Etching from 'Sound from the Thinking Strings'
Item
Title
Etching from 'Sound from the Thinking Strings'
Is Part Of
SA College of Music
See all items with this value
African Studies
See all items with this value
Centre for Curating the Archive
See all items with this value
History
See all items with this value
Fine Art
See all items with this value
Anthropology
See all items with this value
Special Collections
See all items with this value
Archaeology
See all items with this value
Description
"Skotnes’s own visual interpretation of the history and cosmology of the |xam formed the last component of this interdisciplinary endeavour and constituted a visual component that drew together the various strands of disciplinary interpretations and presented a perspective on the |xam life she felt ‘was missing from the other interpretations’ (Skotnes 1991: 30). In these images she drew freely on San mythology, accounts of |xam life recorded by Lucy Lloyd, historical and archaeological research and images from rock paintings in a landscape setting.
She writes in her preface that these etchings were direct attempts at ‘inverting the museum dioramas’ in the ethnographic halls close to the exhibition and which, through their display of the San’s body casts, rendered them closer to specimens of biology than as members of a highly developed culture (Skotnes 1991: 52). By creating images that combined shamanistic rituals, entoptic spirals, plants, hunting bags, bows and arrows, snakes, eland-shaped rainclouds, colonists, musical instruments, shelters and therianthropic shapes, Skotnes eclipsed the static narratives of the dioramas and the object labels in the exhibition, placing them in a context in which their metaphysical qualities were celebrated more than their physical qualities. These prints stood in striking contrast to the other exhibits, which framed the San as physical types, and they challenged viewers to confront the reality that the San had a rich history and cultural and social life" (Liebenberg 2021: 157).
She writes in her preface that these etchings were direct attempts at ‘inverting the museum dioramas’ in the ethnographic halls close to the exhibition and which, through their display of the San’s body casts, rendered them closer to specimens of biology than as members of a highly developed culture (Skotnes 1991: 52). By creating images that combined shamanistic rituals, entoptic spirals, plants, hunting bags, bows and arrows, snakes, eland-shaped rainclouds, colonists, musical instruments, shelters and therianthropic shapes, Skotnes eclipsed the static narratives of the dioramas and the object labels in the exhibition, placing them in a context in which their metaphysical qualities were celebrated more than their physical qualities. These prints stood in striking contrast to the other exhibits, which framed the San as physical types, and they challenged viewers to confront the reality that the San had a rich history and cultural and social life" (Liebenberg 2021: 157).
Access Rights
Centre for Curating the Archive
Creator
Pippa Skotnes
See all items with this value
Date Created
1991
Source
Skotnes, P. et al. 1991. Sound from the thinking strings: A visual, literary, archaeological and historical interpretation of the final years of xam life. Cape Town: Axeage Private Press.
Resonances
Sound from the Thinking Strings
See all items with this value
Pippa Skotnes
See all items with this value
Iziko South African Museum
See all items with this value
rock art
See all items with this value
Patricia Davison
See all items with this value
insider
See all items with this value
outsider
See all items with this value
anthropology
See all items with this value
looking
See all items with this value
Bleek and Lloyd
See all items with this value
archive
See all items with this value
skin bag
See all items with this value
familiar
See all items with this value
leopard
See all items with this value
stories
See all items with this value
archaeology
See all items with this value
history
See all items with this value
diorama
See all items with this value
interpretation
See all items with this value
exhibition
See all items with this value
court case
See all items with this value
entoptic spirals
See all items with this value
therianthropic
See all items with this value
instruments
See all items with this value
shelter
See all items with this value
specimen
See all items with this value
biology
See all items with this value
landscape
See all items with this value
mythology
See all items with this value
cosmology
See all items with this value
interdisciplinary
See all items with this value
medicine chest
See all items with this value
Axeage Press
See all items with this value
Type
Artwork
