Yes, Exhibit B is challenging – but I never sought to alienate or offend
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Version 0 of 1. Exhibit B, a performance piece that I have made and which has been staged at major festivals in several European cities, has been cancelled in London. This follows protest action at its premiere at the Waterloo Vaults on Tuesday night, in which protesters tried to force the doors of the venue, and security guards determined that they could not guarantee the safety of performers, staff and spectators. I stand for a global society that is rich in a plurality of voices. I stand against any action that calls for the censoring of creative work or the silencing of divergent views, except those where hatred is the intention. The intention of Exhibit B was never hatred, fear, or prejudice. It is about love, respect and outrage. Those who have caused Exhibit B to be shut down brand the work as racist. They have challenged my right, as a white South African, to speak about racism the way I do. They accuse me of exploiting my performers. They insist that my critique of human zoos and the objectifying, dehumanising colonial/racist gaze is nothing more than a recreation of those spectacles of humiliation and control. The vast majority of them have not attended the work. I appreciate that interpretations of this piece, as of any creative work, can vary, and that my intention to explore the machinations of systems of racism and how they dehumanise all who are touched by them can be read in different ways. I do not portray the world in the binaries of black and white, wrong and right, good and evil. I am an artist who works with colours and shades. Exhibit B has been lauded by white, black and brown audiences and critics for the powerful stance it takes against racism, the dehumanisation and objectification of black people, and the sanitisation of the brutalities of European colonialism. In Exhibit B there are 12 stages or tableaux vivants. In each, a performer physically characterises an objectified human being. Rather than portraying “the native in his natural surrounds” as human zoos did, each installation shows the brutality subjected upon asylum seekers in the EU or inflicted upon colonial subjects. The listed components of each installation includes spectators – it is only complete with an audience. The installation is not about the cultural or anatomical difference between the colonial subject and the spectator; it is about the relationship between the two. It is about looking and being looked at. Both performer and spectator are contained within the frame. Exhibit B is not primarily a work about colonial-era violence. Its main focus is current racist and xenophobic policies in the EU, and how these have evolved from the state-sanctioned racism of the late 19th century. These policies do not exist in historical isolation. They have been shaped over centuries. The dehumanising stereotypes of otherness instilled in the consciousness of our ancestors have been transmitted subconsciously and insidiously through the ages. Exhibit B demands that we interrogate these representations. I am accused of exploiting the performers of Exhibit B. The implication is that those who opt to perform in the piece lack agency. In the rehearsals I emphasise that they need to find their own inner meaning in the work. The rehearsals include exercises in endurance, self-awareness and meditation. There is a lot of care, coaching and compassion. I have testimonies from many of the 150 or so performers, who come from all walks of life, class and professional status, about how valuable, enriching and empowering the experience has been. It has not been my intention to alienate people with this work. To challenge perceptions and histories, yes. Explicitly to offend, no. But I work in difficult and contested territory that is fraught with deep pain, anger and hatred. There are no clear paths through this territory,and it is littered with landmines. Does that mean that as an artist I should not enter? I am a white South African who spent my first 27 years living under a detestable regime of racism – albeit on the side of privilege. As an artist I continually reflect in my work on that system and its ramifications and implications. Do any of us really want to live in a society in which expression is suppressed, banned, silenced, denied a platform? My work has been shut down today, whose will be closed down tomorrow? |