Research Articles (Visual Arts)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/2479

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Convergence and cultivation, from modernity through metamodernity
Van der Merwe, David F. (Elsevier, 2025-10-08)
This paper asserts that despite unprecedented changes in the media formats, typologies, delivery channels and content in evidence between modernity and metamodernity, parallels can be drawn between the media effects experienced by audiences across the temporal divide. First, a brief exploration of the cyclical nature of history is provided as a contextual backdrop, before metamodernity as a social and temporal concept will be interrogated. A framework of media effects theories forms the structural guideline against which the investigation is conducted. The investigation follows a hermeneutic interpretation of mediated phenomena observed across both eras, through which parallels are identified and reinforced. A close reading of extant scholarship, coupled with relevant examples drawn from the media supports the insights made.
Unstable images : generative AI and the liminal politics of seeing
Van der Merwe, David F. (Polish Academy of Sciences, 2025)
This essay explores how generative AI has destabilized the visual image, not only as an object of perception but as a contested site of authorship, ownership, and meaning. In a post-Mitchell landscape where the image is no longer what it seems, nor made by whom it claims, the essay harks back to Walter Benjamin’s concepts of aura and the dialectical image to position the visual under conditions of automation and opacity. Instead of asking what AI-generated images are, it asks what they are for. Drawing on the Viennese school’s concept of Kunstwollen (the artistic will or purpose underlying image production) the chapter groups four key case studies around the intentions that animate them: Boris Eldagsen’s The Electrician (to provoke and critique), Jason M. Allen’s Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial (to showcase tool mastery), ING Bank’s The Next Rembrandt (to bridge media legacies), and Obvious’ Portrait of Edmond de Belamy (to generate economic value). Across these unstable images, aura is not absent but refracted: reshaped by algorithms, platforms, and publics. What emerges is a constellation of microtheories for understanding the visual not as a stable category, but as a shifting terrain of negotiations between human and machine, concept and code, value and visibility.
Graphic history and style : Dada Khanyisa's drawings for the Widow of Marabastad
Haese, Adrie; Pretorius, Deirdre (University of Pretoria, 2025-06-06)
Since the 1980s, South African comics have explored resistance history, with organisations like the South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED) producing works to counter apartheid education. Muziwakhe Nhlabatsi’s Down Second Avenue (1981), a comic adaptation of Es’kia Mphahlele’s autobiography for SACHED's Upbeat magazine, is a key example. More recently, Richard Conyngham’s All rise: Resistance and rebellion in South Africa 1910-1948 (2021) has continued this tradition, highlighting working-class resistance. One chapter, The widow of Marabastad, illustrated by Dada Khanyisa, recounts Helena Detody’s defiance of the 1925 night passes law, leading to a legal victory for black women’s freedom of movement. Both The widow of Marabastad and Down Second Avenue depict Marabastad, emphasise women’s roles in resisting injustice, and reflect the distinct styles of their illustrators. The analysis of drawing styles in graphic histories is often overlooked despite their importance in historical narratives (Ahmed 2012). In this article, we focus on Khanyisa’s portrayal of the characters and Marabastad, using Mikkonen’s (2017) writing on narratology in comics. We specifically examine graphic style and subjectivity, and following an interview with Khanyisa, we argue that their approach challenges the notion of “objective history”, explicitly acknowledging their own subjectivity, and encouraging readers to critically engage with how history is presented.
Zoë Modiga’s SINENKANI (2020) : a womanist exploration of contemporary South African afrosurrealism and Zulu identity
Mpontshane, Nhlosenhle; Kgongoane, Obakeng Omolemo; Pather, Deneesher (University of Pretoria, 2025-11-24)
Stereotypical and sexualised representations of Black women’s bodies have long been scrutinised in academic literature. The presentation of Black women in hip-hop videos, in particular, in both an international and South African context, has been hypersexualised and typified. Scholars in western feminism and Black feminism have demonstrated how Black women musicians have challenged one-dimensional portrayals of Black women by taking ownership of their sexuality and rebranding stereotypical language and images with more empowered messages. Less examined in current literature on the representation of Black women in music videos is how Black African women musicians use music videos to exercise creative control in their self-expression. In this article, we use a Womanist perspective to interpret South African artist Zoë Modiga’s SINENKANI (2022) music video. We argue that in SINENKANI, Modiga engages in a Womanist gaze, combining elements of Afrosurrealism and Zulu indigenous culture to create an empowered intra-communal perspective. We argue that far from just countering stereotypical representations of Black women, Modiga creatively constructs a complex identity of Zulu African womanhood which can only be fully understood intrasubjectively.
