Sonya Mmakopano Rademeyer
BRICK BY BRICK
2025
Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Mangaung / Bloemfontein (South Africa)
15 July 2025
BRICK BY BRICK was an intuitive collaborative performance that took place in the Oliewenhuis Art Museum. Viewed as an deliberate act of decolonisation, the collaborative performance explored ways in which resilience could be foregrounded within colonial museum culture. Spontaneous audience collaboration created a tangible and heightened layer to the performance piece, culminating in the escalating chant "brick by brick!" as well as physically contributing to moving clay installtion bricks. The concept of deconstructing the colonial narrative is similarly echoed in the reading-performance of Professor Pitika Ntuli's poem Decolonising the Narrative by Dr Busisiwe Octavia Ntsele, as well as in Ntsele's own PhD text (Chapter 4) of "A Critical Study of Community Engagement at a South African University" (2024). Ntuli's poem, also projected back into the exhibition space through Professor Keith Armstrong's video projection, created an embedded layer which I physically responded to.
Keith Armstrong's work forms a critical part to the live-art performance, not only in the video mapping of the projection which appears from behind a sheet of Fabriano 300 gms paper, but also in the conceptualisation of the overall live-art performance. His projection of Pitika Ntuli's condensed text is created through the projection of light through bottles, directly linking the projection within the Oliewenhuis Art Museum (a satelite National Museum) to Sekhoele Holistic Living Arts Centre (Bloemfontein). In doing so, a decentering of cultural power occurs as the 'outside' is brought 'inside'.
During the unfolding of the performance, I intuitively collaborated with Busisiwe's voice, only moving upon hearing her undulations which were interspersed with Pitika's poem, thereby allowing Busisiwe to directly influence my navigation. As I intermittently started directing my movements towards her, I eventually confronted 'myself' (my projected shadowgram) also moving towards me. Creating a 40 second moment of stand-still tension, I removed by weaver-bird headdress, and reveal my own vulnerability in doing so.
The performance was reintroduced back into the exhibition space through a an installation, reflecting elements that were used during the performance such as the head-dress of weaverbird nests and clay bricks with the looped video (4 min / 26sec) projected througha 15 inch TV screen.
Other collaborators to BRICK BY BRICK are MCDP UFS (pre-performance photography), MyMalaika_Photography (performance video capture / video editing) and EarTherapy community (handmade clay bricks).
Photo credit: MyMalaika_Photography
