21.10.2015, Cape Town & Munich, 2016-2017

This collaboration between Faith XLVII and Imraan Christian, 21.10.2015 is a series of three works, first exhibited at Everard Read gallery in Cape Town.

One of the images was installed as a public artwork as part of the Hiervandaan/From Here On/Ndisuka outdoor exhibition by the Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust in 2016. This image was also installed in Munich as part of the 2017 Magic Cities exhibition, curated by Carlo McCormick.

The installation’s starting point is a poignant image taken by Imraan during the 2015 #feesmustfall student protests in Cape Town. The photograph documents a pivotal turning point – the moment when peaceful protestors reacted violently as a response to sustained police brutality.

It poses the question of how we as individual South Africans, as well as the media, become complicit in a culture of consuming violence – where it is normalised, without real investigation into the systemic causes.

By deconstructing the image, the piece observes how specific events become part of the fabric of both personal and collective memory, and become transformed and fragmented over time.

The artwork intends to provoke and bring visibility to the need for transformation within the historical and institutional structures of South Africa.