Rhoda Davids-Abel | I flicker in and out of my body

Rhoda Davids-Abel, student of Temporary Programme Blacker Blackness (2021–2023) presents the work I flicker in and out of my body (2020) on her website.

This is a work about finding myself in the midst of constant metamor-phosis. By choice, but also due to the political and social directives that are constructed around me/us. As a ‘Coloured’ person from South Africa I noticed that the origin story of how we came to be is bewildering. Almost like we are mythological ‘beings’. 26 years after Apartheid ‘ended’ and we are trying to define who we are. Outside of the context of a race designation that was as- signed to us against our will. This is partly the process of metamorphosis that I am observing and engaging in with my family and also in group discussions, whatsapp groups and social media. In this photography work I am attempting to insinuate my emotional and physical feelings of this process focussing particularly on how spirituality is intertwined with identity. Considering the fluidity in how old and new religious and spiritual ideas co-exist. As I flicker in and out of the spiritual world I also have a more concrete feeling of who I am in reality and also the spiritual world. The larger question somewhat answered while I am in the cocoon still. I/we are all people. I am considering the story that the ‘old people’ used to switch between the type of people they appear as – human, animal or plant. I play with the idea of antelope and mountain that I sometimes blur with in dreams. Seeing and seeing. The layers of meaning depending on the viewpoint.

See more of Davids-Abel’s work at: https://kleio.com/page/rhoda-davids-abel and https://www.rhodadavidsabel.com/