CANCELLED - The art of gardening against apartheid Dr Jonathan Cane, History of Art

Event details

History of Art Research Seminar

Due to unforeseen circumstances this lecture is now cancelled.

This seminar presents three artistic gardening practices that attempt to grow forms of resistance to apartheid and its afterlives in South Africa.

The seminar describes the emerging debate in South Africa about radical forms of ‘Black gardening’ which attempt to name and support progressive, emancipatory landscape practices. 'The art of gardening against apartheid' argues that it is worth thinking outside of the binaries like, indigenous/exogenous, nostalgic/progressive, green/brown, formal/informal, which characterise the debate on gardening and its forms in South African art history.

To rehearse this argument, the seminar is triangulated, presenting three landscape practices spanning 1985 through to 2020: ‘Ejaradini’ and ‘IZWE’ (2019) by the collective MADEYOULOOK; ‘The Night of the Long Knives I, II, III’ (2013) by Athi-Patra Ruga; and the anti-apartheid landscaping phenomenon from 1985 called the People’s Parks. 

Due to unforeseen circumstances this lecture is now cancelled.