PhD Thesis: A dialogical analysis of ‘Indian’ South African identity and representation in contemporary visual arts, expressed through data-fluid narratives

Lucelle Pillay, Research Map (2025)

Abstract:

This study analyses ethnoracial identity formation from the perspective of the self (the artist) and the collective (artists, historians, curators, academics), applying a qualitative mixed methodology within this practice-led visual art research. The enquiry into ‘Indian’ South African identity is both complex and perplexing. A dialogical approach to both theory and art practice provides intellectual and intuitive responses about ethnic identity in South Africa. I use a reflexive (self-dialogical) methodology based on memory, experiential and historical artefacts to create iterations of personal and collective identity formations.

Data from archival records (Indian Indenture Ship Lists 1860-1911) undergoes a digital process of sorting and parsing. Narratives are then extracted and visualised within the aesthetic domain of the visual arts, inextricably bound by geography and shifting ideologies. The focus of this study is my own generational group (born in the early 1970s), which has lived through the socio-political contexts of colonialism, apartheid, and democracy. It is based on the premise that my social conditioning in South Africa is unique and unusual, being located at the cusp of transition from rigid racial segregation to democratic freedom.

The concept of ‘fluidity’ is used to describe an intellectual position that is characterised by openness, neutrality and racial inclusivity. This study contributes new knowledge about contemporary ‘Indian’ identity formations invisibilised within South African visual culture. The exhibition Afterisms: Excentric Data–Fluid Narratives further contributes to the global paradigm of technology-based contemporary art and offers a cultural reparative, as well as addresses historical oversight through symbolic action.

Access Full Thesis here

Exhibition Catalogue: Afterisms: Excentric Data-fluid Narratives

Lucelle Pillay, Catalogue Cover (2023)

Access Full Catalogue here

Read more articles by Lucelle Pillay