Collaborative visual storytelling : creating a wordless comic
Haese, Adrie (Routledge, 2026)
Collaborative research is characterised as ‘relational’, ‘dialogic’, ‘open-ended’, and ‘multi-voiced’, supporting the expression and legitimacy of marginalised voices (Hafernik, Messerschmitt, and Vandrick, in Reimer 2009, 1). This environment fosters inherent support, introduces varied perspectives, and allows for tackling more complex projects than individuals could manage alone. Illustration as a research method is increasingly recognised, especially in heritage studies, reportage, and community engagement. This paper reports on a collaborative project in which the researcher-illustrator worked with three authors from Gauteng over a year to create a book prototype for testing in an Adult Basic Education and Training classroom. The engagement involved conceptual processes typical in illustration, such as visual research, thumbnails, and character development. Participants shared their stories, leading to an iterative collaboration that resulted in a prototype wordless comic. Presented as practice-led research, this project explores the creation and depiction of the authors’ stories and the illustrator’s role in collaborative research. Additionally, the paper examines how the omission of text in the stories provides a nuanced and powerful representation of the narratives of these South African authors.
A pilot study evaluating challenges using handheld XRF for provenance studies of bronze sculptures
Loubser, Maggi; Forbes, Patricia B.C. (SpringerOpen, 2026-04)
X-ray Fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) is widely applied for bronze analyses, but the problems associated with obtaining good data are rarely described. This is a pilot study to evaluate sampling issues before embarking on a large analytical study to compile a database linking composition to foundries, contributing to attribution. The artist selected employed only a few foundries, and a collection with reliable provenance was available. Methodological challenges in analysing bronzes included collimated beam size, photon escape depth, surface effects and the multilayered nature of patinated surfaces. A pilot study on representative works tested multiple analytical strategies to identify a reliable means of discriminating between foundries. Consistent results were obtained using an alloy factory XRF calibration applied directly to patinated surfaces. As alloy–patination combinations were proprietary to each foundry, this approach provided distinctive compositional fingerprints while remaining reproducible and scalable for larger collections.
Mobilising cultural heritage for locally owned adaptation
Donovan, Kate; Jackson, Rowan; O’Connell, Siona; Karunarathna, Dulma; Retnowati, Arry; Anantasari, Esti; Cha, YoungHwa; Niemand, Dominique; Harvey, David C.; Dugmore, Andrew (Springer, 2025-11-19)
Climate change adaptation planning and implementation has been criticised for following linear steps that can limit local suitability, scalability and sustainability. We argue that meaningful climate change adaptations incorporate a diversity of voices using cultural heritage for situated and multi-generational interventions. Here, we present examples of risk narratives and adaptive strategies developed through engagement with cultural heritage, balancing knowledge of environment with local livelihoods, histories, values and meaning.
Queer(ed) avatars : exploring visual identity construction in final fantasy XIV online gaymers
Van Heerden, Karl (Sage, 2026)
I explore gaymers’ use of virtual photography to construct their avatar persona in Final Fantasy XIV Online. The study of game photography is a field that has seen relatively sparse engagement from scholars in the past decade. In this article, I discuss virtual photography's potential in gaymers’ visual construction of avatar personas in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. I focus on “gaymers” as they seek alternative identity affordances, expressing dissatisfaction with the narrow range of possibilities in games. In contextualizing the phenomenon, I engage with theories on virtual photography, persona studies, and social networking. I apply this theoretical framework to a series of Instagram accounts dedicated to FFXIV Online avatars. I incorporate a queer methodology in my research to expose how gaymers resist heteronormativity in games. My findings indicate that gaymers queer FFXIV Online's mechanics and visuals through modding and shaders to visually co-construct a digital self.
