Sonya Rademeyer
video still: please forgive me
photo credit: Nicki Vanos
Please forgive me is a collaboration between visual artist Sonya Rademeyer (South Africa) and composer Franco Prinsloo (South Africa). The work speaks to the greater politics of land viewed through the lens of early colonization. Moving from a particular white perspective the video piece is a plea for forgiveness for the trauma inherited inter-generationally. Although geographically placed within the region of Southern Africa it also speaks to the greater trauma of colonization across the African continent. Reflecting the thematic subtext, the music consists of evocative, elongated lamentations that are meditative and slow to which an ensemble of female voices have been added. Echoing choral "sigh"-motives in the high tessiture, they resonate the images of entanglement and lamentation presented in the video work.
Opening up the work to a more global level, the work prompts inquiry into facing and unpacking human contributions to violence and to ways in which empathy and forgiveness might be opened up. Ultimately, it is a call for global tolerance.
