Community Punching Bags
Take your punch at the KZNSA Gallery

Exhibition Opening: 6pm Tuesday 10th July
10 July – 29 July 2012
An exciting new exhibition with universal appeal opens at the KZNSA Gallery next Tuesday. ‘Community Punching Bags’ comprises a selection of three dimensional punching bags whose designs have been customized in imaginative ways.

Seldom does art appeal to the public to the extent that people are talking about an exhibition taking place in another part of the country, but that’s what’s happened with Johann van der Schijff’s ‘Community Punching Bags’. The exhibition, which opens at the KZNSA Gallery in Bulwer Road next Tuesday, comprises a selection of punching bags whose designs have been customized by high school students and art educators from Cape Town and surrounds.

The Community Punching Bags (CPB) project consists of a number of distinct stages with plans to repeat the project in different areas throughout South Africa. The process begins with Johann holding workshops with art teachers, who then pass their skills onto the learners. The designs from these workshops are realised by local leather artisans who turn the designs and collages into actual punching bags. The end result is a collection of high-impact, interactive punching bags that collectively form a single artwork.

The final stage of the CPB project involves a series of exhibitions that present the drawings, paper cut-outs/collages and punch bag sculptures that resulted from the workshops. The work on display at the KZNSA Gallery is the output of Cape Town-based teachers and learners, but this same process will be followed in KZN with the resulting punch bags being displayed in the next leg of the project later in the year.
The travelling exhibition which opened in May at the Iziko South African National Gallery Annexe in Cape Town, relies on viewer participation (visitors get to punch the artworks), chance and an element of the absurd.

The project, which involves participation from both the makers and the viewers, is therefore an unpredictable process open to chance and serendipity that reveals itself as it unfolds. Intended to be an artwork in which the community plays a central part in its realisation, the project aims to show that issues often not spoken about openly, such as those that deal with violence, stereotyping and discrimination, can be addressed in collaborative and creative ways through the process of art-making.
The KZNSA Gallery is pleased to present this innovative exhibition with the support of the KZNSA’s Social Art in Development (S.A.I.D.) Programme, funded by the National Lotteries Distribution Fund. The Community Punching Bags project has been made possible by The National Research Foundation and the Prince Claus Fund in the Netherlands.
Please note: Johann van der Schijff will be available for interviews on Wednesday 11th July. Please contact Kirsty or Peter should you wish to arrange an interview

Kirsty Machen Peter Machen
kirsty@thecommunicationfactory.org peter@thecommunicationfactory.org
074 644 1492 082 447 6882