Penny Siopis

Penny Siopis lives in Johannesburg and lectures at the University of Witwatersrand. She showed the installation ‘MY LOVELY DAY’.
A family history is enacted in a small, intimate and carefully constructed theatre. As in the era of ‘silent films’ a motion story is presented here in which music endorses the rhythm. In this projection the life of three generations of white women in a colonial period is folded up into a collective memory with a penetrating voice. In the end it is no longer so clear who is narrating. Is it the mother who wields the camera? Is it the grandmother whose voice is heard from the grave when the person narrating remembers? Is it the daughter who marks the turning point in the whole piece?
Listening to the images, we slowly penetrate the recollection which also affects our own memory. Alienation alternates with security as childhood, the journey of life, borders and desires are contemplated.
The booklet about this installation contains more fascinating information by authors who wrote down their impressions of her work.