New York Times w/ Damien Davis 2017

Damien in Conversation with Mohau

Damien: Let's just dive right in, and maybe start by telling me a little bit about your project you're performing.

Mohau: It's inspired by my observations into the history of forced removals in South Africa during apartheid. Back then there was the Group Areas Act, the series of laws that that defined where different kinds of people would live—based on what race you were, you were put into a particular part of whatever city you lived in. I grew up in Joburg—or in Soweto.  Soweto  came about as a result of a place called Sophiatown (a suburb of Johannesburg) being demolished to make space for a white suburb. I was keen to look into the history of people being displaced within the context of South Africa, and also to relate it to the current global crisis of migrants trying to move across the Mediterranean to Europe for a better life. I did a film for the Venice Biennale that dealt with that idea of displacement. I wanted to find South African examples. and Sophiatown was one that came up. I wanted to find parallels between that history here in the New York City. In a previous visit here, somebody told me about this African village that used to exist where Central Park is now. I didn't quite believe it, but there was this village called Seneca Village—I did some reading up and found parallels between the history of forced removals in South Africa and what happened here in New York, though there's a long time in between the two events, because Seneca Village was destroyed some 200 years ago, and in South Africa the Group Areas Act was in the 50's . Seneca Village was one of the only communities of free black people who could own land in New York. Because they owned property, that meant they were able to participate in the political setup at the time; it allowed them to vote.

Damien: Which made them dangerous.

Mohau: Very dangerous. I think anywhere where a ghetto develops and there’s an interest in being self-dependent, that’s always a threat to civil authorities—that's the story in South Africa. Sophiatown is quite similar to Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. A lot of writers, musicians and artists were responding to what was happening socially in South Africa just because they were in that place all at the same time. So, it was quite dangerous. In South Africa, that story plays out the same way. They got rid of Seneca Village using a legal instrument called eminent domain, where private property can be used as long as it's for the public benefit. Around that area there were churches—probably one of the first black churches in New York the AME Zion Church. After Seneca Village was destroyed for Central Park, the AME Zion church reestablished in Harlem, where it still stands. So, I figured my work in New York would have to respond to the remnants of that history; I decided that I would like to do a procession that brings up those kinds of images of people being forcibly removed, some kind of aesthetic of the fugitivity of people not being where they need to be or having to leave home to reestablish themselves in an undefined place. My research from the South African side of things was looking at images of forced removals after the Group Areas Act. There are images of people out in public with all their belongings—the kind of being-out-of-place aesthetic I wanted to work with. I imagined I would do a procession starting in Harlem and progressing all the way through Times Square.

Damien: Oh, wow.

Mohau: Yeah, but I figured that was physically impossible for me to do because of the route’s span. Instead of having the procession travel along that route all at once, I decided to cut it into three parts—so that it's three, one-hour performances of this procession moving across different spaces.

Damien: That's amazing. When you're talking about displacement and its imagery, it's a familiar sight. It's something that we’re seeing a lot more of in the media right now with Syria, but also thinking about this idea of seeing predominately black faces and the mechanisms—legal or otherwise—that get used to forcibly remove them. There's another neighborhood in the United States, around Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was known as Black Wall Street,  that was burned to the ground.

Mohau: When is that history?

Damien: In 1921, in Greenwood, Oklahoma. There was a large amount of black wealth being accumulated. Black self-reliance. The neighboring white community had problems with that. After a couple of false arrests, everything came to a head and there were days of riots and violence that completely destroyed the town. Your discussion of these ideas and these themes makes me think of the shared history that South Africa has with the United States but also how the history of displacement gets played out in a micro and macro level. There are so many different ways you can take this conversation. Is there a way you could talk more about this idea of displacement and the mechanisms by which people displace other people?

Mohau: From just thinking about how this work would fit into this context. In my previous visits to the city I've heard a lot about people being worried about gentrification. People that have been in the city for a long time now suddenly being forced out, I knew that bringing the work here would resonate because people are already thinking through their place in the city...being removed from where they've lived. In South Africa, the mechanisms are all connected to apartheid, efforts to make sure that the black population was controlled; I guess most of that stuff that happened leads to us being free or supposedly being free in this time. But I guess everywhere in the world gentrification is taking hold. Even in Cape Town where I've lived for the past ten years, there's a lot of that happening. There's an area called Woodstock, which is historically black, though I guess in South Africa we'd say colored, which is a mix between white and the black. There, people who have been there for the longest time are being forced out. There’s new apartments’ going up, new shops going up. People are being pushed further and further out into to the margins of the city. That's a history that's been playing itself out in South Africa for a long time.

