By Richard Kilpert
On a rainy Saturday just after Youth Day, Zeitz MOCAA’s Centre for Art Education (CFAE) unveiled an exhibition of grade 12 learners’. The exhibition is the culmination of a six-week-long project that commenced with a four-day intensive workshop at the end of March 2022. Facilitated by newly qualified art teachers and museum educators, the interactive sessions invited a select group of 19 learners from 11 schools across Cape Town to engage with the work of South African artist Tracey Rose, currently on show at the museum until 28 August 2022.
Tracey Rose confronts social, religious and political dogmas, myths, histories, stereotypes and personal internal struggles through the characters that she embodies in Ciao Bella. Inspired by the unapologetic and confrontational nature of this work and others in the retrospective, the participants responded by making artworks of their own. The artworks were completed over the ensuing six weeks with ongoing guidance by teachers and museum educators
Inspired by Rose’s own journey as an artist, her identity which is central to her practice and the seemingly chaotic nature of her art-making processes, 19 unique creative voices have emerged questioning their identities as young adults, expressing deeply held personal anxieties and negotiating a world in chaos.
The expected role of an art teacher is to guide learners’ creative process and to encourage enquiry and exploration of mediums and techniques. The seven teachers and mentors involved in this project have also chosen to make artworks as part of this process. Teachers have become learners and the learners have proved themselves to be insightful teachers. The accepted hierarchies and boundaries between learners and educators have been broken down, leading all to walk the peripheries of their own identity.
As a Zeitz MOCAA visitor, you are invited to walk the peripheries with the artists. Closes Sunday, 31 July 2022
