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EXHIBITIONS
Remembering the Future
For her new exhibition Jeannette Unite has mined some of the 45 kilometres of records, stored in eight floors of Cape Archives depositories to source illustrations, documents and photographs that offer some insight into the ecologically, economically, geologically, historically, socially and technologically impact of the mining industry on South Africa.
EVENT DETAILS
| When |
Fri 10 Oct to Fri 31 Oct |
VENUE DETAILS
| Venue Name |
Old Gaol of the Western Cape Archives and Records Service |
| Venue Description |
Opening times: Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm, Thursdays to 8am to 7pm and the first Saturday/month from 9am to 1pm. |
| Address |
72 Roeland Street Map to the venue |
| City |
Cape Town, Western Cape |
| Telephone |
021 466 8100 |
| Web Site |
http://www.national.archives.gov.za |
REVIEW / MILES KEYLOCK
In Dust: The Archive and Cultural History, historian Carolyn Steedman describes the physical symptoms of Derrida’s “archive fever” as a kind of desire: the impossible longing to “recover moments of inception.” According to Steadman the fever typically starts in the bed of a cheap hotel, where the historian cannot get to sleep, “The first sign… is an irresistible anxiety about the hundreds who have slept there before you, leaving their dust and fibres in the fibres of the blankets...”
Jeannette Unite is an artist and not a historian but one can imagine her having similar night sweats. For her new exhibition, Remembering the Future she’s mined some of the 45 kilometres of records, stored in eight floors of Cape Archives depositories to source illustrations, documents and photographs that offer some insight into the ecologically, economically, geologically, historically, socially and technologically impact of the mining industry on South Africa. A daunting task - after all, how, as an artist do you deal with this material, make sense of a collision of registers at once so historically epic, momentous and banal?
Unite’s solution is to work in layers, using materials drawn from the industry (ochre and kaolin) to create large-scale sketches that explore the abstract visual possibilities of mining while still allegorically invoking a wider set of issues. The experience of confronting these multi-layered works is itself feverish; critic Chris Roper once described the sensation as a kind of seduction as you are “dizzyingly drawn into the layers”. As Roper points out, Unite’s “archive fever” is contagious. What’s more, by exhibiting her works in the State Archive she aims to spread her dis-ease: inviting viewers in the “belly of the beast” and giving them a small taste of fascinating treasures buried deep inside this often overlooked public resource.
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The drawings on cotton acid free paper have been made from handmade pastels using significant diamondiferous materials and metal oxides including iron, ochre, titanium dioxide, graphite carbon and charcoal. The decision not to frame the works was at the request of the Heritage committee to reduce the weight on the walls. This means that the works are vulnerable and accessible in a way that knowledge and information is not