Syrcas at Africus

The theme of the curatorial gathering staged in Johannesburg in January 1994, with a view to developing the inaugural biennial planned for the following year, was ‘decolonizing our minds’. Yet, given the newfound complexity of post-Apartheid politics in South Africa, in addition to the worldwide address and nation-state positioning typical of biennials, critical questions remained—and remain—over who shared in that ‘our’ and on what basis. In a challenge to methodological conventions, this co-authored essay examines the cultural and political ramifications of the Johannesburg Biennale through the lens of a single work of art exhibited there in 1995: Syrcas , by the Scots-Ghanaian artist Maud Sulter.