Pine wood, found objects (collection of 35mm slides, found wood and glass display cabinet) and mixed media140 (h) x 130 (l) x 270(l) cm

This work continues the Houseboat Series (2016, ongoing). In this series of artworks I give artistic form to complex questions of belonging and the concept of ‘home’ in a contemporary (Southern) African context.
In Houseboat#2 the form of the boat/ vessel is again synonym for an expanded definition of the home. Here the home is understood as a space of dwelling that, other than a permanent brick and mortar built structure, moves through the world as a provisional, ever-changing form. This construction is as much a physical extension of my body as it is a site and a vessel through which I traverse the world even as I negotiate my sense of belonging as part thereof.  Houseboat #2 is made from pine wood, a widely available and non-permanent means of sculptural construction. Materially speaking pinewood is light and easily shaped or joined together. It is typically used for building applications such as roof trusses, fences, decks and other non – or – semi-permanent structures. As such it is an ideal means to materially expand the self (the body, the psyche) into a number of aesthetic forms that are always only provisional even though they appear fixed or permanent.  

For Houseboat #2 I have mounted a small museum-style display cabinet near the stern of the vessel. The cabinet is filled with a found collection of 35mm photographic slides comprising visuals materials (such as examples of artworks, architecture, design) all related to the teaching of undergraduate modules in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria. Questions of belonging, of changing technology and of decolonial thoughts about art and art education in our current context are all brought to bear upon one another.  

I found the collection of approximately 2000 slides at the University of Pretoria roundabout 2015 while my colleagues and I were clearing out a number of storerooms in our building. It was stored there, seemingly discarded upon a shelf like a relic of a bygone, analogue era. Upon closer inspection some of the slides appeared old (and familiar) enough to have been in use during my undergraduate studies at UP many years ago.
A light is mounted in between the collection of slides. The glass display cabinet now functions both as a (search) light mounted upon a seafaring vessel whilst partially illuminating its contents too. This formal conceit signals the radical, self-reflexive search for belonging within our current context that touches us all. Even as anachronistic and outmoded ideas and aesthetic forms are cut loose from their anchor they continue to trawl the seas of our individual and collective unconscious looking for a new home. Things of once great importance are lost even as some things wait to be found, to be carefully (re)discovered and brought into the light. For example, a university collection 35mm slides of artworks may be studied anew for what they say about someones’ sense of belonging, dispossession, education or lack thereof at a particular time and place. Perhaps some archives are best lost completely despite such possibilities for meaningful engagement and lingering value in this present moment. Some things must be forgotten. But who will decide what they are, what is worthwhile keeping and what must be lost to make space for us all? This is a complex question that we must deal with as we continuously attempt to forge a collective sense of belonging in our homes, our nations and indeed our global world.      Finally, display cabinets such as the one used in Houseboat #2 may commonly be found in museums where items of great natural, cultural and historical value need to be isolated and protected (even as they are presented to members of the public for visual inspection and investigation). Personally I associate such display cabinets mostly with the idea of the ‘Wunderkamer’, a veritable room or ‘cabinet’ of curiosities.