Inside-Outside

In Johannesburg people are always inside.

When you are always inside, you are actually only always outside- of a community, of nature, of a richer and more complex world.

Was I ever part of Johannesburg/south Africa? I thought I was, and maybe I was, but I am not so sure now. I was judged; my work was judged on the basis of my skin- not because I was black, or white, but because I was either black or white. I was not part of the old South Africa, so I am not part of the new South Africa.

I left, not because of fear of crime or economic instability, but because I didn’t feel part of it. I tried through my projects. Through one’s work, one can fully understand how one is truly being judged.

South Africans were not able to see that non-South-Africans can produced deep and sharp works on South Africa. They are very narrow-minded. The ‘becoming’, which Deleuze valued so much, was not yet a known concept. Imagine the enormous effort of ‘transformation’ and becoming put into making the homeless project. This project should have been appreciated particularly because it was done by a foreigner.