from the NRF for beginning 2022 is currently open until Friday 4 June 2021. Prof Schmahmann brendas@uj.ac.za is interested in supporting and supervising visual art candidates whose envisaged research fits broadly within the Chair’s three rubrics.
Click ‘Scholarships and Fellowships’ to go through to the SARChI website where you may find further necessary information on NRF eligibility criteria, the different award valuations, and application forms.