Remembering the patients on the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Fort England Psychiatric Hospital
Du Plessis, Rory (Taylor and Francis, 2025-08-18)
In 2025, the Fort England Psychiatric Hospital celebrates its 150th anniversary and this marks it as the oldest South African psychiatric facility that is still in use today. Over its many years of existence, the hospital’s history and heritage has been synonymous with the careers of the appointed medical superintendents. Thus, the dominant heritage discourse of the hospital commemorates the achievements of the medical superintendents, but what is missing from the heritage of the hospital is the patients’ experiences and stories. In this article, I seek to include the experiences and stories of the patients as central narratives in the memorialisation and heritage of the hospital. To retrieve aspects of the patients’ lives and experiences, I investigate 20 case files from a set of 200 that was recently discovered at the hospital. The entire set of case files is composed solely of white male patients, who were suffering from chronic mental illness and who remained institutionalised until their passing. A mad studies framework, which aims to humanise the patients, guides the investigation of the case files. Accordingly, the article contributes a humanised narrative of the lives and experiences of the chronic patients to the heritage of the hospital.
Editorial : special issue of De Arte, “Artistic approaches to the environmental crisis : re-imagining human–nonhuman relations”
Grobler, Nicola Helene; Coetser, Yolandi M.; Pauwels, Matthias (Taylor and Francis, 2025)
This issue of de Arte contains a range of articles on a variety of issues. The very fact that no obvious link is to be found between them is to be welcomed. They reflect, we believe, the range of interests of academics, writers and artists in the field of arts in South Africa, and, moreover, the diversification and extensions of definitions of both 'art, and 'art history'.
Encouraging multispecies sociability through art : anthropomorphism in the visitor centre
Grobler, Nicola Helene (Taylor and Francis, 2025-10-13)
In this study, the potential of co-opting anthropomorphism as an artistic strategy to develop human affiliations with non-human species, especially with those significantly other to humans, is considered. I present my perspective as artist-researcher in reference to my relational artwork, The Visitor Centre (2016–2018), which was created as a mobile hub to encourage empathy and care for non-human species in urban environments. Informed by relational ontologies, including assemblage theory, care ethics, and empathy studies, the artwork employs anthropomorphism as a strategy to challenge human exceptionalism. Wearing a frontal pouch containing artworks, I invited public engagement by handing out objects to stimulate conversations about urban wildlife. During a series of events, participants were nudged to navigate the moral difficulties that restrict human–non-human species relationships, as evidenced in their conversations. The Visitor Centre speaks to a growing interest within diverse knowledge fields in the function and potential of anthropomorphism to alleviate the limitations imposed on non-human species. As existing and shared procedures of multispecies reciprocity are poorly understood at present, it is proposed that the absurd prompts located in artworks such as The Visitor Centre, in combination with embodied and dialogic approaches, can bring participants closer to existing but unseen multispecies sociability.
Reconfiguring Acholi cultural dance : a visual arts mediation of Bwola dance in a performative space of Kampala city
Hoeane, Mabafokeng (Routledge, 2024)
No abstract available.
T+ designers : a case for transdisciplinarity in design higher education by way of a South African case study
Cassim, Fatima; Rath, Kyle A.; Dada, Shakila; Samuels, Alecia E.; Castro-Kemp, Susana (Wiley, 2026-05)
In recent years, the term ‘transdisciplinarity’ has been widely applied to collaborative design approaches ranging from inter- to multi-disciplinary co-production. While each of these approaches have their place, many of them are labeled, tokenistically, as transdisciplinary. A transdisciplinary model of collaboration, as defined by Toomey et al. (2015) extends beyond academic boundaries to engage in the co-production and use of knowledge from within and outside of the academy. In design, the term ‘T-shaped designers’, championed by IDEO's Tim Brown, is often used when promoting design thinking to tackle complex problems. The vertical leg of the ‘T’ represents disciplinary depth, and the horizontal bar suggests the application of these skills across a breadth of contexts. For this paper, we extend the interdisciplinary nature of the T to a transdisciplinary one: we propose how transdisciplinarity can be used not only to deepen disciplinary design skills but to foster empathetic, reactive designers with a keen sense of inquiry. In this way, as the vertical stem extends upwards, it transforms the T-shape into a plus. We exemplify this transformation by presenting a curriculum-related design project. As a collaboration between [the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa (SA), and the University of Roehampton (UR), United Kingdom] the project was delivered in a transdisciplinary way, whereby students co-produced a series of accessible and engaging infomotions (information visualizations in motion). The infomotions, which disseminate strategies for effective partnership amongst early childhood intervention practitioners in South Africa. At its core, the project presents transdisciplinarity as one approach to future-proof design education.
