The writing is on the wall: Affect and conscientisation in the queer & trans Art-iculations Talk-back Station

abstract

queer & trans Art-iculations: Collaborative Art for Social Change, as an exhibition, opened up a public space for critical engagement with the idea of the gender binary and the lives of people who do not conform to heteropatriarchal social norms and expectations. Coordinated by the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) and hosted by the Wits Art Museum (WAM), a primary agenda was to exhibit the work of two self-proclaimed art activists, Zanele Muholi and Gabrielle Le Roux, in order to create awareness around the discrimination of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities. Art activism being the goal, it was necessary to provide a platform whereby audiences could contemplate and then respond to the information provided by Muholi and Le Roux. An audience Talk-back Station, or Comments Wall, created by WAM Education Curator Leigh Blanckenberg and WiCDS Research Coordinator Haley McEwen, where visitors could respond to prompting questions, ask their own questions, or respond in creative ways was constructed in the gallery space to complement the exhibition and provide space for visitor dialogue with the joint-exhibition. The intention of the wall was for multiple views, opinions and experiences to be expressed and heard. This Article will examine visitor engagement with the Comments Wall, and through an evaluation of the responses, will consider how, if at all, the exhibition impacted on visitors in terms of its ability to promote critical awareness of gender and sexuality as social justice issues.

keywords:

• art activism
• art museum
• social justice
• Zanele Muholi
• Gabrielle Le Roux
• audience participation

Notes

1. Authors such as Gqola (2006), Thomas (2010), Baderoon (2011) and van der Vlies (2012) have highlighted the ways in which Muholi's visual activism has opened up spaces for expression, mourning, dissent, activism, and solidarity in post-apartheid South Africa. In this volume, Milani (2014) and Ortega (2014) provide close readings of Le Roux's queer art activism.

2. For further reading on the role of politics and emotion see Thrift's (2008) work on space and affect, Ahmed's (2004) work on the political economy of emotion, and Berlant (2000), Ahmed (2010) and Sedgwick (2003) for feminist cultural studies of emotion and affect.

3. WAM attendance data over the two months of the exhibition show diverse audience attendance, although due to the fact that there is no entrance charge it is difficult to estimate with accuracy.

4. The possibility for this intervention and others to be taken to township and rural communities remains open. The need for this kind of public social justice education through art activism remains profound.

5. Comments are presented verbatim and without grammatical editing where images are not presented.

6. See www.hotelyeoville.co.za.

7. Inkanyiso is a queer media collective founded by Zanele Muholi (www.inkanyiso.org) and were key collaborators in the exhibition project.

8. All comment cards have been archived for further analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leigh Blanckenberg

LEIGH BLANCKENBERG was born in 1986 and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Science degree majoring in Politics, Sociology and Art History at the University of Cape Town in 2007. In 2008 she moved to the University of Witwatersrand to complete her Honours Degree in Art History. She graduated with distinction. She was awarded the Standard Bank Group Foundation of African Art Honours Award for the best essay on the topic African Art Studies in 2008. In 2012 she completed a Masters of Art History at the University of Witwatersrand. She currently works as the Education Curator at the Wits Art Museum, located in Johannesburg, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

Haley McEwen

HALEY MCEWEN is the Research Coordinator at the Centre for Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research interests focus on discourses of race, sexuality, and gender, and the knowledge-power relations informing these axes of difference and inequality. Haley is also interested in critical emancipatory research and creative approaches to social justice pedagogy and activism. She holds an MPhil in Diversity Studies from the University of Cape Town and is currently a doctoral candidate at Wits. She is one of the guest editors of this issue of Agenda. Email: [email protected]