Dag 2: Kwarantyn-ketting – "Tussen die boom en die bas" deur Lien Botha | LitNet
Lien Botha Kwarantynketting 2020-03-28
Romanskrywer en kunstenaar Lien Botha vertel waarmee sy kreatief besig is en lees voor uit haar nuwe manuskrip:
Dag 2: “Tussen die boom en die bas” deur Lien Botha
Hier beroep ek my daagliks op die troos van digters en die seisoenwisseling buite. Tuin en kwatryn, dus.
In April 2020 sou my 14de solo-uitstalling, Lost in translation, by die Barnard-galery in Kaapstad open. Hierdie reeks, bestaande uit 12 foto-illustrasies en 12 meegaande borduurwerke, herroep die Boet en Saartjie-reeks se karakters in ’n veranderde landskap (50 jaar later). Die Barnard-galery is tans tydelik gesluit. Sien skakel https://barnardgallery.com asook verdere inligting tot die konteks van dié werk.
Lost in translation (The long goodbye / Trektaal) (Die landskap vir hierdie werk is afgeneem in Januarie 2019 op die plaas Kleindoorn van Bertus le Roux en Christine Barkhuizen-Le Roux.)
Lost in translation (Loss at sea / Sinktaal)
Danksy ’n volhardende uitgewer en ’n bemoedigende eerste keurverslag het ek midde die onherbergsame klanke van hierdie kroonkiem nou die geleentheid tot verdere versorging van ’n voortslepende tweede roman, Vin. Hierbenewens moet ’n parallelle visuele komponent (wat in ’n kunsargief van 30 jaar delf) op ’n aanvullende portaal bygewerk word.
Dit behels dan ook die broodnodige vernuwing van my webtuiste, https://www.lienbotha.co.za (in 2005 van stapel gestuur), om hierdie materiaal te huisves. Laasgenoemde proses is reeds twee weke gelede geloods in samewerking met die grafiese ontwerper Katherine Joubert (https://www.kathanna.co.za).
Voorlesing uit Vin (voorlopig beplan vir publikasie in 2021, Queillerie):
Villa Gamberaia, 2001
Wanneer hierdie take afgehandel is, en die tuin oordeelkundig gesnoei, sal ek begin droom van ’n sin met die woord “ietermagog” daarin.
Mettertyd het diere die skemer gevul: Safari, 2003.
Lost in translation, Lien Botha
Revisiting a childhood narrative Boet & Saartjie1
For this series, initiated in 2018, I have created digitally constructed photographic images with accompanying embroidered “second titles”. The first titles are in English and are inscribed on the actual photographic work and the second titles (in my mother tongue, Afrikaans) act as a subtext artefact/curio.
Image and text, besides activating a “rereading” of this particular primary school textbook (familiar to many South Africans of especially my generation), have prevailed in much of my output over the past two decades.
It is a curious thing to reflect on the “static” content of one’s youth 50 years after the events. And so, in search of a past-present continuum I merged the individual characters of the young protagonists, Saartjie and her brother Boet, their father, mother and dog Buks, into the recent South African landscape. Reframing the past into a comic-style genre allows for playful undertones, while referencing current issues such as the notion of “home” in a fragile social and natural environment.
Juxtaposing the naive figures of Boet and Saartjie with mostly exterior landscapes results in a tension between the seemingly playful characters, gradually being usurped by the very landscapes they inhabit ̶ alluding to the futility of reminiscence when grafting the figments of a colonial past.
“Translation”, besides its literal configuration, implies relocation/shifting/movement. This in itself is an activator for the historical stasis.
The Lost in translation portfolio consists of 12 digitally collated photographic works of A3 size, edition /5 with 2 A/P prints.
Corresponding to the digital collages are the 12 smaller works (A5, edition /5) consisting of digitally embroidered Afrikaans texts on cotton fabric. This process suggests a cadence of receding “greyscale”, while at the same time paying homage to analogue photography and a vulnerable language (my mother tongue, Afrikaans, and the mot juste for each of the works).
The embroidered Afrikaans texts read as undertone for the black-and-white outlines of the adapted original Boet en Saartjie drawings by Wendy Jackson (1968), synthesising my interests as a lens-based artist working with text, layering and alternative materials.
Source pages from The Golden Series / Die Goue Reeks: Boet en Saartjie: This is Saartjie. This is Boet.
Extending the notion of appropriation, titles of individual images frequently foretell literary or film titles such as Portrait of the artist as a dog (Tjanktaal) and a pun on Portrait of the artist as a young dog by Dylan Thomas; O Mother, where art thou? (Moedertaal), Dog Day Afternoon (Braktaal) and, of course, the body title Lost in translation from the 2003 movie directed by Sofia Coppola.
In line with Lost in translation is my pending second novel, Vin (English Fin): Even though a quiet conversation may exist between the two bodies of work (image and text), they function as stand-alone components.
1 Die Goue Reeks: Boet en Saartjie, HA du Toit, Jancis Opie, Mynie Walters and Nancy J Lawrence, with illustrations by Wendy Jackson. Juta & Co, Cape Town, 1968. Book one of prescribed primary school first reader.
Video: voorlesing uit Vin (voorlopig beplan vir publikasie in 2021, Queillerie)
Videograaf: Raymond Smith
Produksiedatum: 25 Maart 2020
Klank in agtergrond: “Adagio in G-mineur” van Tomaso Albinoni
Twee weergawes van Wonderboom (Queillerie, 2015 en Zirimiri, 2019)
Daar is fout met die klank van Lien Botha se video. Ek is nie doof nie, maar kan glad nie hoor wat aangaan nie.
Dankie Riette ... Vreemd. Als behalwe klankdig aan die kant; draai dalk die volume bietjie op.