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Things

As human beings we seem to define ourselves by the objects we create, buy, sell, collect and pass down from generation to generation. Ants and birds collect materials to build their nests; crows collect shiny objects to hoard; but few other creatures express themselves by collecting inessential things as we do.

Some of us keep objects simply to look at. We are drawn to them. Why? Some may remind us of a special time, or special person, or they might give us pleasure in the way they look or feel. Some appeal because they are familiar, or for the opposite reason – because they seem to us strange or exotic. We have special artefacts for special rituals – such as candlesticks, wedding rings, decorated sticks, masks – which we like to trace back to our (cultural) origins. But we also create and invent new things. We fill our homes with gadgets, like televisions, cell phones, cameras and electronic tablets.

The way we choose things, acquire them, make, display or even hide them, tells the world something about ourselves, and about our cultures.

Lives of Objects

  • Activities: Objects tell stories
  • Artists: Bongi Dhlomo Mautloa
  • Artists: Keith Dietrich
  • Artists: Jo Ractliffe
  • Activities: The things I love

A Sense of Touch

  • Springboards: Feeling texture, seeing texture
  • Springboards: Texture you can feel: sculpted surfaces
  • Artists: Jeremy Wafer
  • Artists: Nandipha Mntambo
  • Artists: Walter Oltmann
  • Artists: Willem Boshoff
  • Activities: Exploring through touch
  • Activities: Working with clay
  • Springboards: Taking Rubbings
  • Activities: Texture Rubbings
  • Activities: Feeling with your Eyes
  • Artists: Albrecht Dürer

Ordinary things, extraordinary artworks

  • Springboards: Layers of meaning: Readymade and found objects in artworks
  • Artists: Penny Siopis
  • Springboards: Objet trouvé: The beginnings of the “found object” in European art and in Africa
  • Activities: A wearable artwork of your own

Still life: objects for contemplation

  • Springboards: Still Life: Objects of Contemplation
  • Activities: Your own still life

Objects of significance and power

  • Springboards: Small objects of power
  • Artists: Simon Lekgetho
  • Artists: Objects of Significance
  • Activities: What is culture?
  • Activities: Keeping a weekend journal
  • Springboards: Museums
  • Activities: Creating your own museum

The consumer society: “We are what we buy”

  • Springboards: Contemporary Consumption
  • Activities: A day in the life of…An “ad journal”
  • Activities: How advertising works
  • Activities: Reading between the advertising lines
  • Springboards: Pop Art: Artists and the consumer culture
  • Artists: Roy Lichtenstein
  • Artists: Andy Warhol
  • Artists: Wayne Barker
  • Artists: Cameron Plater
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