ukuzidela series

ukuzidela, 2020

photographic still

performance

Title translates to: self-sacrifice/ sacrifice

The work consists of 8 stills from a performative video, overlayed into 4 different stills. The performance includes the artist in a bathroom stall cutting her hair with a pair of scissors, flashing the hair down the toilet thereafter wearing a fringed-bob wig.

The performative stills explores the complexities of being a black female in post-colonial South Africa. Further highlighting the grey-area between two narratives - what was constructed for oneself, and how oneself decides to construct.

The sacrifice is a secret ritual that the artist performs from time to time in a private space. The artist’s hair is the object of sacrifice. In normal circumstances, the act of cutting one’s hair symbolises a new beginning or initiates growth and it is not often frowned upon. In the Zulu culture, females will shave off hair when a close family member passes on. However, the artist engages in the ritual with different intentions – to embody her preference for Western culture over natural ethnicity.  

The act of shaving off hair is symbolic of detaching of the ethic to attach to the Western due to preference and comfort. The act, ironically, still induces feelings of guilt because this would be frowned upon by member of the artist’s community.