Books & arts

‘BREAK THE SILENCE’:

A Unique Project in the fight against AIDS

2001-11-08, Issue 41

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/3964

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Among the visual arts, a considerable number of exhibitions dealing with the Aids crisis have been mounted in recent years, most particularly co-inciding with the HIV/Aids conference 2000, hosted in Durban. But despite efforts at reaching out, museums and galleries continue to attract only a small, art-interested sector of the South African population, and often not those most at risk of infection.

Artists for Human Rights

‘BREAK THE SILENCE’: A UNIQUE PRINT PORTFOLIO/ BILLBOARD PROJECT IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS

Introduction
“Never before in human history has a virus bonded so dramatically with creative initiative”, quipped Alex Sudheim in his article on the Aids print portfolio project published in the Mail&Guardian last year (Sudheim 2000). With varying degrees of success, song, dance, drama, film, art and literature have been engaged to get the HIV/Aids message across in South Africa, elaborates Sudheim. Among the visual arts, a considerable number of exhibitions dealing with the Aids crisis have been mounted in recent years, most particularly co-inciding with the HIV/Aids conference 2000, hosted in Durban . But despite efforts at reaching out, museums and galleries continue to attract only a small, art-interested sector of the South African population, and often not those most at risk of infection.

The print portfolio/ billboard project ‘Break the Silence’ , on the other hand, is unique in its aims at reaching a very different audience without relinquishing its claim to being ‘art’. The project involves the compilation of a portfolio of prints created by a diverse range of artists from all over South Africa and some international printmakers. All print images are intended to be immensely enlarged and mounted onto strategically placed billboards as funding becomes available. While there is no real precedent for the portfolio/billboards project, there is perhaps a distant cousin: It is the genre of HIV/Aids community murals which have proliferated tremendously during the past five years . Both community murals and the portfolio-based billboards intend to make art socially relevant, take it out of the elitist gallery (or portfolio) context into the streets and make it accessible to large masses of people. Both are furthermore highly public, large scale, community-oriented and educative media of visual communication. This article aims to contextualise the portfolio/ billboard project in relation to HIV/Aids murals and, by providing an analysis of its most prominent images, raise some issues about visualising Aids and using art to convey educational messages.

Murals and billboards - the issue of site specificity
The first community murals with an HIV/Aids message began to appear about ten years ago, but they have only started flourishing since the mid 1990s, especially with the Department of Health sponsored ‘Seven Cities’ and ‘Beyond Awareness’ campaigns. These two campaigns have resulted in an amazing variety of wall paintings, among them some of the country’s largest and most creative. Examples include a gigantic mural in Port Elizabeth entitled ‘Aids - the new struggle’ (1996) or the technically well-executed, colourful mural on the University of Durban-Westville campus (1999). The HIV/Aids print portfolio/ billboard project, on the other hand, is a much more recent initiative, which has emerged out of a tradition of print portfolio projects aimed at addressing issues of human rights. In line with this tradition, ‘Break the Silence’ aims at raising HIV/Aids awareness in general, but specifically intends to address the serious issues of stigmatisation and discrimination against those infected.


The main difference between community murals and billboards in general lies in their site specificity or contextuality. The imagery of a community mural, being confined to a specific site, is usually informed by the surrounding context: Theme, style and details of the imagery are usually developed by community artists, sometimes in consultation with community leaders, to determine which visual language and imagery is most successful in ‘reaching’ the local community, perhaps taking into account culturally specific aesthetic sensibilities and preferences. By incorporating references to recognisable landmarks of the city, for instance, (as seen in the example of the Beyond Awareness mural in Grahamstown), the mural emphasises the local relevance of a global problem and attracts the audience by virtue of the recognition factor, encouraging them to identify with the human actors portrayed in the mural.

