Abstract
Usha Seejarim's 2021 six meter high public sculpture The Mundane and the Magical, situated in front of the Rosebank Radisson RED hotel, repurposes physical objects as well as literary and artistic antecedents. The artist alludes to a Victorian male-authored poem celebrating the domesticated pure figure of the "Angel of the House," an oppressive, internalised being whom Virginia Woolf famously "murdered" in a 1931 speech detailing her emergence as an independent artist. Seejarim's installation celebrates women's agency through two composite angel wings incorporating hundreds of steam irons of the sort used by domestic workers, while also resonating with ancient winged mythological figures, including Isis and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The domain of the domestic, so long associated with undervalued female labour and the constraints of gendered hierarchies, is reimagined through retasking objects of domestic labour into building blocks of collective rebirth and liberation. The bright red-painted work also creatively summons up a South African history of struggle art as well as global revolutionary aesthetic practice, citing and transmuting images of collective labour and reclaimed means of production. Keywords: Seejarim, gender, labour, mythology, sacrifice, rebirth La 2021 sculpture publique de six metres de haut d'Usha Seejarim Le banal et le magique, situee en face de l'hotel Rosebank Radisson RED, reutilise des objets materiels ainsi que des antecedents litteraires et artistiques. L'artiste fait allusion a un poeme victorien d'auteur masculin celebrant la figure pure domestiquee de <<l'ange de la maison>>, un etre oppressant et interiorise que Virginia Woolf a < > dans un discours de 1931 detaillant son emergence en tant qu'artiste independante. L'installation de Seejarim celebre l'action des femmes a travers deux ailes d'ange incorporant des centaines de fers a vapeur du type utilise par les travailleurs domestiques, tout en resonnant egalement avec d'anciennes figures mythologiques ailees, dont Isis et la Victoire ailee de Samothrace. Le domaine du domestique, si longtemps associe au travail feminin sous-evalue et aux contraintes des hierarchies genrees, est reimagine en redefinissant les objets du travail domestique en elements constitutifs de la renaissance et de la liberation collectives. L'oeuvre peinte en rouge evoque egalement de maniere creative une histoire sud-africaine de l'art de la lutte ainsi qu'une pratique esthetique revolutionnaire mondiale, citant et transmutant des images de travail collectif et de moyens de production recuperes. Mots-cles: Seejarim, sexe, travail, mythologie, sacrifice, renaissance