Rubber Soul, Monument of Aspiration

"[My] work addresses ideas of binary opposites of 'power and weakness', 'effort and the lack thereof', but also complicated by ways of representing this conundrum. " --Mary Sibande

In her work Mary Sibande investigates issues of race, class, tradition, power, and colonial legacies in post-apartheid South Africa. Rubber Soul is the last in a series depicting Sibande's semi-autobiographical character Sophie, a South African maid. Sophie tends to appear as a matte black mannequin with her eyes closed, dressed seemingly both as a maid and a Victorian madam.

The khaki fabric and brass buttons of Sophie's dress are associated with the characteristic suits of male members of South Africa's Zion Christian Church, as are the white, rubber-soled shoes and Sophie's jumping action, which is part of a male church society's praise rituals. The ambiguity of costume is a way for Sibande to question the overly simplistic dichotomies of servant versus feminine, while asserting the power of fantasy and self-fashioned identity.