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In Transitions, South African artist Paul Emmanuel employs various media, including photography and film, to reveal layered visions concerned with his identity as a young white male living in post-apartheid South Africa. It comprises a series of drawings made with a blade on photographic paper that contemplate manhood and the transitions an individual goes through in society. An adjacent video installation explores the liminal moments of transition, when a young man either voluntarily or is forced to let go of one identity and take on a new identity as property of the state. The exhibition raises questions about what one actually witnesses in such rites of passage and how these and similar "rituals" help to form and perpetuate identities and belief systems throughout history. Why is one so powerfully drawn to and transfixed by these dramatic spectacles of subtle change and moments of suspended possibility and impossibility?
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