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"Woolf, whose work has addressed South Africa’s fraught history in both her                                                                                                                                                   masters and doctoral work, began in 2004 to systematically catalogue the                                                                                                                                                 taxi hand signs she observed during her commute by car between her                                                                                                                                                        suburban home and her downtown Johannesburg studio."
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Susan Woolf

READ BUSINESS DAY

 

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A QUIET ACTIVIST

SUSAN WOOLF has focused on housing, labour and the impact of                      segregation on urban design and transport systems

Recent Article by CHRIS THURMAN.

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Activism comes in many forms in post-apartheid SA. Most recognisably, there is the protest march: solidarity expressed in speeches and songs and movement. The aim is usually disruption or spectacle, or a combination of both, a drawing of public attention towards a cause. Often, however, this mode of protest is more smoke-and-mirrors than sturm und drang — as with the EFF’s underwhelming “national shutdown” earlier this week.

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Then there are the less well advertised activists: whistle-blowers, community organisers, fundraisers. People who feed and teach and build. They are no less brave, no less committed and they outnumber the attention-seekers many times over.

Artists, too, can be loud or quiet in their activism. Some artists declare their political convictions and activist credentials repeatedly and insistently. Some artists simply pursue ways of making work (and of being a citizen) that attempt to intervene constructively in the lives of others, their contributions to the upliftment of individuals and communities all the more substantial because these are not explicitly signalled.

 

SUSAN WOOLF FALLS INTO THE LATTER CATEGORY.

Double click on each image for Artists statements, Media and Details.

​SUSAN WOOLF
 
Elements of language, numbers and the meaning of things in the intangible are a link in  socially based often interactive art work. Woolf has exhibited in South Africa and abroad, including in Atlanta, Washington and Germany. She participated in ‘Talk to Me’ at the MoMA in New York, where a system she designed for people who are blind to read taxi hand signs, was exhibited. This was the subject of a Doctor of Philosophy at Wits (2014). Museum exhibitions in South Africa include: Museum Africa, Wits Art Museum (WAM), South African Jewish Museum (SAJJ). Museum exhibitions abroad: Klutsnic Museum in Washington, Jewish Museum in Atlanta, Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).

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Article -ART BEYOND QUARANTENE

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 LIZAMORE art gallery.

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TIME AND PETROL MONEY

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LOCKDOWN GRANNY AND ROOSTER       

PATHWAYS OF TAXI HAND SIGNS

                                                                      The Lockdown Collection initiative  -                   https://artistproofstudio.co.za/collections/the-extension-collection

    ART CONTRIBUTION TO COVID 19 FEEDING SCHEMES​.  DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS,                   Managed by All About Food, collaborating with The Angel Network 

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Taxi: Blind shape language

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