Stumbling Block / Conversas em Gondwana, Centro Cultural, São Paulo, 2019
STUMBLING BLOCK
2011 -
A blanketed body lies on cardboard boxes, partially blocking the entrance to a gallery, museum or other elite cultural space. The discomforting presence (or ‘obstacle’) of this shrouded and presumably displaced human form complicates access to the space, throwing into question its privileged remove.
Stumbling Block demands response, as those encountering the performance must decide whether to skirt or step-over the blanketed form. Sometimes the body is kicked, sometimes investigated, at other times fed and asked after, and in some cases even stripped of its blanket. Performed in this awkward social encounter is something of how marginalised bodies come to bear on routines of privilege - how the hyper-visibility of those ‘unseen’ is negotiated or negated, revealing the racial, gendered and economic divides that constitute the social habit and normalised violence of post-apartheid South Africa.