https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/179 2026-06-15T14:32:48Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32444 Bitterbessie Dagbreek Dreyer, Elfriede The Bitterbessie Dagbreek series of six works plus an artist book were commissioned by academic curator Professor Gwenneth Miller for the national Aardklop festival of 2025. I was then invited to exhibit the works at the Gallery at Glen Carlou in the Western Cape for subsequent exhibition. The series follows on my ongoing exploration of the intermedial, semantic and hermeneutic relationships between work, image and sound. In this series there is no sound but the imagery evokes the sound of crackling fire. The works were inspired by Ingrid Jonker’s poems Bitterbessie Dagbreek and Op die Voetpad. The works extend my ongoing exploration of the shifting relationship between word and image, where meaning is never fixed but continually re-formed. The works developed from an artist’s book created as a visual response to these poems, which speak of loss and the solitary path each person takes in processing grief. I experienced the burning of my house, and Jonker’s imagery of the pine forest (in front of our house), the road (from the lake to our home), and dawn resonated deeply with my own lived experience. When morning breaks in red and orange after a traumatic event, the full impact of what has occurred becomes unavoidable. Existential metaphors emerge throughout the series: the road as the walk of life; daybreak as the searing moment after disaster; landscape as event; and the orange sky as an unfolding process of reckoning and becoming. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32443 Composite Dreyer, Elfriede The Composite project (2025) comprises fourteen new artworks presented across three group exhibitions and a solo exhibition held from 20 September to 20 October 2025 at The Viewing Room Gallery in Pretoria. The group exhibitions formed part of Wild at White River Gallery, Mpumalanga (10 May – 1 June 2025); Wild at Attic Atelier, George, Western Cape (16 April – 17 May 2025), as well as the international ONAVU exhibition at Galerie Latuvu, Bages, France (5 July – 6 September 2025). All presentations included artist walkabouts. The works remain permanently accessible at: https://www.elfriededreyer.com/composite. The works engage with the shifting dynamics of the natural world, where floods, fires, and erratic weather patterns have become a new evolutionary constant. Seasonal rhythms are increasingly destabilised: spring arrives earlier, midsummer is disrupted by cold fronts, and droughts give way to sudden flooding. Situated within the discourse of the Anthropocene, my intermedial practice explores the entangled consequences of human activity on ecological and geological systems. Land is approached not only as a site of environmental crisis but as a palimpsest, a kind of layered repository of memory, transformation, and deep time. Within this framework, archetypal dualities of male and female are invoked as foundational principles in nature: the maternal is associated with soil, nurture, and regeneration; the paternal with stone, structure, and endurance. Rock functions as an archive, inscribed with traces of geological formation and anthropogenic disruption. Landscape is conceived as a sentient entity, its language apprehended through sight, sound, and spatial awareness. The intersection of sound and image produces a composite palimpsest of sensory impressions. In the context of the Anthropocene, this translation acquires urgency in relation to deafness, where sign language operates as both method and metaphor—a reflection of humanity’s inability, or refusal, to heed environmental warnings. Deafness and sign language recur as formal and conceptual devices, foregrounding a broader reluctance to engage with environmental crisis. Through this lens, the work opens territories of meaning between body, environment, and time. The Composite series engages the four elements—fire, earth, air, and water—to address cycles of evolution, destruction, and renewal. More broadly, my practice investigates worldmaking—natural, virtual, and personal—and the ways in which such worlds are constructed and inhabited as layered repositories of history, memory, and experience. These concerns often unfold through tensions between utopian imaginaries and their counterpoints: dystopia and heterotopia. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/31928 Commiseration Mosako, Daniel Rankadi Art has always served as a mirror reflecting the depths of the human experience, and that reflection frequently highlights the complex and multidimensional aspects of a global situation on mental health. My path as an artist is intricately linked to my personal battles and victories in overcoming the difficulties of anxiety, depression, and the range of emotions that accompany them. My recent art production adds to a new chapter in a continuous story, of emotional imbalances that affect societies. In my art I strive to convey the vulnerability that is experienced as a glimpse of hope that serve as a reminder of our resilience and those moments of sadness that overwhelms. To capture the chaotic beauty of the mind, I work in a range of builder’s oxide colours. These are pigments that blend to symbolise the emotional disorder and feelings, while spontaneous abstract shapes appear to depict the often-difficult quality of tranquillity and peace. I want people to be instinctively affected by my art and be encouraged to face their own emotions and experiences. I've learned through this creative process that vulnerability is a great strength rather than a