The exportation of raw
materials, coupled with mass suppression has been an important aspect in the process of
colonising South Africa.
In the process of colonisation there is a period of
brief interchange between the different cultural ideologies. This has at times manifest
with the exchange of artefacts and social perspectives. The dominant colonising
ideologies playing a major role in determining the extent of the interchange. Religion has
also played a major part in re-socialising countries that have been colonised. The
coloniser usually establishes a dominant social perspective through a process of
assimilation and imposition. Once the peoples are colonised, there is a period where a set
of imposed values are enforced. This is achieved by the creation of new laws, a new
religion and new cultural forms.
South Africa is such a land of historical
'progress', a land of colonial 'over-ride'. With the abolition of apartheid, South
Africans have seen the possible 'death' of this initial colonial genesis. Concepts of
equal rights and freedom have been bandied about by most political parties and their
followers moving us into a new state of colonisation, possibly 'the garden of Earthly
Delights' state. But, a large segment of the South African population are now in this
Post-colonial state with the values and attitudes of the Colonised period. This
installation is not a diatribe against these values, nor does it cast a moral judgement on
the South African Art Galleries past and present collection policies, rather it aims at a
way of stimulating thoughts about the processes of vision and change that have and are
occurring.
DASART formed in this period that led up to a free
and equal democratic political election in South Africa. The Dasartists see themselves as
a message that was birthed out of this transition, and aims to create statements that are
part of that message. DASART was formed with the express purpose of bringing together
those artists with similar views in search for a new sense of place and space. The result
of this search is that the artworks tend to occupy a space outside of the pictorial plane,
and utilise a scale that is architectonic. |
