‘Hoop’ is an Afrikaans term meaning both ‘heap’ and ‘hope’. In English the word is used to describe a circular band meant to ‘bind’ or ‘encircle’ together. We also use the term more colloquially, as in when one has to ‘jump through a number of hoops’ in the process of dealing with over-elaborate or complicated procedures. A ‘heap’ is of course an accumulation of materials, objects or even bodies.

This installation by the artist Johan Thom (SA) is a response to the poem ‘Obituary’ (2021) by Sudeep Sen (India). In turn, Sen wrote this poem in response to the Covid pandemic (in particular, the front page of the New York Times on 24 May 2020 that featured a vast list of the victims of the pandemic along with a few personal details of each person).

For ‘Hoop/ Heap’ (2023) Thom utilises a combination of material and conceptual elements and bodily processes to generate a dynamic space through which the viewer becomes an active participant in the work.

Upon entering the exhibition space the viewer is first confronted with a large mound of red soil and lightly stencilled text upon the walls that reads ‘They were not simply names on a list. They were us.’ (the byline that accompanied the front page of the New York Times). Viewers are thus alerted to the nature of the space as a memorial of sorts – a space for quiet contemplation. Of course, the text also urges viewers to remember that individuals ought never be reduced to numbers or statistics too (as governmental and institutional reports often do).

A soft voice fills the space, inviting viewers deeper into the installation in search of its origins. Once viewers move around the far side of the mound of red soil they discover a small video embedded in its side. Viewers now have to bend down closely toward the ground to see and hear the content of the video. The looped video is a documentation of Thom quietly reading Sen’s ‘Obituary’ – albeit with his mouth so close to a lit a candle that his breath continuously extinguishes the flame. The stencilled text on the wall was created by the artist through a similar repetitive process of physically blowing dust and pigment onto its surface.

Finally, viewers are invited to use white chalk to write down the names of family and friends they lost to the Covid pandemic on the large black paper hanging from the opposite wall of the installation. This list will continue to grow as the work is exhibited in different spaces – transforming the textured black page into a white palimpsest of sorts.
In this way the installation becomes a form of defiant memorialisation – a space where individuals lives, memories and bodies matter most.

Johan Thom (b1976) is an artist and Associate Professor in Fine Arts at the University of Pretoria. His work often explores the body as a site of resistance, change and power.

(Installation view: My intimate skies: Words Festival, Foundation, South Africa, 2023. Photographic credits: Johan Thom; Sudeep Sen – Image of Johan Thom in process).