Affairs of the Home

This sculpture interrogates notions of home: the country where one lives, the dwelling where one resides, the comfort or lack thereof, a sense of belonging, and the feeling of security or vulnerability of being at home.

Two Department of Home Affairs signage boards, purchased from a scrapyard, are placed on an ironing board, an instrument synonymous with the home. The boards have special resonance for Black South Africans that required a permit to travel in apartheid, severely limiting their freedom of movement. Today they are reminders of the plight of those who reside in South Africa from countries beyond South Africa’s perimeters.

The blanket placed between the boards belonged to a paraplegic woman in exchange for a new blanket. The woman, who was from Mpumalanga, South Africa, shared living space with refugees at a Methodist church in Johannesburg in 2012. She, along with her child, shared a room with several women and children. The place had no disability access and no access to clean water. The inclusion of the blanket in the work is an attempt to find some level of nature and coziness in contrast to the coldness of the boards and what they represent.