In the Wake featuring Container is a site-specific performative intervention featuring the virtual reality (VR) experience Container produced by Dr Meghna Singh and Simon Wood.  Dr Meghna Singh is a visual artist and a researcher with a doctoral degree in visual anthropology focusing on the theme of migration, from the University of Cape Town. Simon Wood is an Emmy nominated filmmaker also based in Cape Town, whose films have screened at the worlds largest film festivals and won numerous awards in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

The work is part of a series of site-specific performative interventions in the six port cities of South Africa. They encapsulate moments within the history of the city that speaks to the import and export of people and things. In Durban, the site specific installation reflects on the arrival of the Indians as indentured labourers on the SS Truro in Port Natal on 16 November 1860. Speaking to Dr. Meghna Singh, she had this to share:

“The Durban Installation In The Wake featuring the virtual reality experience Container is personally very meaningful to me, being from India and having to reflect on the arrival of the Indians to work as indentured labour in the cane fields.

Simon and I have been creating site-specific installations and it’s been very important to find and activate a site where we can actually bring the audience and make them think about the space. In Durban, the site we selected is extremely important because on the one side you see Salisbury Island - where the Indians were quarantined when they arrived in Natal, and on the other side you see the vast ocean - where the first ship, and the ships following the SS Truro would have waited before people were taken into quarantine. Also when you’re standing on site you see Umhlanga and Durban North - where the cane fields are.

I think for us, what was also quite important to reflect on, is this legacy of people who profited and the creation of this fictitious logo, White Gold. If you come and experience the performative installation, you see the two white people who are marketing and sweet-talking you into drinking the sugarcane juice. And the juice coming from the sugarcane sort of epitomizes labour: The juicing symbolizing labour-hearted work, and then people drinking it. But who’s selling it to you are the white capitalist people. And so everything is quite subtle and you have to read between the lines - the logo on the container, the marketing people selling you the juice, sort of all comes together at that site - to reflect on indentured labour.

When people go inside the containers and they put on the VR headsets and experience Container - which is extremely visceral, but connecting capitalism to modern and historical slavery; then they come out and see all these container ships coming in -because we are at the mouth of the Durban harbour - I think that’s an extremely powerful experience. Because everything sort of comes together, and when talking to the audience on Friday, they felt the same: They came to the site, they saw the container and the cane fields, and they liked it. But once they went inside, had the VR experience and came out - Everything fell into place and made sense.”

Container has been exhibited at the Venice International Film Festival 2021, the Tribeca Film Festival 2022 and BFI London Film Festival 2021. It was shown at the Nobel Week Dialogue organized by the Nobel Prize Foundation in 2021. To experience In The Wake featuring Container on site in Durban for this weekend only, see details below:

Location: End of South Point beach, opposite Salisbury Island (near On Point Restaurant)

Dates: 24,25, 26th March 2023

Time: 3-6pm

Booking: Free to everyone, no booking required

Written By Lex LaFoy