Artists
Petersen, Thania
In Defence of our Memories II, 2022
Courtesy: Thania Petersen & Smac Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, (c) Thania Petersen
In Defence of our Memories II is a collection of “talismans” connected by black threads. The work references Petersen’s earlier piece In Defence of our Memories (2019), a dramatic, large-scale installation of black thread connected to thousands of talismans. These fabric emblems contain the life affirming mantras of the world’s religions and present a physical manifestation of secreted hopes. The piece references the practice of Petersen’s forefather and progenitor, Tuan Guru, the Malay prince imprisoned on Robben Island in the nineteenth century South Africa, who would “hand out talismans to fellow prisoners’ the better to restore the power of faith in this appalling hour.”
In a present that is engulfed by bitterness, recrimination, and by an unchecked and dangerously anarchistic lovelessness, Petersen, like her forefather Tuan Guru, has chosen to gift us with talismans which can bind and sustain us.
Text: Thania Petersen; deutsche Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler
In Defence of our Memories II is a collection of “talismans” connected by black threads. The work references Petersen’s earlier piece In Defence of our Memories (2019), a dramatic, large-scale installation of black thread connected to thousands of talismans. These fabric emblems contain the life affirming mantras of the world’s religions and present a physical manifestation of secreted hopes. The piece references the practice of Petersen’s forefather and progenitor, Tuan Guru, the Malay prince imprisoned on Robben Island in the nineteenth century South Africa, who would “hand out talismans to fellow prisoners’ the better to restore the power of faith in this appalling hour.”
In a present that is engulfed by bitterness, recrimination, and by an unchecked and dangerously anarchistic lovelessness, Petersen, like her forefather Tuan Guru, has chosen to gift us with talismans which can bind and sustain us.
Text: Thania Petersen; deutsche Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler