Mary Corrigall
PRINCESSES aren’t waiting around for gallant young men to rescue them. Older women will be their liberators. Such is how this stock fairytale is upturned in Jill Joubert’s magical universe, which she creates through a collection of wooden sculptures and installations, An Invasion by Stately Queens Come to Rescue Princesses Trapped in Four Impenetrable Towers, at The Smith Gallery.
A scholar of African material culture and folklore, Joubert hasn’t simply cooked up this version. According to some of the texts, she has recrafted this popular tale via research into myths on the continent and elsewhere in the world, which suggest that once upon a time older women were responsible for releasing young women from metaphorical prisons.
It appears that depictions of young women trapped in castle like structures is a recurring motif across continents and cultures, functioning as a coming-of-age ritual or story. Perhaps in our youth-driven patriarchal cultures older women were replaced by young princes.
Not that Joubert’s art is based on facts; she deals with mythology and her research might have simply fed a feminist reworking of this classic fairytale.
Given August is women’s month her whimsical version of it, which is largely dominated by figures of strong women balanced on dramatic carriages, might find traction. These female figures aren’t waiting to be liberated but are the liberators – the older, wiser women come to charge the veritable castles and release young maidens from the strictures of patriarchy. It is an appealing proposition, though in reality the reverse has been occurring – mostly it is younger women who are releasing older women from the bonds of their gender. Or perhaps due to our prizing youth and beauty, younger feminists attract all the attention.
Joubert’s world, which is peopled by these charming anthropomorphic creatures, might subvert staid patriarchal fairytales, but it remains an enchanted one. She presents a place of harmony where the lines between mother nature and humanity are blurred, nullifying the battles between them – an idea she apparently derived from the Khoisan.
Everything is alive in Joubert’s universe; trees have eyes and the ability to smile. This makes it a warm and fuzzy place that is most often created for children, offering them a window into a softer, more ideal world. It is one adults enjoy too; presenting a reprieve from reality, though as the classic princess fairy tale shows these imaginative landscapes can impede liberation.
Joubert depicts a variety of castles via a series of totem like wood sculptures. As with all the sculptures on this exhibition they appear to be derived from a long-lost or ancient culture. Fashioned from wood they evoke African traditions, though she credits contemporary artists such as the late Jackson Hlungwane, and Philip Rikhotso as inspiration.
She approaches art making from a traditional African perspective in terms of the function of the art works and by carefully selecting her material. Such as using art to retell a societal myth and replay the parts of it that could serve our society now and by using wood that is already culturally loaded. For example, the wood she uses to make her ‘fortresses’ are reclaimed from a balcony of an Edwardian building in Newlands.
In this way she weaves, reality, history, facts and fiction into sculptural works that become symbols of the past, present and future desires. She also attempts to negotiate the boundaries between western and African societies by collapsing the function of art and objects in these supposedly opposing cultures and through identifying common narratives or motifs – the coming-of-age tale for women.
She steps into this slippery space where African tradition can be harnessed to play out present day feminist ambitions. Is this a viable route, given it intersects with racial politics?
Joubert does not literally depict her reworking of the princess fairytale; there are no princesses trapped inside these castles, which she dubs the impenetrable towers.
In this way this tale of liberation is not underpinned by victimhood, which makes for a refreshing break from the feminist rhetoric we will no doubt be subjected to this women’s month.
The entrance of the gallery is dominated by what she terms the ‘invading queens’ – these female figures who arrive in all manner of makeshift vehicles to rescue the young princesses.
In Joubert’s subversion of the tale, older women are the revered figures of femininity rather than helpless pretty maidens who rely on men to supposedly liberate them. We would do well to ponder this, this women’s month.
l At Smith Gallery until August 27, www.smithstudio.co.za