Check out this recent interview on 10and5 with multimedia artist Tiger Maramela. Maramela is a 22 year old South African artist who has been experimenting with digital collage. We wanted to share his stunning visual work…
‘’The series is an 8-part interrogation of the Rainbow Nation myth that we were fed in 1994. As young people that have inherited this blatant lie, we are becoming more vocal in speaking about social injustice and the inequality that exists along various lines including race, gender, (dis)ability, class, sexuality and various other parts that make up identity. roygbiv is a way of deconstructing this myth and showing how and why it is a lie. It is a way of reimagining ourselves.”
‘roygbiv’ is a mnemonic device used to remember the colours of the rainbow. Post-apartheid South Africa is typically known as the Rainbow Nation. The gay pride flag is made up of the colours of the rainbow. I used these three ideas as departure points for this eight-part multimedia series. ‘roygbiv’ seeks to interrogate and re-imagine the myth of the Rainbow Nation while observing black masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa.
Using the series, I look at various issues that intersect with black masculinity, such as capitalism, mental health, modernisation and the contributions that black women have made in South African political movements. The series is a textured and overwhelming introspection into some of the conversations that South Africans are currently having. It is a visual interpretation of the #MustFall rhetoric.
