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Berni Searle en Sofie Knijff
 
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Berni Searle’s Moonlight is part of her Black Smoke Rising trilogy (2009-2010) – a series shown consecutively as single-screen projections. Capturing ‘the air of discontent’ enveloping the poor in South Africa, these works challenges perceptions of reality, constructions of identity and the notion of home.
The Black Smoke Rising trilogy has had numerous showing, including at Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, (SA), De Hallen, the Belfry Tower, Bruges, (BE) and Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (MMKA), Arnhem (NL).
In Translations, Sofie Knijff creates ‘theatrical’ spaces in which illusion and reality mingle. The actual staging is not culturally-bound, but rather conveys a universal meaning - and is a catalyst for revealing differences.
Over the past year, Knijf has travelled across South Africa, India and Mali to portray children and their fantasies and dreams. Her aim was to isolate them from their surroundings and daily lives, and focus their attention to reveal their own ‘dream character’. By using the same backdrop, she creates a stage on which the dreams come to life. The challenge was to build a warm, subtle and yet sustained level of concentration to capture the moment of transformation: when honesty and innocence emerge. At the same time, she took images of the empty spaces in which the same children live; creating a set of images where the inside and outside mirror and influence one another.
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