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The Takeover

David Koloane
The Takeover, 2016
Single-channel animated video

The Takeover is made up of a series of detailed pencil drawings using a stop-motion filming technique in which the drawings are photographed in a series of slightly different positions creating the appearance of animated movement. The Takeover, which finds artistic representation in an achromatic palette of greys, is a work that explores the idea and importance of community through the fable narrative commonly associated with African story-telling practice. The fable is set in a township on the periphery of Johannesburg where a pack of wild dogs have inhabited a deserted school; one evening, after a community vigil, a resident is attacked and killed by the pack. This act brings the community together and empowers them to drive the dogs away from the school. In the work, the dogs take on human thought processes and mannerisms, thereby suggesting that The Takeover can be read as ‘a metaphor about the dangers of free-living and the redemptive power of community’ (Contemporary And, David Koloane: In the City, July 2016)