Andrew Hennlich's article reads performance artist Athi-Patra Ruga’s saga The Future White Women of Azania (2006–2016) as a critical response to the myths and ideologies of nationalism. Appropriating Azania as an allegory for South Africa’s national history, the talk draws from Walter Benjamin’s Critique of Violence to understand how Ruga’s public interventions, photographs, and tapestries in FWWoA reread frameworks of historical memory against the grain of tradition to overcome the restrictive judgments of identity.
About Andrew Hennlich
Andrew Hennlich is an assistant professor of art at Western Michigan University's Gwen Frostic School of Art specializing in contemporary visual culture, theory, and criticism. Hennlich’s research examines the relationships between memory and history in modern art, exploring these concepts in contemporary South African visual culture, issues of globalisation, decolonisation, and post-War Germany.
