Published 13 March 2023 in News
ESCAP3 Gallery 'Prisoners of Stone' Awarded Best (Online) Presentation at DUT ARK2022 & SAVAH Conference, DigiFest'09
Awarded Thursday 29 September 2022
Congratulations to ESCAP3 Gallery Artists Bernard Brand & Adriaan Diedericks for being Awarded Best Virtual Presentation for their participation in the Exhibition: 'Prisoners of Stone'.
A special thank you to the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Faculty of Arts & Design Annual Research Kaleidoscope (ARK) 2022 in collaboration with the South African Visual Art Historians (SAVAH) for the support and kind acknowledgment of the relevance of our practice.
'Romancing the Stone: Contemplating Evolving Trends and Impermeable Places in Arts and Design'
The relationship between human beings and stone as a medium, metaphor and artefact has a significant and contested history within the arts. Zimbabwean sculptor Lazarus Takawira notes ‘you look for a stone, and find a story to etch onto the stone…
After you are done working on a stone, it will begin talking to you, whispering at you.’ But we also use the word in metaphors to signify impermeable ideas and hardened frameworks. We describe ideas and ideologies as set in stone when we feel that they cannot be changed or shifted. However, as Monet observed in relation to the shifting light on the Rouen Cathedral, ‘Everything changes, even stone.’ Critical theorist Homi Bhabha also reminds us that nothing, least of all culture, is changeless. On this premise of change and chance, the 2022 Arts Research Kaleidoscope – a history-subverting, paradigm-contesting, kaleidoscopic spaceship – invites postgraduate students, researchers and creative practitioners from different disciplines to present and explore various apparently stratified frameworks in their fields from a multidisciplinary perspective.
ESCAP3 Gallery was accepted to present 'Prisoners of Stone', a virtual exhibition featuring works that not only contain visual reference to stone, but also the use of stone or rock as symbolism & metaphor. 'Prisoners of Stone' alludes to the juxtaposition of stone being shaped or used by the Artists, to both indicate a release and captivity, either in the cyclical strife of life, or the moment between what the Artist senses and the medium speaks. The works reflect an eternal struggle of humans who wish to free the spirit from material trappings.
'Prisoners of Stone' Awarded Best Exhibition Presentation (Online)
To view all the wonderful Virtual Exhibitions please navigate to the DUT DigiFest website here
To view the Exhibition 'Prisoners of Stone' please click here