Billboards, on the other hand, can be mass-produced and set up anywhere in the country, theoretically requiring a more neutral, transplantable, universally comprehensible message and visual language. Some of the print portfolio artists seem to have taken this into account. Kim Berman, for instance, represents a solid wall, scrawled upon which, graffiti-like, are the words ‘Break the Silence’, thus literally expressing the theme of the project and symbolically communicating the message. International artists, Carmen Perrin from Bolivia and Amira Wasfy from Egypt, on the other hand, who may not be very familiar with the specific context and cultural sensibilities of South African communities, have chosen a completely abstract visual language. While Wasfy relies on an expressive use of colour and line, meant to symbolize natural forms such as rocks and animal prints, but also the Aids virus (Wasfy 2000), Perrin has produced a most unusual print of scattered, barely visible ring patterns on white paper, each pierced by actual steel pins. Like Wasfy’s, Perrin’s work is ambiguous and contradictory: The clusters of rings recall cells caught in the process of growth or disintegration, while the pins likewise connote contradictory notions of pain and destruction, but also of mending and healing. Enlarging this print to billboard size without loosing its sense of tactility will represent a considerable challenge.

Works like these are essentially products of ‘fine art’ - autonomous and thriving on ambiguity. By refusing to be propagandistic their effectivity as a means of communication to large, poorly educated audiences with little or no training in visual art appreciation, can be argued to be problematic. On the other hand, these images, through their very ‘difference’, may encourage people to stop and look, rather than merely glance in passing. These works do not intend to ram home a point and thus present a message that is threatened to drown in the sea of commercial billboard advertisements which has become the reality of the urban environment. They want to be understood as art works, employing a visual language that aims at engaging people, appealing to the spectator to take a closer look, linger and reflect, discover and personally interpret its message.


Examples of this kind include the visually striking print by Deryck Healey (U.K.), entitled ‘Think first’. Healey has created a multilayered work consisting of an x-ray of a skull on blue ground, overlaid with a highly abbreviated sketch recalling an embryo. Both images allude to stages of human life beyond the here and now: the one associated with death, the other with life; the one with the past, the other with the future; the one with sadness, the other with joy. These binary opposites are powerfully re-enforced through the use of colour: the striking blue of the background, representing hope and vitality, juxtaposed with the alarming red dot, which could be read as the oversized eye of the embryo, but simulatenously a fatal wound, a bleading hole in the centre of the skull.

What makes the comparison between murals and the prints-based billboards interesting, however, is that the lines of difference between the two genres are hardly clear cut. Murals are often dismissed as unsophisticated ‘community art’, but some mural artists, too, have attempted to employ a more conceptually based mode of expression, which communicates through metaphor, symbol or allusion rather than textual messages and literally interpreted images. A relatively early HIV/Aids mural at a taxi rank in Durban (Seven Cities campaign, 1995), for example, features an interesting iconographic invention of a ‘Mermaid condom’, which on one level gives the representation of the protective implement a humorous slant and makes its public display more acceptable to sensitive viewers who, at that time, were not yet used to the present ubiquity of condoms. On another level, the visual allusion to mermaids, this alluring, yet unobtainable/ inaccessible creature, carries connotations of sexual desire and abstention, pleasure and protection.

Likewise, in terms of site specificity, the difference between murals and portfolio-based billboards is often blurred. Some print portfolio artists, particulary black artists, most of whom emerging from a community arts background, have not at all attempted to develop a universal, transferable visual language. Rather, their images appear to be addressed at very specific audiences, probably in anticipation of the billboard’s most likely locations in townships, thereby giving the billboard a sense of contextuality. Some of these images are closely related in content and style to mural imagery. In fact, in the case of Stembiso Sibisi’s image, for example, the print is directly derived from an earlier mural composition that the artist painted at Umlazi Station in 1998.

Conveying the message
A look at the print portfolio as a whole reveals an amazing stylistic variety, ranging from very descriptive or narrative approaches, to propagandistic, poster-like versions, to metaphorical or ambiguous expressions and even (as mentioned above) entirely non-objective compositions. Not surprisingly, most academically trained white artists, as well as most international artists, tend to employ a more conceptual approach, while most black South African artists’ prints are more literal in nature and rely on a (more or less successfully mastered) realistic style. This parallels the majority of art production in South Africa in general and is a result of the country’s legacy of racially divided art education and availability of opportunities.


A similar variety is evident with regard to the manner in which the content of the message ‘Break the Silence’ has been expressed. Few artists felt compelled to represent a subject directly related to the theme, which was intended to address issues of discrimination and stigmatisation. It seems that most artists interpreted the brief more broadly, representing what they personally felt important about the disease, whether it be the various ways of contracting the virus, the options for prevention, the problem of discrimination, the experience of living with HIV or full-blown Aids, the tragedy of death, or the need for upliftment and compassion.

