Representations of the “Other” in Southern African Art Praxis

Abstract

SummaryThis article considers if it is possible to move past the impasse of the political, the specifically cultural, religious and other constructed categories and structures that influence the identity of the non-human and human animal in contemporary South African society. Is it possible for the visual arts to contribute to a “discussion”, an emerging sensibility and understanding of what it means to be part of a specific species group, the human animal, cohabiting with the non-human animal? What role could the aesthetic representation of the non-human animal, of the “other”, play in the unfolding reality of a post-apartheid South Africa?