Resonance

Onsite installation in the Women’s Prison Atrium on Constitution Hill
1 to 28 August 2022

Consisting of a handmade white dress stitched with red thread, Resonance contemplates the escalation in gender-based violence in South Africa as it intensified during Covid 19 lockdowns. The installation is a reflection on the pain and anger informing expressions of masculinity with its underbelly of violence and brings awareness to what became known as the Shadow Pandemic during which 90 countries were in hard lockdown in April 2020.

Bound and tied onsite, the installation explores interconnectedness and how we remain caught in cycles of violence. Resonance brings to light how men and women exist in synchronous relationships reflective of each other and keep each other trapped in binary opposition. The use of red thread creates a web of lines - traversing, connecting, binding, and entwining all of humanity to each other. Every story told and untold is not random, but a rich weaving of one to the other in the endless formation of scarlet embroidery which we weave ourselves.

In physics resonance describes how different things in proximity start to vibrate together at the same frequency. This is known as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization, and examining it provides potentially deep insight into the nature of consciousness and existence. If we consider the collective human consciousness from this perspective, we can shift it - how it manifests; the frequency at which it vibrates; and ultimately how reality is experienced. We have it within us to change human consciousness one person at a time through intentional resonance connections, like an invisible scarlet thread.

The Women’s prison on Constitution Hill as the site for this installation has been specifically chosen because many women have been imprisoned here for protecting their rights to life, their families, to have liberty and equality. Now, as home to South Africa’s Constitutional Court, the site plays a significant role in endorsing human rights and has a long history reflective of South Africa’s past.

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