Decolonising the figure of Sophie : a Fanonian analysis of Mary Sibande’s contemporary visual artworks

Abstract

My study is a theoretical intervention of the South African contemporary visual art of Mary Sibande. It focuses on the figure of Sophie representing the maid in three series; namely, Sophie-Elsie, Sophie-Merica, and Sophie-Velucia. The study applies Frantz Fanon’s thought to the understanding of the figure of Sophie while emphasising the themes of naming, the human subject, and presence-absence. The theoretical framework of this thesis is a decolonial epistemic theory, which is used as a lens to understand Fanon’s political thoughts. I argue that the themes of naming, human subject, and presenceabsence are inherent in Fanon’s thought. These thematic areas give a better understanding of the existential questions of the figure of Sophie in the antiblack Manichean world. It is important to unpack the figure of Sophie as a Manichean figure who represents the crossing of two different worlds – the white world and the black world, Africa and Europe. The study highlights the importance and relevance of reviving Fanon’s thought concerning decolonial contemporary African art and establishing other tools of interpretation necessary to understand decolonial aestheSis. The thrust of this thesis is to deploy decolonial epistemic theory as a theoretical framework to the Fanonian understanding of the figure of the three Sophies that embody the modern/colonial predicament of the figure of the maid and blackness.