Following a popular strategy of HIV/Aids community murals, a number of artists draw explicit or implicit parallels between South Africa’s past (successfully completed) struggle for political freedom and the new struggle against Aids. Dominic Thorburn (2000) explains in his statement that “South Africa is again in a ‘State of Emergency’ - it has a new ‘struggle’ of immense proportions”. Similarly, Judith Mason (2000) explains: “During the anti-apartheid struggle we identified the enemy, confronted it and prevailed against it. We need to do the same today or another generation will be needlessly lost.” One example of how this message is expressed in visual terms is Diane Victor’s composition, which strongly recalls Paul Stopforth’s famous icon of ‘resistance art’. Instead of Steve Biko it is now the dead body of an anonymous young man, another victim senselessly killed by the disease, who lies spread out on the floor of a non-descript room. A closer look at this complex print reveals an embossed coffin around the corpse and an embossed “ethereal alter image, which counts the daily toll” (Victor 2000) in the upper left corner. A vicious dog, a bitch, somewhat reminiscent of David Koloane’s township beast in ‘The Moon and Dog’ (1996), seems to symbolize the killer disease. But the bitch is powerfully restrained through a muzzle, visually echoeing the use of a condom, thus indicating that the disease can be controlled, or metaphorically, the beast can be tamed. Victor (2000), in her artist’s statement, offers a different interpretation, referring to the dog as information and truth, which is being muzzled and concealed, thereby providing an ideal breeding ground for misinformation and superstition. This is another indication of the ambiguity inherent in the print images, which allows for multiple readings and encourages personal interpretation.

In a similar vein, Yusuf Arakkal from India has focussed on the victim, here a middle aged man in a grim room. Two spiky lines reminiscent of barbed wire are stretched across the print, implying that the man is imprisoned or outcast. Sharply outlined against the dark background, he is dressed in a simple white suit, recalling a prisoner’s uniform, but simultaneously carrying connotations of innocence following Goya’s well-known precendent The Third of May, 1808 (1814). But the intersecting barbed wire installation also forms a cross, providing religious associations, which combined with the sprouting young plant and the incribed words spelling out the title of the work, ‘Hope is what we live for’, sets a positive tone for the fight against the disease.


In keeping with the tradition of billboard advertisment with its mixture of image and text, some artists play with words and textual messages as integral parts of their visual compositions. Tinus Boshoff’s unusual, colourfully patterned print is focused on vague human shapes, drawn in thick black outline and filled with colourful patterns that, in their cultural specificity, subtly alluding to South Africa’s different racial population groups. Boshoff seems to explore the meaning of Aids, not in medical, but social terms, and express a warning as indicated in his title ‘Adjust Irresponsible behaviour or Destroy Society’. He overlays his human element with textual messages, strings of words, dictionary-like, which appear to spell out in a variety of ways the meaning of the acronym ‘Aids’, for instance, ‘abundance/ injustice/ denial/ self’ or ‘absorbed/ inflicted/ decay/ satisfy’. Many of these terms again evoke memories of the injustices of South Africa’s Apartheid past. According to the artist’s statement (Boshoff 2000), this print deals with various aspects of promiscuity and condemns sexually reckless behaviour, which is expressed by the careless mood of the four dancing figures.

Another compelling image is the one created by Sue Williamson, a work which, according to the artist (Williamson 2000), should not so much be seen as an art work than as documentation. Williamson has interviewed HIV-positive women and then worked with a graffiti artist to put up thought-provoking quotes by these women on selected walls in the townships. Her laser print for the portfolio shows a photograph of one of these women, Busi, juxtaposed with a photograph of her words painted on the wall, which reads ‘It should be taken as a crime if someone doesn’t wear a condom and makes you go to bed.’ Such statements, recalling the publicly displayed ‘truisms’of American artist Jenny Holzer, are intended to command attention and raise consciousness. However, their strong reliance on written text, furthermore presented in English language, excludes large sectors of the population. For the billboard display of this work it will be of crucial importance to choose a site in an appropriate context.

