Kim Gurney

Kim Gurney©
Public intervention: Freedom Day
The Company’s Garden, Cape Town

Statement: The aim of my intervention was to engage with members of the public on their ideas about Freedom Day and what it meant to them. I lined up a flotilla of hand-made origami paper boats, complete with national flags, around the fishpond outside the SA Museum, The Company’s Garden, on Freedom Day. I invited passersby to name boats according to their perceptions of the day and to launch it onto the pond. They were also invited to ponder what could possibly sink their boat. Their replies were written on labels under rocks, which acted as sentinels around the pond. They represented the counterbalance, the ominous danger that could symbolically shipwreck the New South Africa.