Thabiso Sekgala / Running / 2014

Because I always feel like running, not away, because there is no such place Because, if there was I would have found it by now Because it’s easier to run, easier than staying and finding out you’re the only one who didn’t run. Because running will be the way your life and mine will be described, As “in the long run” or as in having given someone a “run for his money” Or as in “running out of time” Because running makes me look like everyone else; though I hope there will never be cause for that Because I will be running in the other direction, not running for cover Because if I knew where cover was, I would stay there and never have to run for it Not running for my life, because I have to be running for something of more value to be running and not in fear. Because the thing I fear cannot be escaped, eluded, avoided, hidden from, protected from, gotten away from, Not without showing the fear as I see it now Because closer, clearer, no sir, nearer Because of you and because of that nice that you quietly, quickly be causing And because you´re going to see me run soon and because you´re going to know why I´m running then, You will know then, because I´m not going to tell you now. – Running, Gil Scott-Heron

In his first solo show with the Goodman Gallery, Thabiso Sekgala presents Running, a photographic exhibition bringing together three series: Running Amman, Running Bulawayo and Paradise. Although shot in highly disparate places – the cities of Amman, Bulawayo and Berlin – all three series are viewed by Sekgala as part of a similar trajectory of movement, displacement, transition; each photograph displaying a veneer of calm, that may or may not be on the verge of catastrophe. Considering both the notion of running towards and away from, Sekgala confronts perceptions surrounding place, influenced by sentiments such as aspiration and assumption, and ultimately destabilises these. Produced while Sekgala was on various international residencies, this is the first time these works are being exhibited in South Africa.

Running Amman was photographed in a city built around an old Palestinian refugee camp, which for Sekgala, “defines the idea of running… I was interested in the calmness, and the stillness of the place. I photographed these images during the period when America was still threatening to attack Syria, in my mind I was thinking if that could happen while I was in Jordan ‘will I have a place to run to’… In my work I am fascinated by conditions that define people’s home, that could be personal or political or economic.” Within the series Sekgala focusses on parked cars, influenced by Walid Raad’s series on car bombings during the Lebanese Civil war. These, as well as images of quiet streets, void landscapes and lone pedestrians may suggest the calm before a storm, or nothing at all.