South African Diary ll

Petrona Morrison
14 October 2005 to 11 November 2005

Petrona Morrison’s body of work, South African Diary II, was inspired by her experience on a two-month residency at the Bag Factory (Fordsburg Artists Studios) in Johannesburg, in 2004. It documents the artist’s response to the contradictions and tensions of the South African reality.

South African Diary II explores a wide range of issues: economic discrepancies, racial identity and the mythologized “Rainbow Nation”, all viewed through the lens of an Afrocentric black Jamaican woman returning “home”. Intrinsic to the exhibition are the same issues of race, identity and power which are relevant to the Diaspora, and more particularly, to the Caribbean experience.

In the form of a visual diary, the exhibition included images of a documentary nature interspersed with text, which questioned the inconsistencies and disparities inherent in today’s South African society and challenges the nature of these images.