Weighing of the Hearts

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Weighing of the Hearts (2015) is a physical computing wall installation that attempts to understand the past and the present of Johannesburg. The form of the work takes the shape of the borders and outlines as designated in the 1907 Johannesburg map, tracing the lines of proclaimed gold fields and politically determined, demarcated townships. On to this bird’s eye view of early Johannesburg, I map out a fantastical world.

What was significant for me in all the maps I found on Johannesburg was that one can see that even from as early as 1897, in the town planning of Johannesburg, the separation of communities according to race is evident, as is the power dynamics between races. Communities with more power and wealth were located in the more picturesque, fertile areas of town, while the labourer communities were located closer to the mines / rubbish dumps. In South African colonial history, this translated into mainly white (European) communities living in the geographically and scenically attractive areas, and non-white communities living in the less appealing areas of the city.

What is evident from these early political and economical delineations is that segregation was a fundamental part of Johannesburg town planning from its very beginnings.

The central motif or character in this work is that of the African Sacred Ibis. The Sacred Ibis birds are large, black and white birds that live in flocks. Johannesburg is one of the largest urban forests in the world, and there are many species of birds such as owls, eagles, falcons, sunbirds, weavers and many more, living in the trees of this city-forest.

Each day, flocks of Sacred Ibis birds, north of the city, to fly to the south of the city, to the central waste dump of Johannesburg, where they scavenge and feed off the waste dump.

When I leave home for work in the mornings, I see these Sacred Ibis’ travelling south, “to work”. They travel to this growing waste dump, to feed and gain nourishment off the waste of Joburg citizens.

Not only is Johannesburg the location of one of the largest urban forests in the world, but its horizon is filled with many processed “mountains”, the waste dumps or “tailings” from the gold mines. Johannesburg’s mine dumps are made of soft yellow sand, heavy metals and radioactive materials, which were deposited on the landscapes next to the mines.

In recent years, many of these iconic Johannesburg “mountains” are disappearing, as the mining industry has begun to re-mine these dumps. Slowly, our Johannesburg landscape continues to transform and shift before our eyes: As the mine dumps are disappearing from our Johannesburg landscape, so the waste dump on the southern borders of the city increases in size, as Johannesburg citizens consume. The waste dump’s physical form has a similar form to that of a Johannesburg mine dump on the Highveld landscape.

Apart from being scavengers, the Sacred Ibis was a sacred symbol in Egyptian mythology. In Ancient Egypt, these birds were offered as sacrifices to the gods to assist the person’s path into heaven. The birds’ bodies would be mummified and placed in the tombs of the deceased. In addition to this, the Egyptian god of Knowledge, Thoth, was a hybrid figure of a Sacred Ibis head and a human body. Thoth played a prominent role in maintaining the universe: He was associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, as well as the Inventor of writing, science, geometry and mathematics. Thoth also supervised the proceedings in the Weighing of the hearts: a ritual in which the fates of the dead would be determined. Thoth is therefore a god that is trying to quantify and make sense of this world.

In Johannesburg, as sentinels on their daily commute, the Sacred Ibis fly above us, watching our movements, watching from above. As scavengers, they sort through our waste, taking decaying traces and remains of Johannesburg existence and turn it into nourishment. Thus their presence and actions in Johannesburg echo how Johannesburg citizens negotiate this strange, gritty city.

The wall installation is comprised of mining headgear, mineshafts and tunnels, with hybrid man-bird-machine figures mining for riches in the bellies of the earth. These figures collect their finds and travel towards the site where the Weighing of the Hearts ceremony takes place. A strange Thoth-like figure oversees the weighing of the citizens’ finds. The citizens wait in line as he determines their fate.

In Johannesburg, as sentinels on their daily commute, the Sacred Ibis fly above us, watching our movements, watching from above. As scavengers, they sort through our waste, taking decaying traces and remains of Johannesburg existence and turn it into nourishment. Thus their presence and actions in Johannesburg echo how Johannesburg citizens negotiate this strange, gritty city.

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