Notes

“The work cites former president Jacob Zuma holding ropes in both hands painted on the old apartheid South African flag which includes the British, Orange Free State and Transvaal flags. With a smirk on his face, blood dripping from his expensive suit, his hands are filled with ropes effectively lynching two miners on both sides. The composition of the work takes on the form of triangle, reminiscent of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the work demonstrates that the top needs the balance and stability of the bottom in order to survive. The work serves to highlight South Africa’s reliance on the mining industry for economic gain, and yet it is the miners at the bottom who are found exposed, semi naked, barely making it out alive plagued by the illnesses that may arise due to poor working and living conditions in the mines and instances of hunger that comes from their low paid wages. The work references the strikes that happened at Marikana in 2012 that consequently led to the death of thirty four miners at the hands of the police on the sixteenth of August under the presidency of Jacob Zuma.”¹

¹ Tshegofatso Seoka (2020) Writers of History (Unpublished).

Exhibited

The Artscape Theatre, Cape Town, Die Burger - 100 Years, 28 April to 3 May 2015.