Sonya Mmakopano Rademeyer
Art Harare Contemporary Art Fair
2020
Zimbabwe
Having been born and raised in Zimbabwe but living in South Africa for many years, artIHARARE has allowed me the opportunity to, for the first time in my artistic career, show work in the country of my birth. Having been a selected artist for this contemporary art fair, I have had the opportunity to engage in various online webinars and exchanges with Zimbabwean artists and in the Diaspora, often leaving me quite emotional as I have re-connected with my place of birth and country of origin.
For artIHARARE, my collaboration with composer Franco Prinsloo (South Africa) titled “please forgive me” (2020) was selected. The video work is a plea for forgiveness: for land dispossession and the severing from indigenous lands in Southern Africa due to early colonization, as viewed from a white settler post-colonial perspective. Connected to the video, is the exhibition of a photographic portrait (of the artist) portrayed in a white ‘voortrekker’ dress holding a genealogy book of the Rademeyer lineage that set foot on the African continent in the early 1700’s. The portrait, taken in the Tankwa Karoo, as is the video, reflects the acknowledgement by the artist of the ignorance concerning the devastation caused by her colonial ancestral lineage.
The work hopes to open up discussions around inter-generational trauma connected to notions of land segregation and land dispossession directly linked to early colonization.
photo credits: Niki Vanos
Short video here
Short info here