The fit body democratised : fitness literacy as biohacking on YouTube
De Kock, Janke Beatrix (Taylor and Francis, 2024-05-06)
Despite the excellent health care of modern times, lifestyle-related illnesses are increasing at a startling rate. Contemporary society contributes to behaviours such as poor nutrition, inactivity, poor sleep and excessive stress. However, exercise has been proven to reduce the chances of health problems and more information about ways to improve the quality of one’s lifestyle is readily available through the Internet. The impact that biohacking YouTube videos have on shaping the knowledge and fitness of the general public is examined. It is argued that this form of literacy enables corporeal control and transformation and that the digital platform contributes to do-it-yourself healthcare. A parallel is drawn between the historical impact of the development of the printing press on public literacy, and the effect of social media on improving fitness literacy. Top-performing fitness channels were analysed to determine the impact of biohacking media on YouTube. While user engagement on popular fitness videos reflected different degrees of understanding of fitness practices, analysis of user engagement clearly revealed aspects of increased fitness literacy in public discourse on YouTube. It is concluded that YouTube stimulates the enhancement of audience fitness literacy, thereby influencing do-it-yourself healthcare of the lay public.
Design activism in South Africa : design interventions as invented spaces to encourage activist citizenship
Cassim, Fatima (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2024)
Design as a vehicle for social and political intervention is not a recent invention. There are many historical precedents of design interventions as reform or resistance, specifically during times of social unrest and economic instability. The call for design reform by the likes of William Morris at the turn of the twentieth century and later Buckminster Fuller and Victor Papanek serve as important milestones in this regard.1 Similarly, antidesign movements in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s, Ken Garland’s First Things First manifesto, and the work of Adbusters in the 1990s speak to the notion of design as advocacy. Moreover, since the so-called reflective turn in design from the 1980s, the discipline has witnessed a broader conceptualization. No longer defined solely as a material practice that results from rational problem-solving activities, design’s political power is being harnessed more intentionally to lead sustainable social change. The implication for designers is that they are not concerned merely with the functional and aesthetic sensibility of their work when innovating solutions but are increasingly concerned with the relationships and interactions of their design outcomes in the broader social, economic, ecological, and political contexts in which they exist. This stance highlights design as a situated practice in the real world, which in turn emphasizes design’s particular and probable nature that lends itself to tackling wicked problems in more relevant and appropriate ways.
Re-writing his-story : exploring the censorship of history through school textbooks and public artefacts
Bharath, Pranitha; Human, Deléne (Department of Humanities Education, the Faculty of Education, the University of Pretoria, 2024-12)
This article, titled Re-writing His-Story: Exploring the censorship of History through school textbooks and public artefacts, explores how ideological and political differences of those in power can censor history, affecting how future generations engage with the past. As new regimes ascend, they promote a distinctive cultural narrative that could alter or omit longstanding historical narratives. Textbooks and historic monuments are cultural artefacts created at a specific time, in a space, and a particular context. In South Africa, for example (as in many other countries), historic monuments and public statues have been (re)moved, and selectively replaced by alternative heroes. Likewise, post-apartheid textbooks have been rewritten to include cultural diversity. Our principal concern is the restricted access to key symbols of the past as future generations lose crucial historical facts and a sense of identity as different histories are propagated. Located in the interpretive paradigm, the study utilises a desktop review incorporating critical discourse analysis to understand how meaning is conveyed about textbooks and public artefacts in print media and online platforms. Using a wide range of case studies as its empirical base, the findings indicate that textbook content is censored due to the influence of socio-political, cultural, and religious reasons. Similarly, monuments, statues, and other public artefacts perceived as outdated or representing controversial histories are often targeted for removal.
