| Summary: | Cape Mongo is an anti-fable to the mythologies of Cape Town’s consumer culture. This anti-fable takes shape through an amalgamation of sculptural, performative and video-montage processes, culminating in five films. Each of these films follows a different Mongo character as it journeys through various urban spaces. Throughout these journeys, the project attempts to construct a form of social commentary on the current spatial, economic and political conditions of the city by exploring the variety of possible contexts and urban spaces that these discarded objects may have inhabited during their life cycles. This process has also involved a great deal of reflection on my personal entanglement with the conditions of living and consuming in the city. The journeys of the commodities that I consume and discard on a daily basis can be traced to reveal the intricate economic networks which underpin the consumer culture of Cape Town. The recyclable packaging of consumer goods is presented as mnemonic vessels of interconnectedness which expose the relationship between myself and the spaces and lives these objects inhabit. As the films follow the Mongo characters through various cityscapes, their journeys conjure up imagery relating both to my childhood as well as to several of the historical trajectories that have lead up to the endemic inequality2 and social alienation which characterise present day Cape Town.
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