Deterrent imagery versus upliftment
HIV/Aids is a dreadful, fatal disease and one of the first basic decisions for any artist dealing with this topic is whether to use ‘deterrant’ imagery that aims to induce a change of behaviour by showing the shocking reality of suffering and dying from Aids, or to use a positive, uplifting approach, that focuses on living with Aids. Among HIV/Aids murals, only very few examples make use of the shock strategy; most resort to uplifting imagery that appeals for compassion and assistance, stressing that anybody could be the next victim. All murals painted as part of the Seven Cities and Beyond Awareness campaigns are confined to the use of positive imagery after a principle decision to this effect had been taken by the organisational team, which included the Department of Health as a sponsor. The rationale behind this decision was that shock tactics are counter-productive in their attempt to effect a change in people’s behaviour, because a mural showing an abhorrent scene will be rejected by the target community. This decision was also in line with the prevalent view that community murals by definition are supposed to have an uplifting function and contribute to the beautification of their environment.

The committee members of the print portfolio refrained from giving any directive as to the interpretation of the theme, taking for granted the autonomy of art and rejecting artistic censorship. However, it seems that a focus on positive or celebratory images was expected, indicated by a special note in the artist’s agreement, which reads: “As the theme embodies a certain sense of celebration, the use of colour is advised” (Artists for Human Rights 2000). Amira Wasfy’s abstract composition in muted colours with the textual message ‘Viva’, Osiah Masekoameng’s image centred upon the white candle as a symbol of life and hope, and Kanuge John Bosco’s fabric print of African drummers, are among those that could be argued to meet these expectations most directly.


Many artists, however, seem to have interpreted the theme ‘Break the Silence’ to mean that the terrifying reality of HIV/Aids must be brought into the light. Perhaps the most drastic image is the black and white lino cut by Vukile Teyise from the Eastern Cape. A gigantic skeleton, prominently displaying the sign ‘Aids kills’ and recalling medieval representations of the Apocalypse, sweeps through the streets of this typical South African town with its urban colonial structures on the right and squalid shacks on left. In its path the skeleton encounters anonymous crowds of people, some of whom may be warned, others already doomed. In a similar vein, Nhlanhla Xaba’s obscure image is focused on a funeral procession set in gloomy landscape, although his statement elaborates on the importance of education (Xaba 2000).

Even the most negative and deterrent images usually contain at least a small message of
hope or deliverance. For for Xaba, many other artists see the salvation in education. Stembiso Sibisi’s black and white linocut mentioned above, shows high school pupils in a classroom being educated by a nurse, who has brought along a box of condoms. Gabisela Nkosi’s print features a rural village surrounded by graveyards. A nurse, equipped with free condoms, is paired off with a traditional elder who addresses the chief of this community, many members of which are already visibly affected by the disease. Showing the reality of death and disease is thus balanced off with the central issue of prevention through education and condom use, but all this with the consent and co-operation of the traditional leadership. More obliquely is the education aspect conveyed in the work of Penny George from Bloemfontein, the background layer of which consists of detailed instructions for fitting a condom adapted from a standard condom packet.

A different approach is pursued by Mduduzi Xakaza, who couches the basic theme - danger and hope, death and salvation - in religious terms. His colourful screen print represents an emaciated young man, visibly stricken with the disease, being comforted by Jesus Christ, represented as a black man. Xakaza acknowledges that stigmatisation of and discrimination against those infected and dying from Aids is a rampant and serious problem, which cannot be rooted out overnight (Xakaza 2001). In the meantime, the victims can rest assured that Jesus Christ is there for them, perhaps the only one who truly cares and accepts them as they are. They are doomed to die, but they can die with hope.

It is interesting to note that almost all black South African artists have chosen a realistic style and narrative format that includes explicit references to death and suffering and it is mostly these images that have thus far been enlarged and mounted onto billboards. It seems that these artists are inspired by their personal experience of living in or interfacing with communities in which dying from Aids has become a daily reality. They also know that members of black working class communities, largely uneducated and inexperienced in visual art appreciation, respond most strongly to figurative compositions in a realistic style, which they can relate to and engage with.

