8 - The Rusting Diamond: A Multimedia Lament for Migrant Dreams in Cape Town

Summary

When entering the harbour, the voyager leaves the exceptional condition of the boundless sea – this traversable space of maritime immensity – to come ashore in an offshore place, in a container world that only tolerates the trans-local state of not being of this place – or of any other really – but of existing in a condition of permanent not belonging, a juridical nonexistence.

— Ursula Biemann, Mission Reports

As a visual artist and researcher, blurring the field between documentary and fiction, I decided to exhibit the multimedia immersive experience The Rusting Diamond at the Castle of Good Hope, as part of the University of Cape Town’s Live Art Festival in February 2017. It was important to me that in presenting this work about the hidden lives of Ghanaian immigrants taking shelter in an abandoned diamond-mining vessel inside the port of Cape Town it was shown in a heritage public building, popular among tourists, where people least expected to encounter the story of African immigrants in Cape Town.The Institute for Creative Arts’ Live Art Festival is an interdisciplinary festival, started in 2012, which extends the public’s experience of live art in a noncommercial environment while making accessible works of visual and performing artists who explore and experiment with new forms of public art. The Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) is an interdisciplinary institute based in the University of Cape Town’s Humanities faculty, fostering innovative practice and research. While pursing my PhD, I was being supervised by Jay Pather, the director of the ICA, and used the Live Art festival and the Infecting the City festival, also hosted by the ICA, to showcase my research-based multimedia works.

On 19 February 2017, visitors to Cape Town’s Castle of Good Hope entered the dark space of the Old Recruitment Building to experience the immersive multimedia installation The Rusting Diamond as part of the Live Art Festival. At the door, they were alerted to the precarious setting of the piece. Entering the small, dark room, they found themselves stepping onto a narrow wooden walkway surrounded by water. They watched details of an old, rusted ship projected onto the wall surface, which created multiple reflections in the water, conjuring a feeling of walking through the dark belly of a ship.