Lamentation

This collaboration between Aryan Kaganof and Christo Doherty is a filmed response to Doherty’s controversial 2011 photo exhibition entitled BOS, consisting of “constructed photographs” of the South African Border War – images he based on photos that appeared in the media at the time. In their joint film, the camera moves through a fixed pattern, close to a face painted black: so close, in fact, that we can even see the pores in the skin. The man’s penetrating gaze melts into a stretch of sand where toy soldiers re-enact the South African Border War. From 1968 to 1989, the South African apartheid regime fought a bitter war to keep control of what was then called Southwest Africa – now Namibia. The South African army even took the war deep into Angola with the aim of defeating the People's Liberation Army of Namibia. The Border War was carried out by an army of white conscripts alongside both black and white professional soldiers. The white soldiers were made to wear black combat makeup, which they dubbed “black is beautiful.” Featuring the music of composer Michael Blake in a prominent role, ends with a quote from the Third Lamentation of Jeremiah the Prophet.