Online learning in higher education during COVID-19 : challenges in a digitally divided society
Mututwa, Wishes Tendayi; Matsilele, Trust (Unisa Press, 2024-08)
The COVID-19 pandemic has had adverse effects on all aspects of social life. The pandemic has not spared the education fraternity with methods of teaching and learning being altered, pushing higher education institutions to adopt online or mediated education. Although online education is regarded as the future of education in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) digital age, the global health pandemic has fast-tracked the pace of digitalisation. The digital divide has highlighted the rapid shift in African societies. In this study, we explored the South African tertiary education landscape using the theory of the digital divide to understand the challenges of implementing full-time online learning among tertiary students. Data for this qualitative study were gathered from a sample of tertiary students at a university of technology from different economic and social backgrounds to find the connections between their situations and their ability to have access to digital learning tools. Semi-structured interviews were employed to extract the perceptions of students regarding online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jonas Raubaas Mohaaschwa and the introduction of Christianity to Mamabololand in the late nineteenth century
Schulze, Margrit; Kriel, Lize (South African Society of Cultural History, 2024-12)
ENGLISH : This study investigates the role of indigenous agents in spreading Christianity in the former northern Transvaal (today Limpopo Province) by tracing the life story of Jonas Raubaas Mohaaschwa (Mogashwa), also known as the Master of Kratzenstein. Mohaaschwa’s biography was not only published by the Berlin Mission Society in 1920, but in the late twentieth century his legacy as it had lived on orally in the popular memory of the Mamabolo community was also recorded as part of a historical investigation. By extrapolating from Alan Kirkaldy’s findings on Black Christian evangelisation of fellow Africans in Vendaland, Mohaaschwa’s legacy in the history of the Berlin Missionary Society and in the history of the Mamabolo community is investigated. This is done by following Mohaaschwa’s journey from childhood to old age. His lifelong accumulation of indigenous and foreign experience is portrayed and his acceptance of and negotiation with the institutions representing and facilitating African agency in the colonial Transvaal.
African-language periodicals of the Berlin mission church during the first half of the twentieth century, Northern South Africa
Manyike, Nkami Berniece; Kriel, Lize (South African Society for Cultural History, 2024-12)
In the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century members of the Berlin Mission Churchin the Transvaal (today including the following provinces: Gauteng, North-West,Mpumalanga, and Limpopo) had access to a monthly newspaper and an almanac-cum-yearbook published by the Berlin Missionary Society. This article exploresthe availability and accessibility of these publications to researchers, and thenature of the content, suggestingfuture research possibilities into these periodicals.The preliminary conclusion from small-scale assessments is that a longitudinalstudy of the Moxwera wa Babaso (newspaper) and the Thsupa Mabaka a Kereke(almanac) can shed more light on the changing culture within the Berlin MissionChurch and how church members and church leaders (German missionaries aswell as local pastors and evangelists) negotiated their changing relations in a timeof increasing government encroachment on the day-to-day existence of SouthAfrica’s black population.
An overview of South African studies on and with wordless picturebooks
Haese, Adrie (Library and Information Association of South Africa, 2025-03)
Wordless books, transcending generations and captivating illustrators and scholars, communicate narratives through imagery, stimulating creativity and overcoming language barriers. They possess cultural potential for advancing multilingualism and cultural awareness in South Africa; however, local production and research on wordless picture books are constrained. This study consolidates scholarly interest in wordless picturebooks in South Africa, published in English from 1990 to 2023, summarising prevailing research themes and proposing new avenues for exploration. A semi-systematic literature review (SSLR) was performed utilising Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Following the removal of duplicates and the application of exclusion criteria, 23 publications were chosen for thorough analysis. The review offers a thematic analysis, examining publishing trends, aesthetic and analytical methodologies, visual stimuli, cultural relevance, reading strategies, audiences, and engagement. This review emphasises their research potential and proposes future theoretical and practical developments.

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