Visionary Outsider

​Visionary Outsider was a 7 hour long endurance artwork performed in the winter of 2010, at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, in Cape Town, South Africa. 

Indeed it was not only performed at Michaelis, but literally in the walls of the institution itself. This rather  bereft alcove announced itself to me as the perfect site for a performance;  a performance that could illustrate the ambivalent status that I felt art academic constructs imposed upon visionary creators.

Above ground level I stood, with a birds eye view of the world at my feet, the colourful vibrant and lively world at my feet, pulsating and thriving with life, whilst I stood far removed, near invisible, observing from the stone walls above ground, observing from an academic perch engrossed in theorising the happenings of life.

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I however was outside those walls, encaged within them, silenced by them, restricted by their parameters, inert and watchful​, but nevertheless insightfully uninhibited by them. I the visionary, being a visionary, could gaze horizon bound, and sky bound. I the visionary could transcend the parameters of my mind, and remain unconfined thus, by the constraints of mere circumstance. 

​For being a visionary however, I was rendered an outsider... liminal... marginal, neither a participant in the liveliness of life below me, nor a contributor through those walls behind me, where relevant and needed discourse was occurring. My gaze was directed elsewhere, my discourse was 'other', and I was in self-imposed silence, invisible and dismissed.



I stood in that alcove for 7 hours on a cold misty day. From my height I could see the mountains and I indulged my minds eye upon its convoluted rocky forms unto the summit. From there I gazed beyond to where my hearts longing lay. I followed that hearts longing and enveloped the globe with the expansive quality of my feeling.

​After 7 hours I descended back into the particular instance of my life and location. Back down to ground level, back into motion, back into participation. My stiff body stretched into shapes and forms as I danced, moving at whim with life and amongst life. I remained for the briefest time before rushing from the scene into the night.