Our Fathers engages the notion of patriarchy as an emotional economy, as well as a system that promulgates an unequal distribution of power.

Our Father, another name for the Lord’s Prayer intrinsically represents patriarchy as a form of social organisation whereby society is governed by a system, in which the father is the supreme authority in the place of worship, family, community, country and work environment.

bell hooks states in Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom “Patriarchy has no gender” and yet gender is a politically and socially coerced category, in patriarchy’s syllabus of teaching. One that effects the most intimate of spaces, the family.

Artworks have been drawn from artists whose oeuvre either specifically or consequential investigate the idea of “father”.

Participating artists:
 
Lynette Bester, Paul Birchall, Lien Botha, David Brits, Georgina Gratrix, Anton Karstel, Ayanda Mabulu, Charles Maggs, Brett Murray, Dathini Mzayiya, Paul Painting, Monique Pelser, Ken Rees-Gibbs, Chad Rossouw, Lyndi Sales, Cinga Samson, Damien Schumann, Zolani Siphungela, Frank van Reenen, Elize Vossgatter, Khayalethu Witbooi, Dale Yudelman

Co-curated by Kirsty Cockerill and Chantal Louw.

Our Fathers opens at the AVA on 27 August and closes on 21 September 2012