My mother died seven times before she gave birth to me.
I am grateful for that corpse that somehow always seemed to resurrect itself…
There is no life without death; the two rely on each other and we rely on them both for our purpose…
Why do we sacrifice so much of the present to hide the past?
Why do we take away the future’s knowledge of itself in order to make the past seem perfect? 1
The disjuncture between the past and present is our traumatic reality. Brand revisits these sites of trauma and resilience imprinted within matrilineal lineages to break the bondage of shame and silence.
Infinite Opulence Vol I is an investigation of grief, “a putting together of dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present” 2 in pursuit of transcendence.
1 Mohale Mashigo, The Yearning (2016)
2 Homi K Bhabha, Remembering Fanon: Self, Psyche and the Colonial Condition (1986)
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Jody Brand has been documenting alternative African realities, specifically the personhoods and experiences of queer and femme individuals, through the medium of photography and mixed media installation. In 2011 she created chomma, an online portal showcasing her documentation of South African youth culture, and in 2014 her work was selected for 89+, a project by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist recognising young innovators. In 2017, her solo exhibition You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down was shown at Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. Her work is currently included on the group exhibition The Usual Suspects at the Iziko South African National Gallery. Previous group shows include 17 at blank projects (2017), Being There at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2017), The Quiet Violence of Dreams at Stevenson (2016) and Making Africa at Guggenheim Bilbao (2016) and Vitra Design Museum (2015). In 2017, she was a recipient of the Thami Mnyele Foundation residency in Amsterdam, and this year Brand was awarded the DemocraSEE Prize.
Born in 1989, Brand lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
Infinite Opulence Vol 1 was made possible through the support of DemocraSEE.
I am grateful for that corpse that somehow always seemed to resurrect itself…
There is no life without death; the two rely on each other and we rely on them both for our purpose…
Why do we sacrifice so much of the present to hide the past?
Why do we take away the future’s knowledge of itself in order to make the past seem perfect? 1
The disjuncture between the past and present is our traumatic reality. Brand revisits these sites of trauma and resilience imprinted within matrilineal lineages to break the bondage of shame and silence.
Infinite Opulence Vol I is an investigation of grief, “a putting together of dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present” 2 in pursuit of transcendence.
1 Mohale Mashigo, The Yearning (2016)
2 Homi K Bhabha, Remembering Fanon: Self, Psyche and the Colonial Condition (1986)
—
Jody Brand has been documenting alternative African realities, specifically the personhoods and experiences of queer and femme individuals, through the medium of photography and mixed media installation. In 2011 she created chomma, an online portal showcasing her documentation of South African youth culture, and in 2014 her work was selected for 89+, a project by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist recognising young innovators. In 2017, her solo exhibition You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down was shown at Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. Her work is currently included on the group exhibition The Usual Suspects at the Iziko South African National Gallery. Previous group shows include 17 at blank projects (2017), Being There at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2017), The Quiet Violence of Dreams at Stevenson (2016) and Making Africa at Guggenheim Bilbao (2016) and Vitra Design Museum (2015). In 2017, she was a recipient of the Thami Mnyele Foundation residency in Amsterdam, and this year Brand was awarded the DemocraSEE Prize.
Born in 1989, Brand lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
Infinite Opulence Vol 1 was made possible through the support of DemocraSEE.
