Feet Don’t Fail Me Now

Faith47 was one of four artists taking part in the second edition of Drawings in the Sky, running alongside Art Week Johannesburg during September 2015. Drawings in the Sky displayed artworks on four massive LED screens crowning a 29-storey tower. These screens were hailed as the world’s largest when they launched in 2013.

Faith47’s contribution, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, translates the words ‘home,’ ‘sanctuary’ and ‘ache’ into various languages spoken on the African continent, from Amharic to Zulu, from Arabic to Xhosa, using a custom-designed font hand-inscribed on cardboard.

“These are emotive words,” says Faith47. “We may not understand the different translations, but we can all identify with the layered meanings behind them. While language, like culture, can divide us, essentially we all share the same deep-rooted human longings and feelings embodied within these words.”

Faith47 created the artwork as a response to the xenophobia in Johannesburg, which is home to people from across the continent. “I wanted to communicate with the city utilising the language of a larger African diaspora, reflecting on the meaning embedded in these words, in our globalised word, where we’re almost all immigrants of one generation or another.”

Faith47 thanks Inka Kendzia for the animation and compositing on Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, as well as Parts & Labour for making Drawings in the Sky possible.