If The Bullet Had Hit…

1207 x 600mm
Spray paint, Paint Pen, Sign, Barbed Wire, Dyed-Glue and Fire on Plywood.

My father never really talked a great deal about South Africa, and when he did it was only briefly about friends, family, his neighbourhood growing up and places he hiked or visited. My father had not returned to his homeland since arriving in Australia and never talked about his life under apartheid.  While we were in South Africa, we visited the Apartheid Museum which shows, explains, and documents apartheid in all it’s tyranny. After the tour, my father told a story that he had never spoken about prior to returning to his home country. It began after the uprising of Soweto in 1976, there were subsequent protests that erupted all over the country and changed the dynamic of power in South Africa and continued to play out for many years. In one such protest in Cape Town, my father and his friends joined the protests. As Coloureds, many were apposed to the apartheid regime despite being in a more privileged position than Black classified people. During my fathers involvement at one of the protest in late 1979, police begun to break up the protest by firing live ammunition into the crowds and at protesters, this was a common practice by law enforcement at this time. To escape the gunfire, my father, was hoisting his friend over a fence, with his friends feet on my father’s shoulders. As his friend was about to climb over, a bullet stuck his friends lower right half, inches away from my fathers head. Thankfully it was the only shot and my father escaped with his life and his friend with a scar.
It was on that day that my father proposed to my grandpa that the family have to leave South Africa. This piece is a reflection on atmosphere of the time surrounding the protests and asking the question of what if the bullet had hit…