in Durban, all roads lead
the installation of 240 temporary road name signs in Durban reading: Sutcliffe Ave, Sutcliffe Blvd, Sutcliffe Rd, Sutcliffe St, Sutcliffe Str, Sutcliffe Pl, Sutcliffe Cr and another five odd in similar vein.
On the historic occasion of the Ethekwini Municipality’s hosting of the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties Framework Convention on Climate Change a lightning-fast art squad deemed it appropriate to celebrate the City Manager by naming as many roads as possible after him in three hours of careful work using Easy-Peel-Off Resistance Tested Stickers.
We are inspired and expect to make people laugh and laugh and have fun and wonder what's going on and think about what they want from leaders and what makes a good leader.
We especially want people to think about what makes us / them great and how come we often end up looking mediocre or pathetic when we are not. We are most certainly not.
There is genius and magic in South Africa but there is also too much Idiocy in charge that attempts to disempower us. There are tendencies ha, in our beautiful land, to give the job to the opinionated, ill-informed bully, and this can and often does result in the marginalization of real power, beauty and potential. We want to be proud of ourselves – for each other and for the world (for instance when have a lot of international visitors), so why do the people in charge make that so difficult?
Last minute briefs for emergency artwork; year-long lobbies for spectacle-scale public art ... that lead to last-minute go aheads. And while, of course, there are exceptions to this (and we are exceptional grateful for these sparks of what might be normal), it is high time people who value public space, public life and creativity – stood up to those who would water-down, damage or utterly spoil great ideas for reasons that remain obscure - but that are most likely to do with how mediocrity feels when it is control.
I love us, our land and this precious planet but I am bored with the dulling of opinion and the constant stupid obstruction in the way of good work. I have found that if I speak out against powerful mediocre people or their projects – e.g. if I say why was the World Cup 2010 Official Opening so appalling?, I will be accused of being an unpatriotic party-pooper. I should rather get into the spirit of the nation – which is that every one just wants to have a good time.
I am certain that we have much more to offer than we are releasing to shine.
It is humiliating to stand by and watch while those who really should have no power have it all. Great projects turn to nothing short of pathetic ridicule, further exacerbated by a chorus of sycophantic encouragement for complete rubbish. Artists cannot operate in this atmosphere. The hot air climate in Durban has got to be the worst example of forms to complete and bullies to please that I have ever experienced. If the sea level does not rise because we can't get the temperature to go down in time it's highly likely that nice people will all fade away into depression in the face of the tsunami of dementia that is Ethekwini.
Before we did this installation, I was warned that we should be careful because the City Manager would most likely not see the playful side of the project – which, although it is obviously about him, is also about every one like him. (And it is a warning to others like him: that should they lose their sense of humour in equal proportion to their capacity to wield whips, it is likely they too will find themselves at the centre of imaginative repartee).
Perhaps the recent parliamentary passing of the Protection of Information Bill (read: as bad as a kidney stone) finds its most intense impact (already) in the cementing of a disquieting self-censorship around board room tables, in business-government company. And similar. Worse, this general repression slowly, unrelentingly, bullies the atmosphere and gives the bad guys a sense of odious self-righteousness.
Mr Sutcliffe’s style is part of a bigger dis-ease. During the planning of this playful installation we considered that it might enrage him, which in our experience is easy to do. We also considered that some people may get lost and confused and that bus and taxi drivers might get the moer in (but they probably already are considering the humidity and existing name change debacles in Durban).
We knew also that we might be blamed for all sorts of things but also that the installation might not even be noticed or that the easy peel-off stickers might be removed even faster than we could put them up ...
There was consideration given to all kinds of fascist attitudes:
1) the you are not allowed to do this attitude
2) the we can’t see the playful side of this attitude
3) the longings of many in Durban to go back to a time when the streets were named after only some pink people
4) the longings of many in Durban to be invited to dinner with Mr Sutcliffe
We rather hope that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Here's a link to the video on the blog: http://lesfolies.posterous.com/sick-people
