{"id":4760,"date":"2022-06-27T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T08:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4760"},"modified":"2022-06-26T18:31:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T17:31:56","slug":"we-regret-to-inform-you-writing-towards-repair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4760","title":{"rendered":"We Regret to Inform You: Writing towards repair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Between my finger and my\nthumb
\nThe squat pen rests.
\nI\u2019ll dig with it. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Seamus Heaney<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are tears by the time Wezile Harmans finishes his performance. Left in the room with the artist\u2019s collection of envelopes and words, it takes a moment for the audience to gather themselves and go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Harmans\u2019 solo exhibition at the National Arts Festival, the artist\nuses a singularly devastating sentence as a conceptual point of departure: We\nRegret to Inform You<\/em>\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a line known by dejected job applicants across the globe. In South\nAfrica, where unemployment affects well over half of the population, work is\nalways on our minds. How hard do we work, how well do we work, how do we find\nand keep this work? It\u2019s an essential part of our lives. For Harmans, the way\nwe shape ourselves and our lives around work is inherently performative. There\nis a choreography to our labour, he posits, an inextricable link to the body,\nthe spirit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harmans\u2019 own performance activates We Regret to Inform You<\/em>. As\naudiences filter into the room, we automatically gravitate towards the chairs\nand desks spread across the room. They\u2019re like school desks, small and plain,\nand each of them is covered in a collage of envelopes bearing the exhibition\u2019s\nname and central refrain, handwritten by the artist. A video work is projected\nonto one wall, showing his public performance outside of the Iziko South\nAfrican National Gallery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the centre of the space is where the artist takes his seat, an\nunraveled ream of fabric bundled up before him and reaching up to the ceiling. There\nis lightness and darkness. He is in the warm glow of the spotlight, then he is\na fading silhouette. Intermittent percussion, like the ticking of a clock,\nmeasures out hours, days, years \u2013 times passes, runs out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fabric, which is likely from his previous work in which he wrapped up and obscured his face, still bears these ghostly impressions. Even in its stillness, the material is stifling. Dust rises from it and dances in the light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harmans limits his choreography to the chair. He lies across it, sits backwards, leans back precariously. Then he turns his attention to us, dragging desks and chairs to sit alongside or directly in front of audience members. Some meet his gaze, others busy themselves with the pens provided to them and join the artist in the ritual of writing, digging, and excavating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the video work, he is on his hands and knees in front of Iziko, scrawling\nendlessly on a 50m long paper \u2013 \u201cwe regret to inform you.\u201d Is it repetition or a\nform of meditation? Bloody-mindedness or madness? Harmans\u2019 work may have been\ninformed by hopelessness, but it is not bound by it. Rather, he is interested\nin that which remains possible. It is the relentless act of writing and moving towards\nrepair.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gets up to leave, closing the door behind him. It\u2019s a pointed and\npowerful moment. We are left with the work and its influence, its incredible\npossibility. In the centre of the room, the fabric once again holds our\nattention, rising up to the ceiling like a record of rejection, or a\npalimpsest. A narrative waiting to be rewritten.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is another performance of <\/em>We Regret to Inform You<\/a> at The Rhodes <\/em>Studio Gallery 1\non<\/em> <\/em>June\n27, 2022 at 15:00 \u2013 16:15.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a92022 The Critter.\nThis article is licensed under a <\/em>Creative Commons\nAttribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I\u2019ll dig with it. \u2013 Seamus Heaney There are tears by the time Wezile Harmans finishes his performance. Left in … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11,14],"tags":[577,1200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4760"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4763,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760\/revisions\/4763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}