ESCAP3 Gallery 'Prisoners of Stone' at DigiFest'09

Published 19 September 2022 in News

ESCAP3 Gallery 'Prisoners of Stone' at DigiFest'09

DUT Arts Research Kaleidoscope 2022 & SAVAH Host DigiFest'09

Durban University of Technology, City Campus, Smith Street, Greyville, Berea, 4023, Eastern Cape, South Africa

19 - 23 September 2022


Virtual Exhibition featuring work by Bernard Brand & Adriaan Diedericks.

'Romancing the Stone: Contemplating Evolving Trends and Impermeable Places in Arts and Design'

The relationship between human beings and stone as a medium, metaphor and artefact has a significant and contested history within the arts. Zimbabwean sculptor Lazarus Takawira notes ‘you look for a stone, and find a story to etch onto the stone…

After you are done working on a stone, it will begin talking to you, whispering at you.’ But we also use the word in metaphors to signify impermeable ideas and hardened frameworks. We describe ideas and ideologies as set in stone when we feel that they cannot be changed or shifted. However, as Monet observed in relation to the shifting light on the Rouen Cathedral, ‘Everything changes, even stone.’ Critical theorist Homi Bhabha also reminds us that nothing, least of all culture, is changeless. On this premise of change and chance, the 2022 Arts Research Kaleidoscope – a history-subverting, paradigm-contesting, kaleidoscopic spaceship – invites postgraduate students, researchers and creative practitioners from different disciplines to present and explore various apparently stratified frameworks in their fields from a multidisciplinary perspective.

ESCAP3 Gallery has been accepted to present 'Prisoners of Stone', a virtual exhibition featuring works that not only contain visual reference to stone, but also the use of stone or rock as symbolism & metaphor. 'Prisoners of Stone' alludes to the juxtaposition of stone being shaped or used by the Artists, to both indicate a release and captivity, either in the cyclical strife of life, or the moment between what the Artist senses and the medium speaks. The works reflect an eternal struggle of humans who wish to free the spirit from material trappings.

To view all the Virtual Exhibitions please navigate to the DigiFest'09 website here