SLEGS SWARTES

These works begin with a philosophical question: if an object cannot fulfil its purpose, does it remain what it claims to be? If a sound is only a sound when heard, is a chair only a chair when someone sits in it? The work draws on the philosophical tension between John Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities and George Berkeley’s idea that existence is inseparable from perception. A chair may possess the physical attributes of shape, weight and structure, yet its true meaning emerges through use. Without the act of sitting, the identity of the chair becomes unstable.

The object I have created resembles a chair but is covered in sharp metal studs, making it impossible to sit on. It retains the visual form of a chair while violently rejecting its function. When an object can no longer perform its intended task, its meaning changes. It ceases to be a place of rest and becomes something else entirely: an object of deterrence, control or harm.

The inscription slegs swartes, meaning “Blacks only,” deliberately echoes the historical language of racial segregation. A chair marked “whites only” was never simply furniture; it functioned as a tool of exclusion and humiliation. By inverting this phrase onto an unusable chair, the sculpture exposes how objects can carry violence beneath ordinary forms. What remains is a troubling question: if a chair cannot be sat on, is it still a chair at all?