What Remains Through Time (Slowness and Stillness)
A collaborative live performance and installation called Brick by Brick, co-devised with project senior South African performer/artist/curator Sonja Rademeyer, was presented and exhibited in the South African National Gallery as key part of the meta project What Remains Through Time (Slowness and Stillness). Brick by Brick was a deliberate act of decolonisation, with the performance exploring new ways in which resilience could be foregrounded within colonial museum culture. Spontaneous audience collaboration created a tangible and heightened layer to the performance piece, culminating in the escalating chant "brick by brick!" as they physically contributed to moving clay installation bricks.
What remains through time, slowness and stillness acknowledges and respects the Khoe-San of the Free State and the deep spiritual attachment to their ancestors and relationships they have to this country and its people.
WHO: Collaborating Team: Sonya Rademeyer (Interdisciplinary Artist, Southern Cape, South Africa), Dr Busisiwe Octavia Ntsele (Performer/artist/activist, Johannesburg South Africa), Professor Pitika Ntuli's (Performer/artist/activist, Johannesburg South Africa), MyMalaika_Photography and King Kgozi (performance documentation editing), EarTherapy community (handmade clay bricks) & the Community Building Collaborative Team.
PARTNERS: National Gallery of South Africa (Oliewenhuis), Vrystaat Kunstefees Arts Festival/Tsa-Botjhaba, 2025, MCDP, University Free State, QUT School of Creative Arts.
OUTCOMES:
- Performance Event: 15 Jul, 2025, National Gallery South Africa, Oliewenhuis (Reservoir)
- Installation with looped video: 15 July–24 August 2025, National Gallery South Africa, Oliewenhuis (Reservoir)
- Project documentation
FURTHER DETAILS: "Keith Armstrong's work forms a critical part to the live-art performance not only in the video mapping of the projection which appears from behind a sheet of Fabriano 300 gms paper, but also in co-conceptualising the overall live-art performance with Sonya Rademeyer's performance. Keith's projection of Pitika Ntuli's condensed text is created through the projection of light through waste bottles - suggesting a decentering of cultural power occurs as the 'outside' is brought 'inside'". (Sonya Radermeyer)
During the unfolding of the performance, Sonya intuitively collaborated with Busisiwe's voice, only moving upon hearing her undulations which were interspersed with Pitika's poem, thereby allowing Busisiwe to directly influence her navigation. As Sonya intermittently started directing her movements towards Busisiwe, she eventually confronted 'herself' (her projected shadow gram) also moving towards herself. Creating a 40-second moment of stand-still tension, Sonya removed her weaver-bird headdress, thereby revealing her own vulnerability.
The performance was then reintroduced back into the exhibition space as an installation, reflecting elements that were used during the performance such as the head-dress of weaverbird nests, clay bricks and documentation of Sonya's movements in front of the looped video created for the performance (4m 26s).