Claire Bezuidenhout
review OFTHEWEEK
‘The XIII International Aids Conference theme, ‘Break the silence’, is an acknowledgement of the many silences which surround HIV/Aids – from the silence of communities which obstruct acceptance and disclosure, to silences which prevail across the nations estranged by colossal inequities and divided by towering debts,” reads the press release for the Aids 2000 conference.
Amasiko, the cultural programme running alongside the Aids conference, wishes to ”embrace the performing arts, visual arts, tours and site visits, interfaith religious services and events, therapeutic exercises such as massage and meditation, as well as various information sharing exercises”.
The Amasiko programme has been credited as Durban’s own ”mini-Grahamstown Festival”. The profile of the event has been taken to extremes with the organisers of the events and performers receiving more attention than the theme of the ever-increasing epidemic.
One is awe-stricken at the lengths the organisers have gone to to include every scrap of performance art the city has spawned and cleverly manipulated it into a ”relevant piece befitting the broader issue of human rights”.
There are, however, some gripping exhibitions at certain galleries and by certain performance groups, upholding dignity with positive HIV/Aids awareness- related messages.
One of these is the Bat Centre’s Bayside Gallery, whose exhibition Living with HIV – not dying from Aids displays a joint show of ceramics by Ardmore Studio and charcoal drawings by Zululand artist Mary-Ann ”Nonjabulo” Orr. The heartfelt nature of these pieces comes across as a natural tribute to the large number of workers from Ardmore Studio who have lost their lives to HIV/Aids over the past two years.
An outstanding artist with a conscience, Nonjabulo (meaning Happiness) shares her work with a humbling and simple emotion. Her artistic mission brings to the gallery the work of artists from the community where she is currently establishing a creative healing centre, at a mission station deep in rural Zululand. She aims to focus on the psychological impact of living with HIV by providing a venue and platform for care giving, primary healthcare and traditional healing and spirituality. All the proceeds from the sale of her artworks will go into a registered trust to promote this cause.
The African Art Centre’s Senzenjani Ngengculazi?’ (What are we going to do about Aids?) is also contributing 15% of the profit from all items sold to the Aids awareness craft workshops held in conjunction with the centre and Kate Wells of the design department of ML Sultan Technikon.The Durban Art Gallery hosts Positive Lives, a world-renowned exhibition that deeply acknowledges community development projects as it constantly commissions new, local stories, attitudes and responses to be incorporated into its photographic projects.
Their driving commitment to ensuring positive messages and visual awareness throughout Africa is laudable and it is projects such as these that are the essential nuclei of the ”Breaking the Silence” theme.
The Durban Art Gallery contributes more than just an exhibition to the programme. It essentially turns the gallery ”inside out” by wrapping a 500m-long Aids ribbon around the City Hall. The ribbon is decorated in panels by more than 1E000 members of the community, from Aids orphans, schoolchildren and art students to community groups and individual professional artists.
Workshops over the last few weeks were held at schools, hostels, hospices, hospitals, orphanages, streetchildren’s shelters, art colleges, shopping centres and at the gallery itself, resulting in a 700kg, 4m-wide ode to Aids awareness banner for the city to see. Perfectly situated in the epicentre of Durban, the City Hall now proudly displays the greatest visual spectacle of the conference. Tacky, maybe, but definitely effective.
Although the Amasiko project must be congratulated for its command over every gallery and performance platform available during the conference, and although it actively involved popular artists and musicians in its programmes, one can’t help feeling that once again Durban has used the importance of the conference to launch another tourist trap endeavour.