Collaborating on Meet Market is multi-media performer, Lerato Shadi. Atiyyah Khan met this dynamic young artist.
She may be one of the youngest artists at Infecting The City (ITC), but as far as pushing boundaries goes, visual and performance artist Lerato Shadi is no stranger to difficult and uncomfortable situations. In a piece, titled Mmitlwa, Shadi wrapped her entire body in masking tape, and then painfully unwrapped herself.
“I remember not being sure if I’d make it out,” she says.
Originally from Mafikeng, but now based in Johannesburg, Shadi’s interest is in durational-based ritualistic pieces exploring time and its effects on the body.
Her projects have included being elevated on a plinth in an office space while constantly blowing up balloons for six hours. In 2008, she collaborated with cutting-edge South African band, Blk Jks, on an episode of Headwrap.
Shadi laughs. “I put my head in a bucket and sang. And we jammed.”
The ITC concept resonated with ideas she had explored in her own work.
“My first experience of real racism was in Cape Town, when I was still studying Hospitality Management in 2000. I felt this segregation – which is part of what the theme [Human Rite] suggests. In a way it was like coming back to Cape Town to exorcise whatever demons I had, and it’s growing on me now.”
On the research process conducted late last year, she says, “It was informative; and there were some things I didn’t know. It helped speaking to the people of Cape Town and getting to know them as they tend to be quite reluctant to let people in.”
In the time away, between research and commencing work on the festival, Shadi was busy working on an exhibition currently running at the Goethe on Main gallery in Johannesburg which exhibits two mentally and physically strenuous pieces titled Mosako Wa Sepione (A Circle of Mirrors). In Selogile, Shadi knits in one spot sitting in the Lotus position constantly for seven hours.
“Even though I was busy with this exhibition, I reflected a lot on what we saw as research for the festival.”
Shadi says of her collaboration on Meet Market (presented at Church Square): “It has been challenging because we have four different personalities and egos. But it’s been a cool process and I doubt any of us thought that it would be easy . . . It keeps changing and I’m working more on the conceptual element. Collaborations are always interesting. The space we’re working with is packed with history that is very heavy.”
– Atiyyah Khan writes for The Cape Argus
