Art, Neglect, and Violence Against Women: An Evening at 223 Jan Smuts
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With DuduBloom More and Kamanee Govender, Johannesburg.
This episode is for people in Johannesburg who care about art, about women's safety, and about what it means to live in a city where violence against women is a daily reality. Host Christi shares why she is bringing together visual artist DuduBloom More and author Kamanee Govender at Candice Berman Gallery on 3 December, and why she believes artists hold something the rest of us need right now.
Christi revisits a conversation she had with DuduBloom More for her project The Remains of a Conversation, centred on the film Where the Crawdads Sing. What stayed with her was a single sentence Dudu spoke: it was neglect that affected Kaya the most. That insight, about neglect as the root of abandonment and trauma, connects directly to Kamanee Govender's debut novel Stern Gods, a harrowing portrait of abuse, incest, rape and survival during apartheid South Africa.
Christi reads from Stern Gods and reflects on how both artists have taken private pain and turned it into shared community story. She draws on the German philosopher Heidegger's essay The Origin of the Work of Art to explore why visual art and literary fiction reveal hidden truths about who we are and what we do to each other. She contrasts the structure of a novel with the openness of visual art, describing DuduBloom More's handmade cardboard disc sculptures and textile circles as objects of healing that move toward joy and lightness after trauma.
With twelve women murdered in greater Johannesburg in recent months, this episode is a call to action: come to Candice Berman Gallery at 223 Jan Smuts Avenue on 3 December, listen to these two artists, and be part of the conversation our community can no longer ignore.
This episode is for people in Johannesburg who care about art, about women's safety, and about what it means to live in a city where violence against women is a daily reality. Host Christi shares why she is bringing together visual artist DuduBloom More and author Kamanee Govender at Candice Berman Gallery on 3 December, and why she believes artists hold something the rest of us need right now.
Christi revisits a conversation she had with DuduBloom More for her project The Remains of a Conversation, centred on the film Where the Crawdads Sing. What stayed with her was a single sentence Dudu spoke: it was neglect that affected Kaya the most. That insight, about neglect as the root of abandonment and trauma, connects directly to Kamanee Govender's debut novel Stern Gods, a harrowing portrait of abuse, incest, rape and survival during apartheid South Africa.
Christi reads from Stern Gods and reflects on how both artists have taken private pain and turned it into shared community story. She draws on the German philosopher Heidegger's essay The Origin of the Work of Art to explore why visual art and literary fiction reveal hidden truths about who we are and what we do to each other. She contrasts the structure of a novel with the openness of visual art, describing DuduBloom More's handmade cardboard disc sculptures and textile circles as objects of healing that move toward joy and lightness after trauma.
With twelve women murdered in greater Johannesburg in recent months, this episode is a call to action: come to Candice Berman Gallery at 223 Jan Smuts Avenue on 3 December, listen to these two artists, and be part of the conversation our community can no longer ignore.
Chapters
- 00:00 Welcome Back and Personal News
- 01:17 A Gallery Visit That Changed Everything
- 01:55 Introducing DuduBloom More
- 03:10 The Event at Candice Berman Gallery
- 04:17 Violence Against Women in Johannesburg
- 05:27 The Remains of a Conversation Project
- 06:35 Heidegger and the Truth Artists Reveal
- 07:46 Virginia Woolf and Women Needing Space
- 08:50 Two Women in a Room with a Film
- 09:24 What Dudu Said: It Was Neglect
- 12:06 Neglect, Abandonment and South African Families
- 13:46 Kamanee Govender and Stern Gods
- 14:59 Reading from Stern Gods
- 17:12 Visual Art vs Literary Storytelling
- 17:46 Artists Turn Private Pain into Shared Story
- 18:17 Final Reading and Call to Join the Event
