Sonke collaborated with photographer Jodi Bieber on her solo exhibition QUIET a few months ago which showed at The Goodman Gallery ... This Thursday, a smaller version of the exhibit will be shown at First Thursdays Cape Town [70-72 Bree Street - Beautifull Life Building, starting from 530pm]. We hope those in Cape Town can attend. From the artist & Goodman Gallery: Quiet is a portrait series of men in South Africa, in their homes, stripped down to their underwear, sometimes confronting the viewer, in other instances finding comfort or restraint in directing their gaze elsewhere. By way of their setting and disclosure, these are intimate portraits that reveal a vulnerability and calm ultimately countering the public portrayal of the male order as aggressive and forceful. Jackson Katz – American educator, filmmaker, and author – confronts the way in which the media helps to “construct violent masculinity as a cultural norm”. In response to this, Bieber explains, “it is of interest to men, and to society in general, that the normality of violent masculinity be challenged in order to create space for men to see themselves in other ways.” While the series specifically focuses on men in South Africa, Bieber continues, the subject is of universal interest. Yet this body of work has huge significance in South Africa in particular, which has gained a reputation as one of the most violent countries in the world and where shifting gender norms have become the key initiative in organisations aiming to curtail gender-based violence. And in South Africa, it is not only the media that constructs violent masculinity as a cultural norm. As South African academic Stella Viljoen expounds, “By speaking about our masculinity and that of our partner, president or clan, we are speaking about the relational hegemony at the core of our identity as a nation… Photo below - from Quiet (Jodi Bieber): Sonke Gender Justices Board Chair, Kopano Ratele Kopano Ratele - Academic, father, husband, son, stepbrother, friend. [CP]
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 20:51:23 +0000
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