weakness. Through my artistic expression, I aspire to foster a feeling of visual dialogue. Although it is a universal factor in the human experience, mental health is a topic that has long been stigmatised. My goal is for my art to spark meaningful conversations by inspiring people to be honest about their personal issues and to ask for help without worrying about being judged. Through the art showcased in this exhibition, I want to encourage a change in the way that we see mental health. My aim is to challenge the myths surrounding mental health and encourage a supportive and empathetic culture. I am determined to use my artistic voice to promote mental health discourse. Mix media creative art production (A body of work composed of five art pieces that talk to Commiseration, sincerity, compassion, and affinity under the subject of depression) 2024-09-14T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/31471 Women’s Day Celebration: Celebrating Black South African Female Jazz Composers Mkizwana, Viwe Siyabonga; Mthembu, Mzamo; Mcwabe, Ntsikelelo; Sepuru, Phuti; Motsepe, Nthabiseng; Mcwabe, Ntsikelelo Women’s Day (9 August) a reminder of the tenacity, resilience, and power of South African women. This performance is part of the University of Pretoria’s weekly Lunch Hour Concerts, where leading musicians (local and international) host an open-public performance. This concert, held on 10 August 2023, sounds and celebrates the often-subjugated voices of black South African female jazz composers and musicians whose impact is yet to be fully realised. These voices are often neglected in songbooks, repertoires, and writings on South African jazz history. This is not an issue unique to the said context, evident in research by Willis (2007), Caudwell (2012), Björck and Bergman (2018), Vleet (2021), and Buscatto (2021). Soules (2011) used the lives of American female jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams and singer Ella Fitzgerald as cases to explore intersectional factors and the struggles of black women navigating the male-dominated jazz space. This is also evident in Tucker (2008), who speaks to two historic American female big bands, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and the Darlings of Rhythm, with a focus on the latter. Within this, Tucker notes that women in jazz were often viewed as “women from Mars” (p. 284). I find an affinity with Masenya’s (1998) Bosadi approach, which emphasises the urgency to make South African women visible and to acknowledge the oppressive systems that inform their experiences. Therefore, the primary objective of this performance was to allow black South African female jazz musicians a space to exist. The artists whose work was part of the programme were Lindi Ngonelo (Tata), Nthabiseng Motsepe-Notyesi (Nthabysang), Lindiwe Maxolo (Nomalili), Phuti Sepuru (Keteko ya Bosadi), Nomfundo Xaluva (Thandoluhle) and Gloria Bosman (Play me those love songs). These are a few of the South African jazz women who exist(ed) not only as performers, singers, or instrumentalists, but also as composers and educators. This concert also sought to reflect women beyond common historical narratives as vocalists. Performing their works in this setting, and on this day, was a necessary step towards allowing basadi (women) into the space and acknowledging their contributions. This performance provides a reinterpretation of these works (with the band being led by two women), encouraging the dialogic between thinking and doing. I conceptualised this performance, assembled the band, and served as a pianist, alongside fellow project leader and vocalist, Mrs. Nthabiseng Motsepe-Notyesi. We, as black female jazz musicians, wanted to have a sense of agency and urgency and take control of the ‘doing’. The performance is a dialogue; it presents an engagement and reciprocity within a group setting. But it also involved engaging the women whose works were the focus. The broader performance provided a way of thinking through these issues. Performing, interpreting, and researching the works of other women was part of enhancing and thinking about my own composition. Listening to the selected repertoire and the underlying meaning(s) highlighted the fact that we are all searching for our own bodies and belonging. The compositions focus on self-exploration through the voice, sounding a musical home, articulating experiences, and borrowing from other sonic homes. My composition, Keteko ya Bosadi, was titled “Untitled” at the time of this recording. Trying to carve a home between a heritage of men, using the works of other women as a source of interpretation, led to the revised title, which translates as “A celebration of womanhood”. Here, the body, through performance, served as a tool for pushing boundaries—borrowing a home for basadi. The research questions guiding this performance were: 1. In what ways have/are black South African jazz women contributing to the South African jazz canon? 2. What is the significance of making the contributions of women visible within the South African jazz space? Within the South African context, scholars such as Dalamba (2008), Muller (2011), and Mzimela (2020) explored subjects related to female jazz musicians; namely, singers Miriam Makeba, Sathima Bea Benjamin, and Dorothy Masuka, respectively. Gender disparities within the South African jazz milieu are also articulated in research by George (2020) and Röntsch (2020), with the latter bringing to light the work of the first South African all-female big band. This performance may be viewed as a continuation of the efforts of these scholars. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z