Bode is pleased to invite you for the opening of I write (stitch) what I like, a solo exhibition by Senzeni Marasela. Senzeni Marasela (b. 1977) is a cross-disciplinary artist who explores photography, video, prints, and mixed-medium installations involving textiles and embroidery. Her work deals with history, memory, and personal narrative, emphasising historical gaps and overlooked figures.
Since over twenty years Marasela has been documenting the story of Theodorah, a figure that represents both her mother and an alter ego of herself. Like many women, her mother was traumatised by events that took place in South Africa during the apartheid era, when millions of black Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods. Due to these mass evictions many women had 'lost' their husbands and were waiting for their return. Working with literature and archives, which have suffered state censorship up until recently, Marasela tries to reconstruct and fill these historical gaps. The artist is particularly interested in the acts of waiting and replacement. She studies the pathologies of women who were forced to wait, and translates it into an affecting visual language charged with political and historical gravity. Her Theodorah can be found within the variety of mediums: photographs, installations, textile and embroidery works. Theodorah is always accompanied by red colour, which is central to the exhibition, as well as to the entire body of work of the artist, having a number of connotations.
Belonging to the generation of post-apartheid South African artists, Marasela investigates the fate of women separated from their families during the apartheid era, as well as analyses post-apartheid Black female identities.
Press release courtesy Bode.
Reinbeckstraße 29
Berlin, 12459
Germany
www.bode-projects.com
+49 1511 5880679
Friday
11am - 5pm
Saturday
11am - 4pm
or by appointment