Media
This way to world fame: Taxi hand signs in The Star
Taxi hand sign stamps amongst the top 10 in the world for 2010!
The South African Post Office emailed Susan the following link as they are absolutely thrilled to bits to see South Africa on the list!
http://www.stampnews.com/stamps/stamps_2011/stamp_1297331889_487278.html
Art South Africa
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| Art SA v7i3_Taxi Signs.pdf | 229.19 KB |
This article was on page 39 of the magazine. To read it, please download the attachment.
SABC News Blind Book Taxi Launch
Information on the Taxi Hand Sign Book for the Blind Launch
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| Media Pack Taxi Blind Launch.pdf | 330.74 KB |
This downloadable attachment contains information on the Taxi Hand Sign Book for the Blind Launch, which took place at Museum Africa, 15h30, on 30 September 2009.
Of Taxis and Art
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| CF Susan Woolf Feb09[2].pdf | 171.89 KB |
To view this article on the Taxi Hand sign project, please download the attachment.
Rung by Rung
EXHIBITION: Jacob’s Ladder - Susan Woolf’s new solo exhibition, Jacob’s Ladder, is likely to get a few people a little hot under the collar. It is both political and contentious and Woolf has done little to skirt around the big issues, challenging her audience to question their own values while examining each of the sculptures, writes Annette Bayne
VENUE: Artspace Gallery, Rosebank until November 27
Six of the sculptures represent five public figures with powerful viewpoints and as many supporters as they have detractors: Jacob Zuma, Winnie Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Evita Bezuidenhout and PW Botha. Woolf has chosen to use the offensive middle finger sign to represent power and has then adorned each finger with representations of that person using symbols taken from the original game of Moksha-Patamu or “Snakes and Ladders”.
Also using the imagery from the biblical story of Jacob’s ladder, Woolf challenges the audience to judge where on the ladder each of the people represented are – or perhaps in your mind they are sliding down the snake.
But the final sculpture, called On The Other Hand, represents those who stand in judgement. This green sculptured hand questions the audience as to where they are on the ladder, if in fact they are there at all.
Jacob’s Ladder initially began with the work Woolf was doing on a taxi hand signal book. Misinformed about the signal, she began carving the original hand out of jacaranda wood.
Woolf thought she was creating one of the signs to Joburg. She was soon put straight but now had a half carved “zap sign”. Then, during the Jacob Zuma rape trial, she noticed that Zuma used the hand gesture as a show of power in response to his supporters.
She had also picked up this gesture in other politicians, and so began her work.
The other six sculptures are created from coloured silicone. The sculpture exhibition is complemented with other work that reflects the artist’s response to the growing economic crisis in Zimbabwe, xenophobic violence and the atrocities committed by the Mugabe government.
SA's 12th official language
The best way to get from point A to point B? Get to a pavement and stick a finger in the air.
Millions of South Africans who are taxi commuters know this tool of communication only too well.
But Sandton-based artist Susan Woolf didn't have a clue and that's why about two-and-a-half years ago she decided to get to the bottom of the meaning and origins behind taxi signs and signals.
Armed with an open mind and often also with chocolate cake, Woolf got to know taxi association bosses in the city.
They welcomed her interest and the intention of her novel project to catalogue the hand signs. She swapped her identity of curious outsider to a participating observer, becoming a regular feature at taxi ranks from Faraday to Alexandra.
"Hand signs are mostly determined by the drivers. In the early days the different taxi associations each had their own signs but now the signs denote a specific destination and they vary from region to region," she says.
She found more than just straight-forward explanations to the signs. She found gaps in the system that she felt could be patched, she found out about the intricacies and simple common sense involved in gesticulation as language and she gained insight into the huge division between the haves and have-nots in this country as represented by those who are car owners and the taxi commuting public.
Says Woolf of what sparked her interest: "I used to drive around and look at people waiting for the taxis and wonder how the signs came about and how people know what sign to use when.
"Then when I started my research I found that not everybody knew the range of taxi hand signs that are necessary to get everywhere in the city.
"You often still have to ask a fellow commuter or a taxi marshal what sign to use and people are not always that willing to help when they've also got to rush from one destination to the next themselves."
Woolf also realised that it's not just the driving population that is excluded from taxi hand signs but also those who are blind and can't easily tap into this non-verbal form of communication. For this reason, her directory of taxi hand signals, which was published last year, boasts a Braille-based section for blind commuters.
The conceptual artist came up with the 12 Braille-like shapes that are the basis of the combination of the hand signs needed to get across the province. The end result is a directory that features Woolf's cheerful and whimsical drawings but is thoroughly practical and engaging.
The directory may be a guide and a reference for the taxi commuting public, but Woolf adds: "This is not just for locals, but also for visitors to our country for 2010 and beyond."
The catalogue's hand signs are uniquely South African; it doesn't get more local than a sign showing a cupped hand with open fingers signalling a ride needed to Orange Farm - the hand shaped as if it's ready to grasp an orange.
Woolf doesn't veer far from her artistic roots either. She says the hand signals and taxi industry as a whole provide great conceptual art ideas.
She plans to create outdoor sculpture pieces as a celebration of this significant slice of South African life. Already Woolf's hand sign drawings have been earmarked to be part of a SA Post Office stamp series that will be issued in 2010.
Woolf begins a cross-disciplinary PhD next year.
She will extend her research and analysis of the taxi hand signs and the complexities of this often controversial industry for her thesis.
It will merge the disciplines of art and anthropology to explore this unique 12th language of the country.
Woolf's recent work, "Towards Mandela", was included in the Madiba at 90 exhibition at Constitution Hill. Her current exhibition, called Jacob's Ladder, incorporating conceptual images of hand signs as they depict the country's politicians, is on at Artspace in Parkwood until November 22.
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