Igshaan Adams’ (b. 1982 Cape Town, South Africa) multi-disciplinary practice is an ongoing examination of hybrid identity, exploring notions of race, religion, and generational trauma. Adams combines weaving, performance, and installation in an intersection of personal history and his native Cape Town roots. Raised in Bonteheuwel, a former Cape Coloured township in Cape Town created during apartheid, the race-based legislation of the 1950s, Adams reshapes materials representative of his lineage - sourcing rope, cotton, beads, prayer rugs, garden fencing, wire, and remnants of linoleum flooring found in homes of the working class, mixed-race and black communities.

At the heart of Adams’ practice is the unresolved question of place. Heavily adorned, hanging tapestries mirror decorative floor patterns and simultaneously map the human markings made by daily domestic foot traffic.

“The silent records of our lives [...] my friend gave me that [prayer mat] he had used for many years, possibly some thirty years. Look, there’s where the threads are worn through – the marks of his knees, where he was praying over and over. You can see where his feet and hands pressed in prayer. There’s where his forehead used to rest, you can make it out, it is worn down. It’s the imprint of his body acting on the prayer mat like marking on a canvas. A recording of the imprint of his body over all those years, acting on its surface, leaving its mark. This imprint might even outlast the person. This fascinates me.” - Igshaan Adams

Installation view: Igshaan Adams, “Getuie", SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, February 4 - August 2, 2020. Image courtesy of SCAD

Adams is the subject of a solo exhibition entitled, “Getuie,” currently on view at the SCAD Museum of Art, Pamela Elaine Poetter Gallery, Savannah, GA, organized by Storm Janse van Rensburg, senior curator at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa.

“Getuie,” the title of the exhibition, translates from Adams’ native Afrikaans directly to “witness.” Its meaning doubles as a common expression by a religious figure, habitually heard within a sermon, or as a sworn oath to a close ally.

The word “getuie” further refers to Adams’ exploration of domestic sites of meaning and, specifically, the intersection of race, religion, and class. The exhibition houses the remnants of linoleum floors and prayer rugs extracted from the homes of Cape Town’s fringe communities. The material -- torn, bruised, and absent -- sheds the markings of domestic use and bears witness to the daily machinations of an interior setting.

Installation view: Igshaan Adams, “Getuie", SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, currently on view. Image courtesy of SCAD

Installation view: Igshaan Adams, “Getuie", SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, currently on view. Image courtesy of SCAD

“It’s very difficult for a person of color to exist in Cape Town. It’s not an easy space, so there was also a mental thing that I needed to overcome. I chose this garden fencing because growing up we had this beautiful garden and I thought, as much as we border off our little physical spaces, maybe there’s a mental space that gets bordered off in some ways too? So at least this is what I project onto that material with the garden fencing. We wrapped it up in cotton threads and reduced its colour to give its ghost-like presence; anywhere you move in the space there’s always one peeking out or being present. They sit between the abstract and the figurative, like a sleeping figure.” - Igshaan Adams