The laundry of a nation, 2026
Mixed media on cardboard and paper
75 cm x 116 cm
Artist’s Statement
This work reflects on the emotional and social inheritance carried by young people within contemporary South Africa. Drawing from the visual language of clothing, labour, domesticity, and repetition, the installation considers how national histories continue to live within ordinary bodies and everyday materials.
In many South African homes, clothing exists beyond appearance. It carries labour, survival, class, memory, religion, and economic struggle. Garments move between siblings, neighbours, workers, schools, churches, and communities, slowly absorbing the emotional conditions of the environments they pass through. Within this context, clothing becomes both witness and archive.
The work also reflects on the culture of “Bazothini?”— the constant awareness of what others may say, think, judge, or expect. This social condition shapes identity, behaviour, silence, and self-perception from a young age. The pressure of communal observation often exists alongside absence: absent parents, absent opportunities, absent emotional support, and absent national promises.
This work speaks to collective emotional residue and asks how societies remember people and what kinds of emotional, social, and historical conditions are unconsciously passed down through generations.
