Mooi Nooi: Sculpting Identity - Anton van Wouw’s Noitjie van die Onderveld as Fetished Symbol

Abstract

This study examines the role of Anton van Wouw’s Noitjie van die Onderveld as a fetishised symbol within Afrikaner nationalist discourse, interrogating its function in shaping and sustaining an idealised political construction of womanhood that embodies both the ideological aspirations and anxieties of its time. By situating the sculpture within its historical and cultural context, this research highlights the powerful influence of nationalism in shaping identities, as well as the inherent dangers of perpetuating rigid and idealised identity constructs. Drawing on material culture studies, entanglement theory, gender studies, and fetish theory, the study explores how the sculpture operates as a fetishised object within Afrikaner visual culture. It examines how the sculpture’s reproduction and circulation reinforced its ideological significance, embedding its visual iconography deeply within Afrikaner memory and identity. Through visual analysis, historical contextualisation, and curatorial inquiry, the research contributes to discussions on the intersections of art, nationalism, and gender. Foregrounding Noitjie van die Onderveld’s entanglement with Afrikaner identity, this analysis offers insight into the broader mechanisms through which objects become central to self-definition. In doing so, it encourages reflection on the role of nationalist ideologies in both shaping and constraining gender identities.