Illustrating ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’
An exhibition has translated K Sello Duiker’s book into a visual representation of the themes that run through it
‘Perhaps we do not fear the scrutiny of daylight enough. I walk because of them (the politicians) and all the ugliness they have left us. But the ugliness from which we are trying to run is us. And always there is this terrifying screaming that comes from the deepest places within me. And it fills my lungs with air when I listen to that primeval scream of a thousand eons. It makes me remember that the story is still unfolding, that there is more to come.”
This is Tshepo, the protagonist in K Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams, a deeply disturbing and well-written book. Tshepo’s mind is convoluted, dark. He is familiar and so are the struggles that torment him. He walks the streets of Cape Town until his feet are aching, numb and blistered. But we’re never sure whetherhe’s running away from or towards something.
The novel is the basis for the Stevenson Gallery and Blank Projects exhibition, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, developed by Joost Bosland and artist Moshekwa Langa. Bosland, a director at the gallery, says of the novel: “It described the world I was living in at the time … The character of Tshepo was very close to our lives. And the book stayed with me as a very important novel. I reread it when the new edition came out about two years ago. That’s when I realised that the book is much more important to visual arts than I had realised.”
Academic and author Sam Raditlhalo says: “It is the themes that Duiker pursued with a relentless scrutiny, sparing neither the reader nor himself, which cement his place in the pantheon of a new generation of South African writers.”
Tshepo’s primeval scream — what it means and what it might be in reaction to — is in the curated pieces. Dried roses are at the entrance of the gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town. They also hang from mesh wire overhead and are scattered on the floor. This installation, #SayHerName by Jody Brand, exists in the Johannesburg gallery too. The artist’s intention is to “liberate black and brown queer and femme bodies from brutality and violence enacted in the name of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, the media and the art world”. The gallery says the work depicts “two instances of violence, the unresolved murder of a Cape Town sex worker and the repeated victimisation of Tshepo in the novel, [which] inspired Brand’s contributions to this exhibition”.
Homosexuality and violence are themes that oscillate in the novel, at times so intertwined they seem inextricable, at others so far removed as to be foreign. Buhlebezwe Siwani, whose work is displayed in the main exhibition space, turned out to have been family friends of the Duiker family, having grown up with them, according to Bosland. His work Ithongo is visceral. Umkhando, a powdery red pigment used in certain rituals is imprinted with body depressions between 13 bedsheets and a psychiatric hospital blanket. The strength of the red is violent, juxtaposed with the sleep, calm, rest of the sheets.
The gallery notes the installation reflects the novel’s “violent circumstances surrounding the death of Tshepo’s mother, which mark the beginning of his mental fragility. The beginning of his nightmare occurs on a bed in his family home. According to Siwani: ‘The idea came from recognising that solitary confinement is violent on the body and the mind, as Tshepo demonstrates when he’s shut in the Kulukutz … While the body is hypothetically in a restful state, it cannot really rest as it is constantly woken up to depress its face upon paper. This sleep pattern thus has the propensity to lead to a delicate and tenuous psychological state.”
Other themes explored in the novel are based on Tshepo’s inner life. They’re represented in the exhibition as “madness, shame, sex, violence, power, intimacy, history, xenophobia, sexuality, love, race, mysticism, and mystery — themes that in many ways foreshadowed prominent focal points in South African contemporary art as it emerged from the period in which the book was written”.
Bosland echoes the sentiment, saying: “A lot of the themes that are being dealt with in the book artists have been covering in the decade since it was published. The themes have found their way into the visual arts.”
Evan Ifekoya’s digital print on vinyl, Ebi Flo (flex), is a playful and lively celebration. It presents the flamboyance in homosexuality. The second part of the work is a fourand-a-half minute video, Ebi Flo (We Are Family). This work represents Tshepo’s discovery of a brotherhood in the gay community.
The artist puts it this way: “Ebi Flo (We Are Family) the video is a refrain. Ebi Flo is a family becoming. Ebi Flo is nature yet an artificial construction, an overwriting [and] undermining. The installation Ebi Flo (flex), on the other hand, explores the persistence of loss, mourning and celebration in the lives of queer black subjects as it diffracts through inheritance, nightlife and polyvocality. Ebi Flo is a gift. A glitch. A glow.”
Homosexuality is touched on again in Akram Zaatari’s video, How I Love You. This is a conversation between gay men in Lebanon, some individuals and one couple, sharing insights about their lives, how they feel about their bodies, sex, passion, love and a multitude of their experiences in a country where one can still be jailed for being homosexual. Despite their differing circumstances, Tshepo and the men in How I Love You are bound by the same insecurity, nostalgia, fear, tenderness, hunger, desire, fatigue and hope.
Early in the novel Tshepo is stopped by police while walking home after a night out. After being struck by a policeman, Tshepo holds his cheek “and it feels hot with blood. I look at the police van; electric blue light spins furiously. I feel nauseous. The stringent light assails me and fills me with angst. It seems to scream with urgency.”
Glenn Ligon’s blinking neon sign, Untitled (Bruise/Blues) tackles police brutality in this country and in the United States. His videos show police dogs being unleashed on prisoners and recorded incidents in the US of racially motivated mistreatment that have gone viral.
Zanele Muholi’s photographic series, Only Half the Picture, are images of hospital patients and case numbers, scars and wounds. In the novel Tshepo was raped twice. After the second assault he makes the declaration: “I will survive. I’m not going back to a mental hospital.” This sense of tenacious self-care can be seen in Muholi’s work.
Other contributing artists, whose work tackles the various threads in the novel, include Isghaan Adam, Jane Alexander, Abdulrazaq Awofeso, Raphaël Barontini, Faka, Lyle Ashton Harris, Nicholas Hlobo, Bronwyn Katz, Turiya Magadlela, Robin Rhode, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Unathi Sinegugu, Penny Siopis, Barthélémy Toguo, Kemang wa Lehulere and Portia Zvavahera.
It’s not surprising that an exhibition would be curated in honour of Duiker and his novel that explores how precarious one’s mental state can be. There is beauty and art even in the imagery the title incites — The Quiet Violence of Dreams.
In September 2004, three years after the book was published, Duiker contributed an article to the Rhodes Journalism Review. In it he noted the struggle of growing up in the 1980s and the light he sought that kept him looking towards an end to that oppression. “I remember what kept us going through those dark years: the hope that one day we would all enjoy the fruits of living in a democratic society … [and] perhaps there was another subtle force that gave us hope, at least for me — and that was art.”
He committed suicide four months later.