Orms Print Room & Framing sponsored custom wallpaper for 3 walls at the “Still Figuring Out What It Means To Be A Man” Exhibition, currently on show at the Iziko Slave Lodge in Cape Town.
The exhibition is part of a collaboration with 1000 Women’s Trust and SWEAT (Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce), and aims to create awareness on gender and sexual violence issues, challenge stigmas associated with sex work as well as to confront the hegemonic ideals of masculinity.
“Still Figuring Out What It Means To Be A Man” explores the idea of masculinity through conversations with 6 middle-class South African men from a range of cultural and racial backgrounds. It features documentary-style photography of these men in context in which they’ve chose to be represented. An audio narrative by each subject shows them reflecting on their own masculinity and exploring issues such as love, sexuality, sexual conditioning, success, fatherhood, spirituality, gender-based violence as well as the impacts of apartheid and colonialism.
The multi-media exhibition came about as a kind of response to the violence perpetrated by men in South Africa, which has resulted in an increasing focus on toxic masculinity through the controversial hashtag #menaretrash and the notion that a ‘crisis in masculinity’ in South Africa is very likely. The project adopts an empathetic view of individual men while simultaneously criticising the oppressive system of patriarchy.
“Still Figuring Out What It Means To Be A Man” is on display until September so there is ample time to check it out. In celebration of Freedom Day on 27 April 2018, Iziko will be offering free entry to the public.
For more information on printing wallpaper with Orms Print Room & Framing feel free to contact printroom@orms.co.za
