Collection: Keep Out of Reach of Children
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By: Lila Philiswa
South Africa, memory histories, collective frameworks of culture, authorship and agency, abstract
Keep Out of Reach of Children is an art installation by Philiswa Lila focussing on lessons about safety, and comprising of paintings, bead works, found objects and performance.
Safety not as being the absence of harm, but rather a complex complication of how unsafe spaces of safety can be. The works presented are visual expressions of personal experiences and recollections, amounting to a collective outcry against violence. Lila explores safety concerning childhood stories, especially girlhood by including the themes of menstruation, love, desire, pain, rape, shame, hurt and resilience. The willingness to share encounters of violence as lessons for possible healing, provide a powerful reclaiming of social agency.
Curtain (2020-2023)
The Curtain is about the many decorative wounds that live in the home. The Curtain hides violence. It contains – holds, surrounds, covers, and encloses – violence, fear and shame.
Ilokhwe Yekresmesi: Ndiyamensa Mama (2020-2023)
The artwork is a memory of a dress, that was stolen from the artist when she was a teenager, by her cousin who molested her.
The radiance of red: Blood lines (2020-2023)
With this work, I am challenging the secrecy and shame around menstruation, while at the same time celebrating a young girl’s rite of passage. For example, many females, young and old, suffer anxiety about menstruation blood stains, because they can face humiliation and judgment from it.
Beware of Dog (2020-2023)
The limits set by physical space also define in very clear terms inside versus outside, private versus public, family versus non-family, security versus insecurity, urban versus rural; and, of course, national borders are set according to the same logic.
Floral shirt (II) (2020-2023)
The paintings 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵 (𝘐) and 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵 (𝘐𝘐) capture a visual memory of the motifs from a striking floral shirt the artist's father wears in a photograph from her childhood.
Floral shirt (I) (2020-2023)
The paintings 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵 (𝘐) and 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵 (𝘐𝘐) capture a visual memory of the motifs from a striking floral shirt the artist's father wears in a photograph from her childhood.
Uyamensa (II) (2020-2023)
Uyamensa (I) (2020-2023)
Nosipho (I) (2020-2023)
This willing is a wanting to share. Sharing is easy, but the will to share is an obligation that ties me to choosing: how, where, why and to whom am I am practising this will.
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