Women Born In The 1970s

"I was teaching in Spain spring of 2020 and I watched as FSU’s campus in Italy close as the virus was killing thousands; and then, our own campus in Valencia closed. It was necessary for me to evacuate but not before I had to quickly try to finish a large painting project there and ship the work to friends in Paris and Vienna. Some of my packages have still not arrived at their destination because Covid has disrupted service and made things very complicated. It’s not a safe time to distribute art when the opening of services and facilities is so up in the air. Usually I show in ten shows a year all over the US and abroad. For now, I am taking a hiatus from exhibiting in person. I am hoping to take the next couple of years to turn inward and make my work in an intimate way without the pressure of circulation."

"The continent depends on us, South Africa, to showcase our capability, our commitment and what we can achieve as Africans. That responsibility now lies in your hands as law enforcement agencies, as we head into the weekend"

"It would have been just and honourable for the authors to contact me to hear my side of the story than to rubbish my name in this manner"

"As a daughter of Soweto, I stand shoulder to shoulder with community leaders in condemning this senseless act. As Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, and Co-Chair of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster, I cannot remain silent when our people’s constitutional rights are trampled upon"

"The authors draw parallels where there are none, between my political life which they show disdain at and investigations into the editorial independence of the SABC. Their hangover of former president [Jacob Zuma] clouded their judgment"

"They insinuate an unpalatable relationship which I seem to have had with the former COO, which in their minds led to this so-called interference which I seemed to have done at the SABC"

"It is not good enough for the authors to point fingers at a cabinet minister and SABC board members and make reference to 'enforced' instructions from the top without evidence. Perhaps only a retired or tired person can do that"

"We will work tirelessly with all relevant stakeholders to ensure justice is served and that this challenge is addressed decisively"

"I am guilty of being at the same place, at the same time with the former COO [Hlaudi Motsoeneng] when I showed up to support the former president in court in Durban, which I don't know where they get a mandate to investigate my personal life"

"The lives of innocent people were put in danger when bullets flew around Maponya Mall. This is not only a matter of criminality but an affront to our democratic values"

"Competition, when healthy, can strengthen industries rather than weaken them. Informal traders at taxi ranks, selling similar goods, compete without violence by improving their products and services. This spirit of coexistence must be embraced by our transport sector"

"What I like about the story is that this is the honest portrayal of sex workers and their lives"

"Where roads are closed, let us not force our way through. Let us understand that these measures are in the best interest of our country and our people. This event is important – it contributes to our economy and strengthens the standing of our nation"

"With that, I want to wish all law enforcement agencies the very best. We know you will do us proud, because you have consistently demonstrated your capability. [We] rely on you to distinguish between right and wrong and to act strictly within the laws and the Constitution of our country"

"What stands between our current state of the arrested development and a prosperous South Africa that we want to build as it is espoused in the National Development Plan 2030, is the quality of public service to accomplish that objective"

"but a deviation from norms and standards, and that impedes very negatively on the government to function optimally"

"With the glaring unemployment, this shameful act of unkindness towards the poorest of the poor should be arrested without delay if we are to work in unison for the common good of our citizens"

"But I am happy that black people are telling black stories though they are controlled in how they should tell them."

"Our traditional taxi industry is an integral part of our economy and must remain so. However, it should adapt, modernise, and embrace healthy competition to ensure sustainability and service excellence"

"These events were held across the country, and the analysis and reports we received confirm that all engagements, working rooms and meetings proceeded without incident. This is because of your hard work and dedication, and we thank you for ensuring that South Africa remains a place our guests can trust"

"We met her and she allowed us to speak to women about their lives and challenges. I decided to create a drama because I don’t think that there is a human being who wakes up and decide to be a prostitute"

"When I do these performances now, the feeling in my body seems to mirror that lake experience. I did a performance a few years ago where I threw myself through sheets of glass and after that I found the vocabulary to describe how I felt physically eluded me. It was like a secret in my body. When thinking about how to approach the reenactment, I started reading about how William Turner worked. He would take real-life events and turn them into the most beautiful images using color and light. He was also very interested in the sublime—man’s powerlessness in the face of nature. I channeled him as an inspiration when making the video."

"There are two phases of the exhibition—day and night. When you walk into the gallery during the day, in this reality, it is actually night. There are 75 night-blooming jasmine plants in boxes with shop lights above them suspended from the ceiling. Because the lights are off, the plants are tricked into thinking it is night and release their rich smell. The viewer walks through a maze of flowers and arrives at the video projected on a screen of myself walking and falling through a frozen lake in the center of the gallery. There is an audio score accompanying the video by experimental jazz composer Jason Ajemian. Every day at 5:30pm, the video turns off and the lights start to turn on in a synchronized choreography to a piece of music. The "day" then begins and the lights turn off again at 5:30am. It is a very sensorial experience with smell, video, light, color, and sound."

"Moving to New York to get an MFA in poetry was a pretty affirming moment. I started to research poets who were performance artists and discovered people like Vito Acconci. From there, my poems walked off the page and into the streets in an action poem style. Photography has always been a big part of my life and when I started researching early performance work, I never understood why the “documentation” of the work was of such bad quality. I went back to school, to the International Center for Photography, to learn the skills necessary to capture aesthetically compelling work, to eliminate the hierarchy between the performance and video and photos. At that point, I hit my stride."

"When I was 15, I fell in a frozen lake. I was walking on a lake outside of Boston and the ice started cracking. The next thing you know, I was fighting to get out. The lake was a water reservoir so it was illegal to walk on it. Afterward, I was scared to tell anyone about what happened for fear of getting into trouble. Even though I was freezing for days after, it was also kind of exciting."

