Signs of People

This powerful installation features hundreds of terms that have been used to describe, label and identify southern Africa’s different people...derogatory terms, whispered terms, language groups, cultural groups...terms that have been used to describe 'us' and 'them'.

These classificatory terms may help to understand the social complexity of southern Africa, but they also tend to create a view of the world that masks interaction and that can overlook that we are all part of complex and interwoven family ancestries. This exhibit shows the ephemeral nature of labels and the connectivity of us all.

Willem Boshoff is a Johannesburg based artist who has lectured and taught at many of South Africa's leading tertiary institutions. Boshoff is known as a conceptual installation artist, often focusing on languages and words — old and new, dominant and subordinate. He explores language and tongue, and endeavours to uncover obscure words, document dying tongues, or examine the interplay of newly recognized South African languages with their European-tinged counterparts.