Presenting The Shining Girls Charity Art Show for Rape Crisis!
- Opening night: Friday 6 September 2013
- Time: 5.30pm
- Venue: Cape Town School of Photography, 4th Floor, 62 Roeland Street, Cape Town (above Vida, opposite The Book Lounge)
- Exhibition runs until 13 September, open 9am-5pm daily.
Curator Jacki Lang and I have been working together for the last couple of months to put together a charity art show loosely inspired by The Shining Girls as part of the The Open Book Festival.
The idea was to have amazing local talent create original, accessible art work from a page cruelly ripped out of my novel, all sold at the same affordable price, with all proceeds going to Rape Crisis.
We approached some of our favorite artists, illustrators, designers, photographers, architects and even ceramicists and jewellery designers to create an original piece of art on a page ripped out of The Shining Girls. They could do whatever they liked with it – paint over it, draw on it, cut it up or cross-stitch it, re-create a scene, riff off the general themes of the book or spark off one word that meant something to them.
I’m thrilled to say we have over 50 artists participating including Zapiro, Conrad Botes, Faith 47, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Roger Ballen, Serge Alain Nitigeka, Wim Botha, Claudette Schreuders, Gabby Raaff, Frank van Reenen, Jordan Metcalf, Liza Grobler, Olaf Bischoff, Paul Senyol, Peter Eastman, Rikus Ferreira, Beth Diane Armstrong, Hannelie Taute and Joey Hi-Fi to name a few. To make sure the art stays accessible, we won’t be offering previews or reserves, but we will release some sneak peeks.
We’re hoping to raise R50 000 by selling the works at the incredibly affordable and democratic price of R1000 each.
I’ve done charity art projects for all my previous books. (A little history on that here). The customised vinyl toy Zoo City Bares auction raised R18 000 for Hillbrow refugee kids organisation, The Suitcase Project, the Zoo City sloth lottery brought in R4000 for Khulisa who work with ex-offenders and sales of hand-made plush Moxyland monsters raised R12 000 for women’s group The Montagu Sew & Sews.
I wanted to do the same again for The Shining Girls and Rape Crisis seemed like the obvious choice. One of the major themes of the novel is what violence does to us and Rape Crisis deals with the real-world effects of that on a daily basis.
Last year Rape Crisis faced closure and they are still not out of the woods financially in spite of the evident need for their essential services. Director Kathleen Dey says: “We were in part pulled back from the brink by the incredible support and generosity of our community of supporters, who gave generously of their time and money, and in part by the amazing dedication of our staff, who worked alongside our volunteers without pay for months on end.”
If the femicide, rape and child abuse rates in this country make you angry, you can make a difference. If you can’t make it to the exhibition, you can still support Rape Crisis for as little as R100 a month as part of the Hundred Hearts campaign.
Huge thanks to Carola Koblitz, Pick ‘n’ Pay and my publisher Umuzi, for sponsoring the hard costs, to the Cape Town School of Photography for letting us exhibit in their beautiful gallery space and for photographing the artwork and the process, to the Open Book Festival for including us in their festivities, to Jacki Lang, who has been a rockstar goddess in pulling this whole thing together on passion, chutzpah and a shoe-string and especially to all the amazing artists who have created brand new original works for a great cause.
Hope to see you there!
Want more info? Contact Jacki Lang on jackilang@mac.com.
