“Hope to See” by Matthew Ovendale
Title:
- Hope to See
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Medium:
- Digital art
Artist Statement:
Hope to See was conceived form a desire to engage creatively with graffiti produced by the Tanzanian stowaway community in Durban. Finding their way to Durban is but a leg of their journey, in large their intended destinations vary and boil down to chance and experience. The basic premise of a stowaway − in these cases− is to leave Africa via a perilous journey of stowing away on commercial shipping vessels in the security lax ports of South Africa. The stowaway graffiti stands as a public showing of their stories, records, an indelible mix of; desperation, adventure, aspirational drive and existential change. The lives of the stowaways can easily be amassed within the simplistic brackets of illegality, promoting a negation of a shared human identity. This defining tar brush of othering runs the risk of perpetuating positions of domination and subordination. A reality already pervasively entrenched within a city rapidly reconfiguring itself to the momentous influx of African migrants and its gradual shift toward a decolonized space. In an attempt to counter these inherent pitfalls whilst not discarding the need to actively tell snippets of the stowaway stories, the artistic project Hope to see envisages utilizing the creolized nature of Warwick Junctions markets by amalgamating naturalized crafted products and elements of stowaway graffiti already present in the market spaces.
