Sven Christian [SC]: Let’s start with the first two wor- ks on show that you made, Egoli I and II (2009). How did they come about? Am I right in saying that you were living in Johannesburg when they were made?

Tumelo Thuthuka [TK}: I was living and studying in Cape Town, but had to pass through Joburg on the bus from Gabarone, so the works came about as a re- sult of my engagement with the built environment, my interactions with different people, and my experience of being far from home — having to be part of a com- munity that you’re not familiar with. I was exposed to things that I wasn’t used to. Around the time of the xe- nophobic attacks in 2008, for example, one of my lecturers (Jane Alexander) and I were chatting about some of these things that we were beginning to see in South Africa. I’d never come across such ill treatment. I’d be crossing the road and the person approaching would make a sudden detour because they saw me as the dangerous ‘other,’ or as someone who could harm them. For me that came as a shock. So I began to look at the city, to notice all of these little things. I was inspired to think about the cosmopolitan area as a giant living organism that not only mutates or re-in- vents itself, but is capable of shaping our identities and our perceptions. Even the physical environment became interesting to me — it has these embedded, subtle messages that you’ll notice if you look carefully. Like when you look at some structures, immediately you think, ‘Ah, I can’t go in here. I’m not welcome,’ just because of how it’s built or because of all the sur- veillance. The other part of the city that stood out for me were these very phallic-looking skyscrapers. They have a gendered language, so to speak. If you look closely at the leaning Vodacom tower in Egoli II you’ll see the resemblance of a penis. And both artworks are covered in beeswax. It’s a bit like semen.

I was also interested in consumerism. The people who inhabit these spaces don’t just live there, but are en- gaged in all sorts of business. At the end of the day, we consume various products in the city. The garbage becomes a burden, and amongst it all there are those less privileged, who live on the peripheries — in shan- ty towns, tin shacks, on the streets... I tried to speak to that through found objects; to incorporate things that people don’t want; things that shouldn’t be seen in the city. So the two pieces address a whole bunch of is- sues. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to pick what you want from the work.

SC: I’m intrigued by your choice of beeswax as a coating for those particular works. It brings to mind a bunch of different associations. On the one hand, there’s this idea of the hive. On the other, there’s ho- ney — a sugary substance — and how that connects to the fizzy drinks. You always find bees around those cans. I assume it’s the sugar in them, but there’s some- thing sickly sweet about it, which I hadn’t considered as a conceptual decision, especially when it’s used to preserve the work.

TT: Ja, um... It’s a tough one. A few things come to mind. If you talk about the product itself, it’s something that you want, but after it’s served its purpose, we dis- connect. One could say it’s about trying to give mea- ning to this idea of the city, with its various attractions. We are drawn towards the city for different reasons or purposes. Normally, what we get out of that ex- perience isn’t what we initially anticipate. Most of us migrate to the cities in search of jobs, greener pastures and stuff like that, but sometimes when you arrive the experience is something else. You’re subjected to a lot of bad things. Sometimes you end up living in condi- tions that were worse than those you left behind, so beyond the glitter there’s always the dark part of the city, the ‘shady’ part.

SC: The kind of lure you’re speaking about is also there in the apples. It’s a trope that I associate with Disney, whose logo also happens to be this cityscape type thing. Their scale also brings to mind those small models of the city, like the one on Durban’s beach- front, that were designed for kids to be able to move through.

TT: I battled with the scale. I didn’t know how big to make them. One thing that made me settle on their scale was the issue of display. I wanted it to be shown on the floor, so that viewers have to lower their gaze, to look down upon the city like a giant. I liked that idea because it makes the viewer appear more domi- nant and more powerful, as a creator or player within the city.

SC: I imagine the scale also helps when trying to think about Joburg as an idea — like when thinking about the contrast between what you anticipate and what you eventually experience...

