1995

Mshwishwile

South African, born 1970

Ian van Coller produced a series of photogravures about South African plants in which a single image is accompanied by two descriptive texts reflecting divergent world views. The images operate from the artist’s premise that South Africa’s extraordinary landscape is a determining factor in how South Africans understand themselves, as well as his observation that the region’s plants have often been used and understood differently by native Africans and Europeans. In the artist’s words, his desire was not to emphasize oppositions but rather to place the texts in communication with one another.