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Memory Keeper

Film  /  Music

Memory Keeper can be viewed as an elder, or cultural elder, that stands witness to both time and memory. Questions arise as to what may have been witnessed by this Evergreen Elder: What is the untold narrative of this place? What significant cultural depths do the roots connect to? What are the archival memories?

With these questions in mind, Garth Erasmus responds to the original sound to the video piece with only one given directive: “ask questions instead of making choices”, hereby making clear reference to composer John Cage’s creative process of serendipity and chance. With this in mind, Erasmus creates a haunting sound track based on seven drawings created by Rademeyer. In the drawings, Rademeyer plays with both the recorded sound of the wind as well as tracing the greater movement of the moving branches.

Just as the roots of this ancient Evergreen have survived through their own turbulations, we hope that Memory Keeper will be able to inspire us to hold on in these current times that bring their own challenges. We offer this work as symbol and reminder of the value of being unified in the collective, and connected through the common root of humanity.

This is a collaboration between Sonya Rademeyer (video) and Garth Erasmus (composer & musician).

  • Ticket Price: R55.00
  • Genre: Film
  • Duration (minutes): 07 min 07 sec
  • Ages: All Ages
  • Release Date: June 23, 2022 00:00 - July 03, 2022 23:59
  • Language: only music

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

A collaboration between Sonya Rademeyer (video) and Garth Erasmus (music)

Video editing: MyMalaika_Photography

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

SONYA RADEMEYER
(b. 1964, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe)
Sonya Rademeyer (SA) is a visual artist interested in exploring deep empathy through the vehicles of sound/movement. Through her practice of deep-listening, she connects to an embodied experience of ‘seeing’, allowing her body to determine mark-making. This gestural line-work often represents ideas around entanglement, fragility and complexities. A graduate of Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Rademeyer places her work at the intersection of art and science with a weighted responsibility towards social and environmental engagement at large. Awareness of the lack of empathy
occurring within her immediate environment will often spark new bodies of work which then expands out into the global. The nature of Rademeyer’s interest in empathy leads her to addressing complicated content. In her more recent work, she grapples with the relationship between empathy and whiteness [viewed from a post-colonial perspective] as well as the relationship between empathy and the natural environment.
Connected to her embodied work is a strong performative element captured through the medium of the lens. Drawing – or elements of drawing – will often be incorporated into live performances in either gestures or onto the surfaces of the fabric she is wearing. For Rademeyer, the intersection between drawing and performance remains an area of constant exploration.
www.sonya-rademeyer.com

GARTH ERASMUS
(b. 1956, Eastern Cape, South Africa)
Garth Erasmus is a visual artist and musician whose work focuses on SA`s indigenous people, the KhoiSan, which is his heritage. Originally from the Ecape he now lives and works in Kraaifontein (outside Cape Town). He taught at the Zonnebloem Art Centre, District Six in Cape Town, from 1982-1997. In 2005 he was the (temporary) Arts Education Officer at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town. He is a former chairperson of Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI) and is an active member of art projects such as Vakalisa Artists Group; Community Reflections Arts Performance Group; Greatmore Street Artists Studio, and the Thupelo Artists Workshop. One of his large-scale mural artworks is included in an installation depicting first peoples of the Western Cape at Artscape Theatre, Cape Town. His audio installation, Autshomato, is at the Robben Island Museum (Nelson Mandela Gateway, Cape Town). Garth is part of the activist music
and poetry group, Khoi Khonnexion, who toured European music theatre festivals in 2018-19 with the production House of Falling Bones on the Namibian genocide of the Nama people by the German colonialists.
https://asai.co.za/artist/garth-erasmus/