Damien: Sounds like New York.

Mohau: The parallels between the United States and South Africa are very clear and very vivid. Things that are happening in South Africa, you find them happening here. I think from what I've read about the apartheid system, is that they studied racial segregation in the rest of the world, brought it to South Africa and mastered it. The victims are usually black folk.

Damien: Aesthetically, your work is very strong, there's a lot of black and white, strong lines, and shapes. How are you imaging this procession looking visually?

Mohau: This will be my first attempt at something this elaborate. I'm working with 20 performers, moving through the city. I've never done anything like that. I've never done performance that lives in the public with the audience. My performances have previously been confined to gallery spaces. For me I want the procession to make reference to Seneca Village, it's making reference to this Colonial Victorian aesthetic.  But, also this is a procession of people carrying their belongings, pieces of furniture, things that are dear to them. I'm imagining people that have been evicted without notice and having to grab at the things that they want to carry with as they take on this new journey.  I'm seeing this carrying these pieces and somehow struggling with the weight of carrying them but also taking moments to pause and take some kind of rest. I want the procession to feel fluid and not very rigid. I've been visiting rehearsals and talking to the artistic directors of groups to see if maybe they understand or they might understand the idea and so far it seems like the work is timely. People are already thinking about it, it's an anxiety that's part of the fabric of the city.

Damien:  Yes.

Damien: How has it been working with Performa?

Mohau: It's been amazing.

Damien: Did you have a chance to meet RoseLee yet?

Mohau: I have. The support I’ve gotten on taking my original idea further has been great. I sat down with RoseLee with just a basic idea and after that conversation I was thinking I would make this thing the best work I've ever made. Of course, it's a bit scary because I don't know how far I can go with it. The city itself is so overpowering and overwhelming, I want to be able to balance it so that the performance doesn't get lost in the general energy of this place. So working with Performa has been great.

Damien: Is this the first public project you've done since the Biennale? Can you talk me through the transition between that project and this project, one that was sort of confined and controlled and one that's going to be very public? I'm someone who really thinks through the transition between projects, are you thinking about that too?

Mohau:   I feel like the themes in my previous project are much the same. It's all about displacement. It's about black bodies being out-of-place. I work across different disciplines. Mainly, I'm known for my photography and the photography is derived from a performance that happens in the studio, performing for the camera. I'm always using the body as an instrument somehow, so I feel like the transition is natural. In my previous work, I’ve moved across photography to performance, and from performance to film. The main challenge is that this performance is happening in New York and not in Cape Town or Johannesburg. I'm not from here so I've decided to spend a lot of time speaking to people.

Damien: How has it been here in New York, your visit?

Mohau:  It's been great.

Damien: Have you had a chance to see or do anything interesting while you've been here or has it just been meetings?

Mohau: I've been in Harlem and I've spent some time by myself walking through the path that I'm going to travel with the procession. I’ve had interesting conversations with people, and also just observing.  It’s stood out how conditions change in New York. It seems in Harlem things are a bit more rough. You see more poverty. I'm getting to understand how this work might resonate in this kind of space. Historically, Harlem has been a point of assembly for people moving from the South and coming up this way. I've been interested in what remains of that. Yesterday, I took a tour with someone from the Harlem Alliance. I've been wanting this red, green and black flag.

Damien: The American flag? Or-

Mohau:   I guess it's the black American flag. So, I was walking and I saw them hanging on the side of the road across from the Apollo. I asked the guy selling them, “how much is this thing?” and he's like, “first off, do you know what it means?” I was like, “yeah I know something about what it symbolizes” and the man just went in. He had images plastered there, very horrific images. He went into a history of black folk and what the red means, what the green means, so I realized that the stuff that I'm trying to talk through in my work is part of the everyday fabric of that space. There's like an African or pan-African element that's happening, just on that one block or one street, that I was happy to discover. So, if that's there on that corner, I know in the mindset of people around that space, that they're thinking about this stuff as well. Its things like that, trying to reactivate this history that is still quite present but not quite spoken about.

Damien: Perfect. Thank you.