Land Labour Life
- Leanne Rencken
Simon Gush’s visual art and academic research are interconnected.
He has explored how South Africans relate to land and labour through documentary films, fine art exhibitions, his Master’s degree and through current research for his PhD at Wits’ Society, Work and Politics Institute.
Gush explains how he came to think about the nature of work and the role that it plays in South African life through his own experience. Unable to make a living as a full-time artist, he created only in the evenings and on weekends, and despite its precariousness, he realised that work remains central to how we perceive ourselves and our place within society.
His current project collaboration, based at SWOP and titled Land Labour Life, continues his exploration of these themes, expanding on the anecdotal personal histories of his 1820 Settler ancestors, their acquisition of land in South Africa, and how subsequent communities were impacted by land policies and are dealing with restitution. His work and art also deal with his experiences working in and navigating Johannesburg, a city that thrived on migrant labour and remains a hub for a large proportion of the South African workforce.
For Gush, the subject matter, whether personal reflection or public commentary, art or academic, is intense. While he admits that there isn’t much room for levity in his work, he allows that “the art does sometimes offer other ways of doing things that aren't always so heavy.”
Drawn to Jozi
Growing up in Pietermaritzburg, Gush longed to live in Johannesburg, particularly in ‘town’. After spending time at the Hoger Instituut van Schone Kunsten in Gent, Belgium, and in Cape Town as a fellow at the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts, he eventually realised that dream by moving to the city.
Reflecting on life in Johannesburg, he explains: “That feeling of belonging is always a little bit uncertain or contested, like you can't quite settle.” There is, however, he says something about the city that feels like home as well.
“Whenever I go on trips and come back, there's something nice about driving into the city. It’s got something to do with the space, but it’s also the community to which I am connected. Johannesburg is a little more politicised than other parts of the country, and a little bit more aware of what's going on, and so talking about these things is part of our everyday conversation.”
Aside from people and place, living in South Africa provides Gush with a sense of self he can’t tap into elsewhere. “I struggle to make work outside of South Africa because it just feels like I sit on the surface too much,” he says. “If I’m not here, I don’t have the understanding I need to go deeper with the work.”
Much of what Gush does is concerned with asking questions about work, belonging and identity – questions that can’t easily be answered by statistics or through surveys. This is especially true in the South African context where Gush feels that more conversations around land ownership and restitution need to be both had and heard.
Blending art and academics
He believes that land is central to so many people’s sense of self and community. Land is not just a piece of ground; it is deeply tied to belonging, heritage and the scars of displacement. Trying to understand labour without first understanding this country’s battles for land over hundreds of years, doesn’t do justice to our fraught history.
His academic work at SWOP reflects this approach; a collaborative, research-driven practice that doesn’t fit neatly into the art world but that draws heavily on his extensive experience.
He explains, “There are some concepts that naturally lend themselves to visual metaphors, where other things are more easily explained in text. For my PhD, it’s important to use these two different ways of making, and to explore what an interdisciplinary body of work might look like. Breaking from academic conventions also allows me to connect with people in different ways.”
Considering that for many years the focal point of his work has been land dispossession and the process of restitution in Salem, in the Eastern Cape, and his own ancestral involvement in it, building trust within the community has been central to his methodology as both a filmmaker and a researcher. He speaks about the importance of time, from both an historical and personal perspective, in establishing authentic relationships that go beyond quick, extractive conversations.
Commitment to the process
“You have got to go back again and again, spend time with people – that’s the crux of it – and ask many open-ended questions. I’m not the most sociable person, and as much as I fear going off and doing these things, I understand that it’s important and central to my work. Each space has different requirements, and in each place, people are looking for different things. There's ongoing work that needs to be done, whether the outcome is academic or art or both, there's a long-term commitment once I start.”
Gush is hoping that these outcomes will contribute to a broader conversation about labour, land, and who we are as a society.
“During my research, I started talking about what it means to receive land in a process of restitution, and what it means to go back and work that land,” he says, going deeper into his thinking around work and land and how they were intertwined prior to colonialism, in a way in which in today’s capitalist world, they’re not.
“Theoretically, I know how the process of restitution informs the return of land, but practically, in the different places in which I'm doing research, there are some commonalities around land and work, and there are also different experiences around land and work. Ultimately, I’d like my work to get people to think more deeply about these issues, and maybe to see themselves and their communities reflected in these questions.”
- Leanne Rencken is a freelance writer.
- This article first appeared in?Curiosity,?a research magazine produced by?Wits Communications?and the?Research Office.
- Read more in the 18th issue, themed #Work, which delves into the evolving nature of work, shaped by societal shifts, technological advances, and equity challenges.