ART IN THE WIND

The weather service had given us a prognosis of gale-force wind, rough seas, seven meter high waves and a daily temperature of 12 degrees Celsius. And there it was. For several days. It can get that cold at the African coast in the Eastern Cape in winter.

The central market at Hi-Way in Mdantsane had the appearance of a gigantic, deserted, broken down theater. Black garbage bags, animal food plastic bags and other plastic rugs that are normally used to cover the make shift market stands where performing a wild dance in the wind and were making a crazy noise.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine who was at the time an art student at a very well known art academy in the Netherlands had come for her very first visit to the African continent. 

She visited me in West-Africa, where I was living in the north of Mali, close to the border of Mauritania.

When her eyes caught a similar sight like the one you see in the pictures she asked me : Is this intentional ?  Is this Art ? Are people doing this ? Old torn plastic bags had been caught in a field and where entangled in the streets, plants and the wire fencing that went all around the field.

I was out of words for a couple of seconds, looking at the surrealistic in the wind moving plastic sculptures that she admired. I could not imagine why she would think something like this, for me being it so obvious that this was one of Africa's big problems. Plastic waste. 

I was unaware that contemporary art had moved in this direction in the West while I had spend years in Africa.  

It tells you that people are trained carefully and with lot of dedication to look at things in a certain way. And the way to look at something can be fundamentally different.

And looking at it through her eyes I suddenly could see it as art as well. Art born out of poverty however that nobody pays for. Art that is genuine because it is non-intentional and non-pretentious.

What do people pay for ?

Here at Hi-Way what people pay for and want are the vegetables. 

In Western countries they pay to look at art that dissolves itself, that disappears.

So what is the discussion here? Is it art or is the fight for survival ?

It depends on our vision. It's both.

Sometimes, not always, there is a Western vision and an African vision.

The lady who owns the stand and sits in the cold is not aware of the Western Vision that she is sitting amidst an installation that would be considered by many as art. And nobody can blame her for that.
And a Western soul does truly not know about her life. 

But: is this not true Entrepreneurship?

It so much is ! And has to be admired.

And even more on an ice cold day in Africa's winter at the coast.