Unmasking the heroes : sources of power in Afrikaner mythologising

Abstract

Unmasking the heroes: sources of power in Afrikaner mythologising is a personal, visual and theoretical exploration of the underlying sources of power which governed the development of Afrikaner nationalism, particularly the years spanning the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The practical work, a series of drawings and relief cut-outs, sets out to unmask the beliefs, customs, traditions and attitudes particular to Afrikaner culture. It does so through the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction of selected mass mediated images whereby different symbolic paradigms are juxtaposed through the devices of collage and allegory to uncover layers of meaning. This art-making approach was informed by theoretical and visual research into the tradition of Western mythology, including related topics such as linguistics, psychology and sociology, Afrikaner history and historiography, and the mechanisms of contemporary cultural reproduction, particularly the South African mass media and fine arts.