Darkness Prevails Over The Promised Land (Sea Point)

This work gives us a really useful entry point into one of the ideas that runs through Kindred: the possibility of making the familiar strange. The painting is a study of Sea Point, a space that carries very particular histories of privilege, exclusion and racism. Mahomed describes the darkness she experiences when moving through this space, and that darkness becomes materialised through the deep red of the background. The armed guards outside synagogues, the references to Palestine, and the contrasting blues and greens create a visual tension between different political and historical realities. What interests me here is that the artist doesn't give us a straightforward documentary image of Sea Point. Instead, she transforms the space through colour, abstraction and symbolism. Something geographically familiar becomes emotionally and politically unfamiliar. We are asked to experience the place rather than simply recognise it.