"It’s sort of like building a puzzle. I get an idea and then see how it best fits. If it is an idea for a performance, I start to think, Should it be live? Is it best for video? What time of day? What kind of camera? Where should it be shot? Then I think, How should it be installed? Single-channel or installation? If it is for a live audience, then everything changes; now you are thinking outside the frame and with a 360-degree view. Then the questions start again. All the projects start with an image. If the work is physically challenging, then I work backward to figure out how I can make it. How can I cover myself with bees while doing tai chi? How can I throw myself through sheets of glass? How can I fall through the middle of a frozen lake?"

"The day I decided to commit to being an artist was one of the best days of my life. I knew what I loved to do and what I now had to do. Although it was a totally frightening career choice, it was also one of the most liberating."

"I start researching and make calls to people whom I think can help me. The first 10 calls are all usually the same: “You can’t do that, it's impossible.” But then I find someone who is one the same page as me and the fun starts. When we finally have a date, then I prepare physically and mentally. Trampoline training, tai chi practice, ice baths, ashram stays, etc. A lot of research goes into the projects—the goal is to make the final image."

"For this project, I am wearing a suit made of raw silk inspired by William Turner’s color palette in "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons." I wanted the fabric to reflect the light like the golden flames in the painting."

"On the day of, usually, I am just focused on all that needs to get done to get the shot right. When I am performing, I switch into my body and try to be as in the moment as possible. When I fell through the lake, I opened my eyes and it was so incredibly peaceful. Frozen lake water is this deep emerald green, and all I saw was this thick liquid that was so quiet. I held myself under the ice for as long as I could to experience it."

"Falling in the lake the first time wasn’t what I would call traumatic. It was while it was happening —don’t get me wrong, but after, it was more of an exciting mystery. It was kind of like recovering from an intense illness. Or losing your virginity and wondering what the hell happened? I did feel an immense sense of power after I shot it last winter. I was in total control of the situation this time, which was more fun."

"I feel like Miami is growing so fast it is hard to pinpoint what it is anymore because everything is constantly changing here, but at the same time, it’s Miami—this surreal, gritty, gorgeous city that attracts a unique type of person. The art community here reflects that. It is unconventional in its core; it is hardworking, dedicated, supportive, and fun."

"Adrian Piper is incredible. I also love the work of Ana Mendieta, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, Nam June Paik, Pipilotti Rist, Patty Chang, Diane Arbus, Nikki S. Lee, Hito Steyerl, Tino Seghal, T.S. Elliot, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Frank O’Hara. The list is endless and always changing."

"Ezra Pound said poetry is “news that stays news,” which I’ve always liked."

"I can do something positive that can prompt people to say: ‘Oh, so this is a Liberian author"

"In all the books that Cassava is promoting, they can see that this is not ‘Africa"

"A lot of people want to categorise you when you’re writing crime fiction [as an African] – ‘Which part of Africa are you writing about"

"Well I think it would be some of the problems you find in general in undeveloped countries like the issues of literacy. A lot of women, they have the dreams to write but you need a back ground of education or some form of education and that’s something a lot of people still don’t have – a platform of elementary school education. But when you’re young, whatever you’re good at its something that people should encourage in you and that’s another thing. As Africans, we need to really engender that form of pride and motivate our children, regardless of what the child wants to do, I think we should support it. Because like I always say to people, the world had enough problems without having your families not backing you in pursuit of your dream. So we need to really pay attention, if you see a child has a gift, you should nurture that gift in your child because, I mean, there are African writers – men and women -- who fought against the odds but now they are household names in Africa. And these people came up in a time where the colonial perception of Africa was such that nobody could really bring anything positive out of this continent, so definitely no literary genius can come and these people really broke all the odds"

"Science can be challenging but literature and art, that’s like home to me. I used to live in bookstores"

"I’m trying to showcase that when people write from anywhere in the world they’re telling stories that they can relate to"

"It more than frustrates me, it pisses me off! That is not the narrative of my country in total. Whenever news comes out of there it dwarfs the country itself: it’ll be Charles Taylor in the Hague, or Ebola and thousands dead, but the positive stories don’t leak out further than the region"

"So often the detective is a man and the woman is his lovely wife who the detective goes home to. We are just the background noise"

"It never occurred to me in my mind as an African I could actually get published and be on the shelves like those people"

"So crime really is a cross cutting in any society, I don’t care where you live in this world. Crime is publicist and I think with the way the world is now, crime is becoming a fascination for the public"

"Mysticism is a theme that is wedded to African culture, that people see things and perceive things in different ways"

"His seminal work, Murder in a Cassava Patch, was something I read very deeply and [it] took time to sink it in. I thought a lot about my writing when reading it, deciding the kind of crime fiction writer I wanted to be"

"I think usually a lot of African kids, if they have any artistic inclination, their parents tend not to really take it seriously because the market for artists won’t be serious. So you’re always told to have a degree in order to make a living out of it. So that was the same case with me, I never really took my writing seriously even though I have been writing since I was a kid"

"in anything that you do, you have to have a lot of determination and self-confidence. Always persevere, be honest with your work and always be ready to take criticism. Be diligent and basically send your work around as much as possible."

"My father insisted that I read history books in my spare time, and that shaped my life in many ways."

"People say I appear unfriendly, but I’m really not – I think I’m one of the friendliest people in the world."