“Kim, There are People Dying!”

Demonstrating candidly how even through critique or intentional resistance, pop culture, and subsequently the system of capitalism is at this point inescapable, good good boy (Meghan Daniels) and Andrew Mogridge’s use of satire, comedy, and irony is reminiscent of the pop art movement in their work, and critiques contemporary consumerism and media saturation while also reflexively taking part in it.

The exhibition therefore suggests that popular culture serves as a dynamic archive, capable of documenting diverse experiences and reflecting changes in society, identity, and politics. Sitaara Stodel’s work is of interest here as she curates and reinterprets ways of being through her collage artworks, incessantly disassembling and reassembling domestic scenes we have all come to know so well, but striving to reconstruct her memories and subsequently, the world around her. Further highlighted by Emily Lacon-Allin’s uniquely personal collage technique, she rips up and reassembles old canvas paintings as a trauma response to reinterpret the idealised concept of victimhood. 

Finally, we can look to Charity Vilakazi’s highlighting African women in folktales that illustrate the liberated and disruptive potential of female power, resilience, wisdom and agency. On the contrary however, Folklore is also something often co-opted by popular culture, therefore the exhibition allows the tension of Vilakazi’s work to explore idealised (western) notions of women in the mass consumption of pop culture by introducing these themes in an accessible and inviting manner.

The exhibition explores ways in which the medium and message both reinforce and reinterpret the archive's traditional, often exclusionary ideals by using pop culture/what has historically been deemed as ‘low art’ to express their identities and thus challenge these original archival definitions. In fact pop culture itself, constantly resisting steadfast and concrete definitions, makes alternative mediums the perfect vehicle to explore both identity formation as well as interpreting local context through a popular culture lens, as the two seem to inform and reinforce one another.

Challenging traditional archival definitions as relative to identity expression, particularly among minority groups, Neil Badenhorst and Gabriele Jacobs speak to the queering of these themes in both their mediums and messages consisting relatively of digital collage, illustration and sculptural forms.

Below:Neil Badenhorst, I-T-G-I-R-L, 2024, Digital Media Print, 29.5 x 39.2 cm,  open edition, R850 ex VAT