Art, Anti-Blackness and the language of protest

Kilani, Lonwabo

Art, Anti-Blackness and the language of protest

Thesis / Dissertation

2024

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Michaelis School of Fine Art

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This thesis interrogates theoretical and ideological frameworks that structure what we've come to know as protest art. With a specific focus on radical Black protest, it became important to interrogate how the language of protest within the humanities continually falls short of articulating creative interventions that emanate from Black social movements. As such, scholarly frameworks that attempt at interrogating protest interventions do so using pedagogical and ideologies that attempt at including, as forms of representation, art forms that tend to do the work of recognition and acknowledging Black struggles within the current White power structure. This thesis takes on a completely different positionality. Analysing post 1994 Black protests in South Africa, I argue that violent responses to creative Black protest interventions are not the work of misrecognition nor in need of representation within the current framework. Rather, they are a realization of the radical demand for a completely different frame of reference.

Keywords

Fine Art

Reference:

Collections

Masters

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