The Alliance Française of Johannesburg is proud to invite you to the exhibition of Boitumelo Project "Fair / Unfair".
On the 1st December at 5pm, for the International Day against AIDS, Boitumelo Project and the Alliance Française of Johannesburg invite you to an opening and artistic event to celebrate this day.
About the exhibition...
‘Obedience to a woman leads to hell.’ Arabian Proverb.
The motivation for this project is “Annette Messager The Messengers” exhibition at The Hayward at the South bank Centre in London during March 2009.
‘The only sword that never rests is the tongue of a woman.’ Armenian Proverb
In response to Annette Messager’s artwork collecting proverbs in French that negatively explores gender issues ; we at Boitumelo have been exploring these same proverbs over the last month. When one Google searches proverbs with women as a theme the astounding majority are extremely negative and shockingly derogatory about women. Finding and looking at proverbs from all cultures one sees that negative remarks are made about women re their gender, quality and value.
‘A woman’s clothes are the price her husband pays for peace.’ African Proverb
Annette Messager made an artwork during the 70’s embroidering these proverbs onto cloth. We at Boitumelo have also selected embroidery as a means to explore these proverbs and each crafter selects proverbs, collects proverbs from own culture or home and from people around us in the community. We are collecting these proverbs as well as those coming from our own cultures reflecting the ability to collect water, making of fire and being a good wife and or mother. These are daily sayings about women and we as women are as guilty about re-saying these proverbs as men are.
‘No matter how treacherous is the sea, a woman will always be more so.’ Breton Proverb
These proverbs will be embroidered onto A3 size cloth and we would like this to be exhibited at Alliance Francaise during August 2009. It is an interesting project to highlight how easy it is to make derogatory statements about other women, how easy it is to follow the tongues of our ancestors and how easily we merely repeat and replicate without giving it a thought. Creating the notion of the “other”, to judge and create separation is still a very effective tool to divide, isolate and see how we can compartmentalize society.
‘A fat woman is a blanket for the winter.’ Arabian Proverb
In essence this project serves to highlight that to merely replicate words/proverbs because they have been part of our culture and society for centauries does not proof them honest or fair and we should be careful how we speak and in which context we make comment without thinking about the effect this could have on others.
‘A woman only listens to the advice of a fool’ African Proverb
Erica Luttich Creative Director of Boitumelo Project
Venue
Gallery Gerard Sekoto
Alliance Française of Johannesburg
17 Lower Park Drive corner Kerry Road
Parkview - opposite Zoo Lake
The exhibition is from Tuesday the 24th to Friday 18th December.
Gallery hours
Monday - Thursday : 9 am - 8 pm
Friday : 9 am - 6 pm
Saturday : 9 am - 1 pm
For more information
Contact Pauline
culture.jhb@alliance.org.za
011 646 1169
