"I used the residency to explore new themes for my ongoing project the cannibal’s banquet; and also to experiment with new approaches in my drawing. The general concept that underlines the cannibal’s congress is the idea of cultural reproduction; which I consider as an oppressive social mechanism serving greater ideological systems. I think culture and cultural practices is like a form of psychological cannibalism. Our mothers and fathers consume our minds before we are aware of it ourselves, just as their parents did before them. They teach and expose us (or don’t teach and don’t expose us) to everything we come to know. This is how our minds are constructed. These practices and beliefs govern us for the rest of our lives. Most people never stop to question or challenge this and so the cycle continues. It is obviously much more complex than that and that is exactly what I am interested in.
'The cannibal’s congress: founding ideology' was my starting point. Thematically, I explored the notion of patriarchy as an ideological construct. Using an abstract/mechanistic visual language I imagined patriarchy as two large mechanistic forces (left), religion and politics, coming together in a pink “umbilical” cord like structure. Connected to the end of this cord dangles a female hybrid life form."
Isabelle Grobler