Other approaches

Almost all HIV/Aids murals try to convey a clearly comprehensible safe sex message by advocating the use of condoms and furthermore emphasise the display of the red ribbon as the internationally recognised symbol of HIV/Aids. Perhaps the only print that compares with this ‘propagandistic’ aspect of the murals and clearly aims to convey an unmistakable, easily comprehensible message, is the poster-style print of Daniel A.Ohene-Adu from Ghana, which seems to have been influenced by the strong local Ghanaian tradition of vernacular sign-writing. His image shows a schematically rendered couple surrounded by flames of both love and hell as the mixture of framing hearts and skulls seems to indicate. His commanding textual message ‘HIV/Aids is deadly - use a condom’ is backed up with the prominent depiction of the life-saving implement. In similarly unmistaken terms his statement, submitted in the form of a poem, speaks of HIV/Aids as a murderer eating away mankind and the necessity to use bold images and language to root it out completely (Ohene-Adu 2000).

Most print portfolio artists, however, do not feel compelled to represent the red ribbon symbol or ram home an unmistakable point. Instead, they tend to focus on giving a very personal interpretation of what they personally consider most important about the issue. Durban artist, Trevor Makhoba, for instance, produced an image that recalls the open mouth of a shark, with its dense rows of teeth represented through the repetitive use of the letters HIV an AIDS. The reprimanding tone of his words at the bottom of the print, ‘It gives sufficeint (sic) time for repentance’ and the work’s title ‘God his people’ introduces a religious and moralising slant and finds parallels in many of his works that criticise or satirise sexually immoral behaviour.

A number of other artists, too, hint at prostitution or the violation of moral behavioural codes as the root of the HIV/Aids problem: The work by Alex Flett from Scotland, for instance, is a loose adaptation of Picasso’s renowned icon of prostitutes in a brothel, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Namibian artist, Joseph Madisia, has created a composition brimming with detail, but again implicating prostitution in the spread of the disease with his shadowy figures lurking around the corner from the alluring prostitute, passing freshly dug graves.

Conclusion

Like its predecessors, the Images of Human Rights portfolio and the International Portfolio representing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ‘Break the Silence’ is meant to be educative, highly public and community oriented on the one hand, and of high artistic standard and creative value on the other. It thus occupies an ambiguous position within the productions of the South African art world, which - despites efforts to the contrary - is still largely devided along the lines of ‘high art’ and ‘low art’. The intended transferal onto billboards not only brings art into communities, as murals do, but also aligns them with the realm of advertisment, just as murals are often associated with advertisment. This competition with the seductive visual language of advertisments, professionally designed by specialised agencies based on complex market research and audience analysis, is an important factor that must be taken into account and that will invariably impact on the print portfolio images when they have actually been mounted onto billboards. While most images look stunning in their current form as prints, it remains to be seen how successful they will be (both aesthetically and in terms of their intended function), when displayed on billboards. Based on the few images that have already been mounted, observation and anecdotal evidence suggests a very positive reception, but it can be suggested, that not all prints will be equally suitable for use as billboards.



References

Artists for Human Rights (2000). Artist’s agreement for ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Boshoff, T. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Marschall, S (2001). ‘Conveying the Safe Sex Message: Aids Awareness Murals in the 1990s’. New Contree, forthcoming.
Mason, J. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Ohene-Adu, D. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Sibisi, S. (2001). Personal communication. Durban.
Sudheim, A. (2000). ‘Reality hits the road’. Mail & Guardian. Sept.8-14.
Swaleh, A. (2001). Personal communication. Durban.
Thorburn, D. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Victor, D. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Wasfy, A. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Williamson, S. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Xaba, N. (2000). Artist’s statement. ‘Break the Silence’ print portfolio.
Xakaza, M. (2001). Personal telephonic communication. Durban - Pietermaritzburg.



Notes

.Exhibitions and art events associated with this conference included the Aids Memorial Quilt; ‘Pandemic Patient’, a sculptural installation by South African artist, Fiona Kirkwood; ‘Postcards from the Edge’, works by children affected by HIV/Aids, held at the Durban Art Gallery; and ‘Bodies of Resistance’, a visual art exhibition at the NSA Gallery.
. The project was initiated by Artists for Human Rights (specifically Jan Jordaans from Technikon Natal) in Durban. Major sponsors of the project are the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) and the National Arts Council (NAC). The Department of Health has sponsored the enlargement for billboards and is currently being approached for more funding.
. Currently only five images have been enlarged and placed on billboards, most of them in the vicinity of Durban. These include Sthembiso Sibisi’s image on a billboard at Vouyiswamatolo

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