Routes/roots: reimagining the owl house
Date
2017
Authors
Knight, Alexandra Mary-Rose
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Abstract
Located in the town of Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo desert, the Owl House is a fascinating heritage museum that was once the home to outsider artist, Helen Martins. Much work has been created about the eccentric Helen Martins and her unusual home, and appears in the form of books, films, music and plays. The content of these works follow a similar pattern, and it is the aim of this research and film to explore a less literal interpretation of the Owl House, and its creators, Helen Martins and Koos Malgas. The Owl House is re-imagined through the lens of an experimental essay film, juxtaposing footage of the creative eastern imagery of the Owl House (in South Africa) with actual footage of the east (India, Thailand and Laos). In exploring these binaries, an investigation of theory of the landscape, home, mobility and hermeneutics takes place. Furthermore, these theories and concepts are looked at in relation to the politics of an apartheid, and later, a democratic South Africa. The Owl House is therefore analysed as the collaboration of the white, female Helen Martins, and the coloured, male Koos Malgas.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Film and Television, August 2017
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Citation
Knight, Alexandra Mary-Rose (2017) Routes/roots: reimagining the owl house, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <https://hdl.handle.net/10539/24456>