Tidal Bodies

The main conceptual thread of this artwork is to use the flow of water as a metaphor of the interaction or relationship between various “bodies”, from University or faculty, to society or popular culture, to the individual or to a community of people. In a sense, it is a playful reference to  the transfer or clash of ideas, dogmas, origins, histories and other stimuli between these bodies.

 

These “bodies” are represented in the concrete relief-work, which range from refrences to the transition of RAU University into the University of Johannesburg. to the arts and multiculturalism, to popular culture, to gender and the human form, to the origins of mankind and to South Africa’s socio-political history.

 

There are 11 pre-cast elements to the fountain artwork which serve as water inlets to the fountain (11 as a reference to South Africa’s official languages). Each cast has a laser-cut steel light cover-plate which refers upward into the heavens, to the moon: The different word on each cover-plate is the name of a sea or ocean (body of water) on the moon.