Momentum Aardklop - A South African Dream – Diane Victor and Oliver Mayhew
The “South African dream” is anchored in a simple yet powerful promise: that obtaining a university degree or qualification offers families a pathway out of poverty. However, low investor confidence and sluggish economic growth have severely limited this upward mobility. As a result, South Africa has become a vast ‘waiting room’, where an economy that should be developing and expanding remains stubbornly stagnant.
According to Statistics South Africa, the official unemployment rate remains above 32%, while youth unemployment exceeds 45%. This crisis spans generations, trapping millions in a systemic state of suspension as they wait for economic opportunities that fail to materialise.
This collaborative exhibition places Diane Victor’s critique of South Africa’s history of labour exploitation alongside Oliver Mayhew’s exploration of a disruptive technological future. Where Victor exposes a past in which economic growth was built on denying workers their dignity, Mayhew interrogates the implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). For a country still struggling to maintain essential second- and third-industrial infrastructure, the rapid disruption of 4IR threatens to leave a population already trapped in this waiting room even further behind.
NWU Gallery
Visual Arts
29 Sep. – 3 Oct. 09:00-17:00