Exclusively for Culture Connect the three editors talk about this timely, thoughtful new book they co-edited, Troubling Images: Visual Culture and the Politics of Afrikaner Nationalism:
Federico Freschi is Head of the College of Art, Design and Architecture at Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Brenda Schmahmann is a Professor and SARCHI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg.
Lize van Robbroeck is Professor in Visual Studies at the University of Stellenbosch
Nine other distinguished academics contributed to the book – mainly professors, based in South Africa. After the introduction and historical overview, there are four sections:
- “Assent and Dissent through fine art and architecture”
- University monuments
- Photography (Voortrekker Monument’s inauguration and a reframing of David Goldblatt’s Some Afrikaners)
- Popular culture
Click here to watch now the edited Zoom conversation on 13 Aug, 9:30-10:30am.
Stanford University’s Associate Professor, Grant Parker, says this collection of essays “eloquently answer the question that pervades our own times: Why are visual symbols so politically explosive? The volume is a history of the past century but also, implicitly, a map of future possibilities.”
Retail price R495 ($50), published by Wits University Press. Order from your local bookstore; in Cape Town Book Lounge, Clarkes and Exclusive Books who deliver for free locally and you can order from their websites. It is also available for Kindle reading eg Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Loot and Takealot.
Image: Preparation of the C.R. Swart sculpture by Cigdem Aydemir for Plastic Histories, 2014. The work has been covered with plastic and is in the process of being sprayed pink. Photograph by Paul Mills. (It is the cover image of Troubling Images.)