Berni Searle
Black smoke rising
Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
The video Lull and related prints Water's Edge together form the first body of work in a series titled Black smoke rising.
Set in an apparent wilderness, there are traces of a garden once tended: rows of agapanthus obscured by overgrown grass, a dry fountain, a solitary arum lily, an archway of straggly creepers. Indigenous and alien, strangely rural and urban, the vista provides a haven of momentary escape.
In medieval times, the garden was associated with the idea of the locus amoenas, the Latin expression for a 'pleasant place'. This literary term refers to an idealised place of safety or comfort, usually a beautiful shady lawn or open woodland, often with connotations of Eden. The garden may be in a remote place and function as a landscape of the mind. Sometimes the function of the locus amoenas is inverted: instead of offering refuge from time and mortality, it becomes the scene of violent encounters.
In this body of work, the tranquility of the landscape is unexpectedly disrupted by a tyre set alight, a potent and sinister symbol of political protest, particularly in South Africa. The work was conceived at a time of a growing and pervasive 'air of discontent' in this country, which has recently been beset by protests by unions and mass demonstrations against poor service delivery. These protests can be seen as an extension of the sociopolitical dynamics that played out in the xenophobic attacks on 'foreigners' in May 2008, when immigrants became the scapegoats on whom similar frustrations were unleashed.
The barricades of burning tyres set up during these protests are reminiscent of anti-apartheid riots and demonstrations. Accompanied by struggle and freedom songs, there is a strange sense of déjà vu to the situation.
The burning of tyres is also an insidious symptom of poverty and unemployment. On the outskirts of cities, tyres are burnt overnight to recover the wire inside. This is sold as scrap for as little as 40 cents per kilo, and many tyres need to be burnt to obtain a kilo of metal. Laws have recently been instated making possession of this wire illegal and prohibiting scrapyards from buying it. However, tyres continue to be set alight, often as 'fuel' for burning the plastic off other metals, with harmful toxic effects for people in surrounding areas and for the environment.
In South Africa, as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, the frustrations and levels of desperation will continue to grow. These simmering tensions have the potential to erupt, and, as in the video, black smoke threatens to engulf the garden. In Lull and Water's Edge there is a temporary abating, before the storm.
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© 2009 Michael Stevenson. All rights reserved.
