FAIL DEADLY

Fail Deadly is set against the history of South Africa’s clandestine nuclear weapons program during apartheid.

Fail Deadly is set against the history of South Africa’s clandestine nuclear weapons program during apartheid. In the 1970’s and 80’s South Africa built six atom bombs in seemingly complete secrecy. As the apartheid system crumbled the program was swiftly disbanded before the advent of democracy. Incorporating strategies which include photojournalism, image appropriation, landscape and aerial photography as well as archival practises, I construct a narrative that allows me to reflect upon and re-contextualize this transitory piece of history.

The cornerstone of this project, entitled The Pelindaba Collection, consists of more than 900 pages of declassified documents from various sources including The Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, located in Washington, D.C., The South African History Archive, located in Johannesburg as well as N.S.A., C.I.A. and internal government communications I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Large sections within these documents have been redacted, which led to the creation of various photo based works including the Black Landscapes and Holepunch series. By the use of absence, omission and cover-ups I reflect on the Foucauldian notion of how the history of landscape is also the history of power, and notwithstanding the failure of apartheid, have had a lasting effect on our moral as well as physical landscape.

By using my country of birth as the nexus for speaking to concerns of the psychology of power and the validity of memory relative to history, I hope to contribute to a post-colonial critique which also allows me to reflect on my own identity within South African historicism.