Hybrid identities in Johannesburg

ISBN-13: 9783659176333 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 124 str.

Suzanne Erasmus

Opis

My practical and theoretical research is informed by Johannesburg, the city in which I live. My thesis is positioned within postcolonial academic and theorist Homi K. Bhabhas theory of a "Third Space" and within South African academic, Colin Richards theory of a graft that operates within an enculturated semiosphere. In this instance, I identify spaces in which a graft operates in the form of two examples: garments designed by Strangelove and Stoned Cherrie and selected suburban boundary walls in Parktown West, Westcliff, Houghton, Melville and Emmarentia. These two examples are used to argue whether a graft takes to open out a space for cultural difference or whether it does not take, thus closing off space. I understand my examples as hybrid forms and manifestations of identities in a process of re-definition in the context of postcolonial Johannesburg. My practical work explores manifestations of hybrid identities in my lived context, Johannesburg.

O autorze

Suzanne Erasmus is an artist, researcher and lecturer on art theory and a project manager in the South African art industry. She completed her studies in Fine Art at the University of Cape Town s Michaelis School of Art in 2000. In 2009 she completed her master s degree in Fine Art at the University of Johannesburg.