Back to the reality of a noisy Starbucks Café and the coffee-soaked serviette.
At the time the note simply said Strijdom – Namibia, it was just an intention written down, probably to combat the growing riot in my mind with something positive. I had (unfortunately) arrived in the United States at the time of the horrific Boston Marathon bombing, a terrorist attack on April 15th, 2013.
The peace and quiet of south-western Namibia at Namtib Biosphere Reserve – and the Tiras Mountains – were a long way from there, worlds apart in fact, and a far cry from the act of violence replayed a million times on the television screen in my miserably small hotel room.
In spite of the warning on the news – in the wake of the Boston bombing – that visitors should refrain from going to crowed tourism spots, I was hell-bent on visiting the famous Smithsonian Institution, in search of inspiration – in search of kindred spirits.
The National Museum of African Art is the US’s premiere museum dedicated exclusively to the collection, conservation, study and exhibition of Africa’s traditional and contemporary arts.
I was heading for the famous Independence Avenue at the Mall because one of my favourite South African artists, Strjidom van der Merwe, got the rare privilege of adorning the front pavement with his reflection on the theme:
“Earth matters,” The National Museum of African Art’s first major exhibition (Earth matters) of African Land Art coincided with my visit to the US.
Strjidom was born and raised on a farm on the South African Highveld. His early childhood, close to the land, also crystallised into an intense relationship with its forms and shapes.
Land art is an art form that has always resonated with me – evoking memories of my uncomplicated childhood in Namibia – forever seeing, chasing and tracing interesting shapes and messages in the rocks and sands, already at the age of four irresistibly drawn to the landscape’s inherent mysticism.
The exhibition was tipped as “the first major exhibition exploring the ways in which African artists and communities mediate their relationship with the land upon which they live, work and frame their days.”
Strijdom had the prime spot. It was a clear sign of the high international esteem in which his art is being held.
Soon I was there to ask Strjidom to explain his artwork to me – occupying the dimensions of a very small garden.
It had obvious aesthetic appeal, but it was difficult to figure out its meaning. How could ‘red pins’ on ‘grass’ fit in with the theme of this exhibition?
At the time, Strjidom shared the broader context of his unique artwork in the context of the theme. “The desire to mark and map the earth, thereby making it a place of your own, is a universal human urge. The world is a multiplex mosaic of cultural marks. If you have land you are rooted, you belong, and you are earthed. Once this privilege is taken away from you, you find yourself stranded in a no man’s land, you are uprooted and have become a nomad in search of your roots.”