S2E06: Athi-Patra Ruga

“Post 1994, it felt like you were being made part of a body national, and there was something slightly and softly violent about it... Utopia, balloons, zebras, multi colours – all of those things, for me, were used to be a very dark critique of the utopia that we thought we built in South Africa for ourselves. The one that we burn people for.”

Performance artist Athi-Patra Ruga takes us on an immersive journey through the sights, sounds and movement of his epic retrospective work, Things We Lost in the Rainbow. Performed at the 2018 ICA Live Art Festival curated by Jay Pather, Things We Lost in the Rainbow unfolded as a two-hour long multi-sited, multi-media procession in which a cast of over 30 avatars led the audience through Cape Town’s city centre, from the digital dome of the Planetarium to the walls of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God on Buitenkant Street.

 

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, and additional sounds and music are from Athi-Patra Ruga's video works Over the Rainbow and Public Service Announcement.

 

The ICA Podcast is a creation of the Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) at the University of Cape Town. Produced and edited by Catherine Boulle.

 

Read more about the ICA and the vision for the podcast: http://www.ica.uct.ac.za/ica/podcast/Season2.