16SNLV by Kudzanai Chiurai is a film classification defining the age at which it is permissible to be exposed to sex, nudity, [coarse] language and violence) takes on issues of violence and mourning in the public realm. The exhibition’s centre piece is a video of a woman singing a dirge, the beauty of the funeral song a counterpoint to the image of her gently washing the bloodied and broken body before her.
The words, sung in isiZulu, are translated as “Tortured because of me/ My lifetime rock/ So that I could hide myself in you/ Jesus’s wound/ Why the wounds/ On Your sides/It’s for blood, it’s for the water/ That I must be cleansed All our mistakes/ Are carried by You/ All our Sins/ Are carried by You”
It is a woman’s body that is being washed. Chiurai made two versions of the video. The second one features a man’s body. Each conveys different meaning, sparks thoughts about the gendered nature of violence, where men are cut down in public and women often in the places they should feel most safe, at home. (Mail&Guardian)
