Creating Space to Breathe and Be HERE.

I am a gay man of colour living in South Africa. So much of who I am is rooted in the experience of this city, Johannesburg. I think much of my own creative experience has always been limited by the belief that I cannot take up space. HALLS BREATHING SPACE 2.0 put out the theme Breathe For It as this years mentorship challenge. HERE, a mixed media mural about being authentic and taking up space, was my response to that theme.

"They represent us [queer people], a body of people who are fearless, courageous, and defiant."

A breathing space to me is one where we can be our authentic self, a safe space. A space that inspires and encourages newness and celebrates uniqueness while being accessible to all. The mural is a portrait of two queer men, composed and framed yet also soft and lingering. They represent us, a body of people who are fearless, courageous, and defiant. They are the vanguards. They stand to salute and also to remind us that there is more to come, that they have left their mark and that they reflect all of us. The piece is layered both in its meaning and its experience and attempts a new way of creating street art.

It was important to me, as a creative voice, to use the platform afforded to me through this collaboration to reflect on my own experience and give back to the city in a way that would contribute to the living story of queer people in South Africa. My intention is to create work that is authentic and reflects the experience of queer people so that it can open doors for new voices and reflect a more diverse narrative. In a way I got to take up space and exist vicariously through my artwork. I get to take up space and do it in the most authentic way possible. I also have a formal background in architecture so I approached the idea of street art as a spatial intervention. By doing so I allowed myself to access the core of my creative roots. So in creating this mural I accessed the many layers of my own experience and superimposed them onto the very walls of the city I call home.

"Queer bodies are resilient and cannot be removed from the making of space."

The mural is experimental and saw me exploring the the street art application of wheat-pasting. However, instead of using bond paper I substituted it with tracing paper. The choice of paper was my attempt to play with the many different layers of colours and lines altogether. Therein highlighting our layered and lived experience. The mural calls on the viewer to touch and engage, to tear off and remove parts of it and to slowly reveal the base layer; a simple form. This action reminds us that queer bodies are resilient and cannot be removed from the making of space. The project is also a reminder that space is not always a creation of the physical but rather that it is shaped and inspired by the collective experience. - I.I.I

Dustin August in 3 sentences

I am an independent self-taught, multi-disciplined visual designer with photography, graphic design and illustration as my current creative outlets.

My work can be described as a deliberate composition of structure, form and fluidity with the intent to evoke and frame a feeling.

I play along the lines of portraiture, fashion and design and now my intent is to explore themes around the queer experience and how it adds to contemporary culture.