Reader, here you have in front of you chapter two of this story. We are still in the beginning; There is so much more to tell.
I want to track, trace and lay bare a hidden truth that is part of the work of artists. According to the German philosopher Heidegger the work of artists reveals a truth about us that is hidden form our daily lives. He also believes we can understand our community when we look at the work of artists. To understand our community better, to understand who we are and what we do is the theme of this text journey.

So, on a cold Monday morning in July, I am on my way to a conversation with South African artist DuduBloom More. This conversation will take place again in my room in downtown Johannesburg at Victoria Yards. And it will be based on a shared experience sparked by the artist. This time it will be a creation of a time in a place to talk about only one thing, the movie Where the Crawdads sing.
I drive. The sky is plain and pale and blue. The sun is the only thing I can see placed in it. The jacarandas are a pale yellow, the gold will appear late this year. I crave the gold, I wait for the colour- it gives a shine to Johannesburg that it needs desperately. Then I notice a woman dressed in dark emerald long thick socks, she is covered with a black furlike coat and has one clean cut branch that balances on her head. I see growth circles inside the branch. She walks towards me. I see her, I notice her. She does not see me.
I’m nearly at Victoria Yards, and prepare myself for the gully that I know is nearby. It always presents a challenge. Whether it is because it is deeper than it was last time or because there are five young teenagers selling a non- existent safe passage across it. I cross the gully, the car sinks in deep but makes it.
I wait for Dudu as her uber driver is delayed and she ends up in a traffic snake on the highway.
I’m lucky as the sun is out and it shows her full strength so I even need to find a place in the shade while I wait for the artist at the coffee shop.
I think about Dudu’s work: soft materials, strong colours and strong defined patterns. The patterns are what attracted me originally to Dudu’s work. After I read Indaba my children, by Credo Mutwa, I seem to look for and notice patterns in African modern art. For me they are links to a covered past.
When DuduBloom arrives, we dress ourselves up with a coffee and I guide her through the labyrinth to the small room at the border of this building complex. Dudu is dressed in black pants and a grey woolen sweater. She wears golden see -through circles in her ears.
While we walk, we talk.
Dudu’s voice is soft, and clear. Her sound has a high note. I hear DuduBloom say that it is nice to be out of the house and to see a different part of the world. DuduBloom shares with me that she works from home and sometimes misses being surrounded by a community. When I hear this, I think of what Heidegger says; he wants us to understand community. DuduBloom tells me she misses it. She misses other people and other places on her mind. What can I take from this I wonder.
I think of the essay by Virginia Woolf in which she argues that we women need a room of our own. Yet recently I’ve noticed that I feel the need to add to that room; women also need to have a life outside of that room in our house; a life of our own. My thinking goes to Heidegger again, I remember he had a far away place in the mountains he used this remote cabin to work. While we walk and talk I see his mountain cabin in my mind.
I open the door of my room outside of my home and we both choose a chair to sit in. I see us, two women, one young and African, one European and middle aged. We sit across of each other. DuduBloom chooses to sit in the elephant chair.
While we talk about the movie, I link the weight of the elephants with the topics we talk about. After an hour of us alone in the room with the movie and the characters of this story, we go separate ways. I leave all what is said alone and give it time to process.

Dudu, three weeks have passed and today we meet again and I’ll tell you what impressions our conversation made on me. They are fierce as when I asked you why you chose this movie to be the topic of our time together, you said “because she killed him”. I knew she had killed him, as I had watched the movie, but somehow you saying to me; “because she killed him”, caused a movement in my body that felt like a rupture in the air. I’m not sure if you noticed but my body shifted backwards in the chair when you said this. The strange thing is, that after what to me felt like a physical punch, the room was filled with a kind of peace, something I would not expect after such a sentence. Were we at peace with murder?
I have images of South African women in my mind: abused, hit, murdered, raped and black eyed. And I see your wish that those South African women embody the image of a tall and upright shining creature that sticks her hands out and stays untouched and walks free away from a dark small and tiny corner. Can women be brave again?
Dudu, you believe creativity is in our DNA, it is everywhere around us and we as human beings have come to a disconnect with this urge to create. You made me see a doctor in white coats and a stethoscope around his neck as someone who uses his creativity when he activates his mind to create the diagnosis of his patient. For you to create art with needle and thread came natural to you just as Kya, the main character of the story, started to draw birds and other animals. Yet you tell me, to write is your real art wish. Though circles, yes, circles, you will always go back to circles. And names, names are very, very, very important, I hear you say. Your first name Duduzile means to comfort people. It is why people always come up to you and start telling their life stories. Names are beginnings and become kick starters of conversations.
With this consideration we both realize we are at the end of our time together; the closure is in the air and our bodies shift from position. While I search for something to end the conversation, your voice suddenly fills the room. It speaks sounds that form the word neglect. You say it is neglect that affected Kya’s life the most. The neglect is the abuse. It is why Kya flees away from community and into nature. She lives on her own deep in the woods, she hardly comes into town. She is abandoned by her whole family, one after the other leaves her to fend for herself. And this abandonment, this neglect is so often also still present in South African society. It is fathers who leave their family alone to work far away and earn money. It is mothers who leave their children with their mothers, the gogo’s who have a home in another village or city. Unfortunately in South Africa, the separation of families is an ongoing trauma, that causes instability in families while care via presence and close attention should be present. These are the last sentences spoken in our conversation. We stand up with heavy bodies. My mind tells me the elephants refused to carry the weight any longer. We walk out of the room, I lock the door and we stand again below the crisp blue sky. We breathe in a lighter form of air. And I think a last question: will you write in a circle in your next work of art?

Christi Sa