sawubona [i see you]
March 30, 2010
Location : Bergstraat 14, Amsterdam
Time: 20.30 uur
'Sawubona', zulu for ' i see you', is a collaborative work between Lilia Perez Romero (MX / NL) and Doung Anwar Jahangeer (Mauritius/ ZA). The work is a subtle interactive video installation's in a previous sex workers window at Bergstraat 14, in the RedLight district Amsterdam.
Conceptually investigating the idea that people in space make place, 'Sawubona' roots itself in the Ubuntu " umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" . A zulu humanist philosophy meaning that 'a person is a person through other persons'. The work is a critique on the rampant global-capitalist dehumanising tendencies of city making. It offers its audience an opportunity to re-discover the one in the other . Michel De Certeau (1984) in his book on the practice of everyday life became an advocate of the narratives told by pedestrians in the city.
Not verbalised or written in text, people traverse through space creating spatial narratives in an organic fashion. This provides an intelligent alternative to the disciplined, rational use of space defined by planners, architects, engineers and owners of capital.
The works also takes the responsibility to be site responsive. Choosing to be in the RedLight District is a comment how space becomes conditioned and in this case in the commodification of the 'being human' specially of the female gender in the realm of sex work.The artists recognise that the dehumanising efforts in space making is consistently intrinsic to some human practices.
The intention is that of an exposure of an existing parallel reality and hopefully to create a shift in our minds towards the way we perceive the other.
Lou Reed puts it nicely "...you are my mirror , reflect what i am....".
This art project is part of 'The media City' workshop, hosted at the Netherlands Media Art Institute. Kindly supported by Mondriaan Foundation.