TT: I get you. My experience with Joburg isn’t that much, but we had to pass through for five years, whe- never there was a school vacation. I must be honest, I really fear Johannesburg. It’s way too fast for me. As someone who is not from there, I felt unsafe whenever I had to sit at Park Station, waiting for my connecting bus. Even walking in the streets was a challenge. I’d be scared to ask people for directions. I remember this one time I took a flight from Cape Town to OR Tambo. My colleague and I caught a public taxi, which took us to some place that wasn’t Park Station. We had to hop off and onto another taxi that would eventually get us there, but before we got into the last taxi we had to cross a busy street. I was following behind. When I was in the middle of a two-way lane, the tra- ffic lights turned green. This taxi guy came straight to us. He didn’t even give me a chance to cross the road, and his side-view mirror hit my laptop bag. The next thing he stopped in the middle of the road. The traffic was very busy, but he just stopped and attempted to come after me. I was carrying my laptop and drag- ging luggage while trying to run away from him, and on the roadside there were ladies speaking Zulu. The only word I could pick up was shaya — ‘shaya, shaya, shaya’ — so he was coming to beat me and the ladies were urging me to run for my dear life. It just cemented my fear of the city, but despite that, I really love the infrastructure. For me it presents a giant puzzle. The structures are like building blocks, different sizes and everything. The busyness; how people went about their business... It just cemented my concept further.

SC: Power Play (2017) was produced eight years af- ter the two Egoli works. There you also play with sca- le. Can you talk more broadly about that work?

TT: For the exhibition at NIROX I chose to remove some items that reference the home setup; to just exhi- bit the pegs. What’s intriguing for me is that pegs are familiar, everyday objects. I was trying to decontex- tualise them and present them from a different pers- pective. Most of the time, when people look at them, there’s that question of ‘Why this? What are you using them for?’ It comes up all the time. In a way, I wan- ted to reflect on how, when you use a peg, you have to apply a certain force. You have to press it on the one end, to force it open. Eventually the peg breaks, or at least fails to perform its function. It succumbs to the pressure, and there’s a transfer of energy that ha- ppens. I’m exacting what I feel onto this object. If I use excessive force or am not gentle, it breaks. When I first showed the work, I was trying to capture the idea of child’s play — the home, in addition to what I’ve just explained — but here it speaks more to this power dynamic.

SC: What were the objects that you included when it was originally shown?

TT: Mostly found objects that I could relate to. Growing up we used to play house. We used to play with va- rious objects, like the trash cans used in Egoli. We’d also use bricks. We’d push them along the ground like cars. The installation was laid on the floor, with all these demarcations that resemble those lines that you draw on the ground as a kid, to demarcate the floor- plan of an imagined house. We’d make boundaries with bricks, you know? You’d have the kraal there, this thing, that thing — all these things that you would’ve seen in a proper house.

SC: I also like how, as a kid, a brick can be anything. Its utilitarian function gives way to the imagination and the next thing it’s a car. Like with the broken pegs, there’s a shift that happens in terms of its function. You do something similar here by transforming something that’s meant to keep order — whether tidying the hou- se or doing laundry — into something that can’t quite keep it all together.

TT: That’s also an interesting view — that in the process of trying to maintain order, there’s a violence that’s li- kely to happen. It’s that thing of applying pressure to get this thing to work in the way you want it to.

SC: Then there’s the fact that, unlike your cityscapes, the pegs are larger than life...

TT: Earlier you mentioned the juxtaposition between the metal buckets in Egoli being life-size and the shrunken cityscapes. There’s one bucket that’s tipped on its side. At the time I wanted to portray the city flowing out of something, like it’s in the making but it’s coming out of something. So that’s another reason why I chose to in- corporate the buckets — as a container, you can use it to hold stuff, but you can also pour things out of it. Most significant is that these buckets are used in the mines. Talking about Egoli, the ‘place of gold,’ where our grandfathers’ went in search of greener pastures to work in the mines — they had those objects. Our fo- refathers would come back with them. Whenever you see them, you know that they were brought here by someone who used to work in the mines. So I found that interesting. It places more emphasis on Egoli as ‘the place of gold,’ the place of opportunity.

SC: Yes, there’s an inevitable kind of spillage that oc- curs in the city. It goes back to what you were saying about the city as this organic, mutating thing, but it’s also a great connection to the pegs, and how violen- ce can be embedded in the desire to maintain some semblance of order, be it through surveillance or other means.