Two exhibitions showing at CAS Gallery as part of the Contemporary Ethnography Congress Across the Disciplines (CEAD) conference explore and make visible in different ways, worlds that are hidden. The exhibition from Chile, Encounters and Dialogues “addresses the problem of historical violence that indigenous peoples have suffered” and explores a diversity of approaches and media to express these problems and disrupt often rigidly bounded disciplines. Christmas Bands, photographed and filmed by Paul Grendon and Sylvia Bruinders, brings to the surface cultural performances that have deep roots in this particular landscape. As explained by ethnomusicologist, Sylvia Bruinders, they “share commonalities with two other parading practises in the city of Cape Town, the Minstrels and Malay Choirs. They emerged during the early years of the colonial Cape out of the slave and ex-slave communities…. having been in existence in some form since the mid-1850s. They wear uniforms (stylistically different for each ‘discipline’) and perform in annual street parades and competitions.”
The exhibitions within the context of the conference, explore in form and content ways to re-imagine ethnographic practise and research with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity.
Date: 15th – 18th November
Venue : CAS Gallery, Harry Oppenheimer Institute Building,
Engineering Road, Upper Campus, UCT
Curator: Paul Weinberg
For more information contact – paul.weinberg@uct.ac.za