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BODY SPACE

BOUNDARY

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

White South Africans talk about violent crime like the English talk about the weather. No longer protected by virtue of our white skin, we find ourselves repeatedly the victims of car hijacking syndicates and serial robberies. Many of our friends and family have been attacked, raped or murdered. What we don't realise is that crime doesn't happen only to white people. In fact, it happens all over the world. It is however mainly white people who can financially afford to protect themselves adequately, and foster a culture of fear.

This project was a personal investigation into the deep psychological processes whereby we come to 'own' a piece of land as our home, how we keep that home from turning in on us and becoming a trap, how we defend our personal space from defilement by the processes which pollute our integrity. The work displayed here emerges from the historical climate of 2003, with its 'wars on terrorism' by organisations who could themselves be described as terrorist. It was for me a time of close-mindedness and fear, a time of psychological, spiritual and social breakdown.

It is my belief that spiritual safety, or the faith on something greater than human beings, is a vital ingredient in political hypocrisy. Without a sense of sacred truth, there can be no foundation for genocide, no 'ethnic cleansing'. The most atrocious deeds are committed by those who perceive themselves to be 'normal' and 'justified' in their actions. The body-burning ovens at Dachau are tucked behind a neat grove of trees. Vlakplaas, a place of political torture, is an ordinary farm with an ordinary fence around it. It is also someone's home.