So we can’t let the behaviour of politicians — good, bad or indifferent — inform our collective attitudes towards, and our discourse about, the elderly. For most South Africans in their final phase of a long life, growing old does not mean ease, respect and wealth. It means physical discomfort, ongoing material precarity, neglect as often as care, loneliness more than community, and daily assaults on personal dignity.
This is brought home in Hope for the Blind — First Light, a short documentary film by Adam Heyns that offers a brief glimpse into the minor miracle of cataract surgery. More specifically, it tracks the journey of a handful of patients at Hope for the Blind (HFTB), a private, nonprofit eye hospital in Modimolle established to help the thousands of senior citizens in Limpopo who live with partial or no sight because of cataracts — an easily treatable condition when the right medical facilities are available.
It is an unqualified good news story, and many tears were shed when the film was shown at an inaugural event held at HFTB last month: poignant tears acknowledging the plight of elderly people in rural areas experiencing blindness and triumphant tears celebrating the hospital’s early successes, with the knowledge that thousands of life-changing procedures lie ahead.
Of special interest to art lovers is the related First Light project, an initiative “inspired by the idea of exhibiting artworks to people experiencing restored sight for the first time”. The clinic-as-gallery is a rare hybrid indeed, and from this fusion are born numerous benefits.
There is, for starters, the wonder of the patients who — now able to see colour and line once more — pore over drawings, paintings, sculptures and prints by William Kentridge, Mary Sibande, Nelson Makamo, Willem Boshoff, Nhlanhla Nhlapo and Heidi Fourie. This also creates an opportunity for those of us who take for granted our ability to see such things; their delight is our cue to study the works with fresh eyes and to appreciate the artists anew.
The opening exhibition, curated by Johan Stegmann and Lawrence Lemaoana, includes works that more explicitly draw our attention to the phenomenon of sight and its absence: the red spectacles worn by the figures in Makamo’s untitled screen print and charcoal works, or Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet series, which invites us to touch as well as to see.
Moreover, we are prompted by comments made in the film to look with the visual curiosity — even the naiveté — of the patients with restored sight. How does Kentridge make the leaves on his trees “look like hair”? And why is Sibande’s famous domestic worker, Sophie, riding a bicycle in that Victorian dress?
The art also serves a practical, fundraising purpose: when a work is acquired, the money goes straight to HFTB.
Collectors who are unable to make it to Modimolle can visit the First Light booth at the Latitudes Art Fair (Shepstone Gardens) from May 23-25.
Business Day.
CHRIS THURMAN: Seeing art literally with new eyes
A clinic-as-gallery is a rare hybrid indeed, and from this fusion are born numerous benefits
Image: Courtesy of the artist copy
Last week I caught snippets of a talk radio discussion in which listeners were invited to suggest changes they’d like to see made to our constitution. One senior citizen sent in a voice note proposing that no politician over the age of 60 should be allowed to take public office: “Us old guys must step back and let young people with fresh ideas do the job!”
It is true that SA’s cabinet, parliament and various ministries have housed numerous inept appointees who also happen to be well beyond retirement age. But correlation does not necessarily mean causation here. There are plenty of 40- and 50-somethings (not to mention the 20- and 30-somethings) who don’t belong in any organ of state yet have managed to secure themselves a nice sinecure.
Unfortunately, having a necrotic, narcissistic sociopath in the Oval Office tends to reinforce fears of a global gerontocracy. It doesn’t help that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is only a few years behind his US counterpart. But Bernie Sanders is still causing the right kind of trouble at the age of 83. And, lest we forget, a certain Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was already 80 when he stepped down after one term as president of our own newborn post-apartheid nation.
CHRIS THURMAN: Celebrate the unpredictability of art in a hi-tech world
So we can’t let the behaviour of politicians — good, bad or indifferent — inform our collective attitudes towards, and our discourse about, the elderly. For most South Africans in their final phase of a long life, growing old does not mean ease, respect and wealth. It means physical discomfort, ongoing material precarity, neglect as often as care, loneliness more than community, and daily assaults on personal dignity.
This is brought home in Hope for the Blind — First Light, a short documentary film by Adam Heyns that offers a brief glimpse into the minor miracle of cataract surgery. More specifically, it tracks the journey of a handful of patients at Hope for the Blind (HFTB), a private, nonprofit eye hospital in Modimolle established to help the thousands of senior citizens in Limpopo who live with partial or no sight because of cataracts — an easily treatable condition when the right medical facilities are available.
It is an unqualified good news story, and many tears were shed when the film was shown at an inaugural event held at HFTB last month: poignant tears acknowledging the plight of elderly people in rural areas experiencing blindness and triumphant tears celebrating the hospital’s early successes, with the knowledge that thousands of life-changing procedures lie ahead.
Of special interest to art lovers is the related First Light project, an initiative “inspired by the idea of exhibiting artworks to people experiencing restored sight for the first time”. The clinic-as-gallery is a rare hybrid indeed, and from this fusion are born numerous benefits.
There is, for starters, the wonder of the patients who — now able to see colour and line once more — pore over drawings, paintings, sculptures and prints by William Kentridge, Mary Sibande, Nelson Makamo, Willem Boshoff, Nhlanhla Nhlapo and Heidi Fourie. This also creates an opportunity for those of us who take for granted our ability to see such things; their delight is our cue to study the works with fresh eyes and to appreciate the artists anew.
The opening exhibition, curated by Johan Stegmann and Lawrence Lemaoana, includes works that more explicitly draw our attention to the phenomenon of sight and its absence: the red spectacles worn by the figures in Makamo’s untitled screen print and charcoal works, or Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet series, which invites us to touch as well as to see.
Moreover, we are prompted by comments made in the film to look with the visual curiosity — even the naiveté — of the patients with restored sight. How does Kentridge make the leaves on his trees “look like hair”? And why is Sibande’s famous domestic worker, Sophie, riding a bicycle in that Victorian dress?
The art also serves a practical, fundraising purpose: when a work is acquired, the money goes straight to HFTB.
Collectors who are unable to make it to Modimolle can visit the First Light booth at the Latitudes Art Fair (Shepstone Gardens) from May 23-25.
Business Day.
You might also like....
CHRIS THURMAN: Finding comfort processing grief amid anger and sorrow
CHRIS THURMAN: David Kramer revives versatile, pitch perfect Orpheus McAdoo
CHRIS THURMAN: Film festival celebrates transnational identity