Conversations with my Father
Installation View, National Arts Festival 2015
About the work
Conversations with my Father is a continuous dialogue (2011 – to date) between myself and the objects, images, sound recordings and documents I inherited in 2010 after my father died of a rare motor neuron disease which rendered him unable to speak for the last year and a half of his life. The Conversation aims to manage and deconstruct the found footage and objects as a means of looking at and understanding trauma.
Both my paternal grandfather and my father were South African Police (SAP). My father was a good man, he was a good father, he was also a product of his environment. In my investigation I turn the forensic gaze onto the evidence of my father as official. This act of scrutinizing, archiving, layering and manipulating allows me to engage with the father as the allegorical figure for patriarchy and by extension authority.
Publicity
http://artthrob.co.za/2015/07/27/in-conversation-with-monique-pelser/
http://artthrob.co.za/2015/12/11/best-of-the-year-artthrobs-lists/
Goodman Gallery artist profile; September 2011
Sean O’Toole; Sunday Times Lifestyle; The Big Picture; March 11, 2007 Download PDF = 246KB
Anthea Buys; The Spirit is Not an Idea, Says the Penguin; Review; 2010