Exhibit B: Separate Development
Exhibit B: Separate Development
Installation from Exhibit B addressing Apartheid in South Africa.
Mixed media: enclosure, Coloured man, sign, spectator, linoleum, chair etc.
Karel was born in the year the National Party came to power in South Africa and began to enforce their policy of racial segregation. Under the Population Registration Act (1950) Karel and his father were classified ‘Coloured’. His mother was classified ‘White’.
In 1954 his parents’ marriage was declared ‘void and of no effect’ (Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949), and Karel and his father were forcibly moved to the ‘Coloured Area’ of Gelvandale (Group Areas Act. 1950). He and his mother were no longer allowed to share park benches, bus seats or a home.
About Exhibit B
An exploration of racism and Europe’s colonial history are at the heart of Exhibit B, one of the most controversial and thought-provoking works at 2014’s Edinburgh International Festival.
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South African Brett Bailey has produced a hybrid of performance and exhibition through 13 fixed installations at the neo-classical interior of the city's Playfair Library Hall.
Visitors are confronted by a ‘human zoo’ and ethnographic displays popularised during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in each tableau the audience is confronted by a black performer who casts an unsettling, silent gaze at the viewer.
A selection can be experienced here on BBC Arts, accompanied by interviews with some of the performers and their experience of taking part in this unsettling work.
