More and more artists are turning their attention to climate change and the impact humanity and capitalism have had on our planet. However, it is tricky to tackle these issues in a way that is not didactic or preachy. 

Bonita Alice, who has recently resettled in South Africa after a long spell in the UK, has somehow, through subverting vintage detritus to generate a quirky set of miniature statuettes, settled on a vocabulary or form of expression that digs into humanity’s hubris and exploitation of the natural world that is charming, humourous and politically astute.   

Fittingly, I first encounter Alice’s exhibition, Unbearable Heroes, on the opening night when load shedding shrouded the top gallery at Nel on Church Street in Cape Town, in darkness. Discovering each work courtesy of a beam of light from my phone feels somewhat akin to stumbling through a foreign or vacated space, discovering a lost civilisation, a defunct museum perhaps. This is apt given Alice’s works – a series of mini sculptures that evoke the past, but are reassembled into strange new objects that poke fun at human follies.  

The sculptures or assemblages are diminutive, highlighting their function as incisive refractions of reality. They are fashioned from found objects Alice presumably sourced from vintage or second-hand shops. Each wry title, extracted from travellers to foreign lands in the 15th century, reads as a parody of human behaviour, particularly concerning the animals that are central to each assemblage. This leads you to consider that perhaps humanity can only truly conceive of itself through “another” replication of itself – something an analysis of AI is starting to make clear.

‘I Put Out from Land, Encountered A Wind, And Drifted Here’ 2016_7. H25cm. Mixed materials.

Alice’s uncanny assemblages exploit a single motif – toy animals mounted on small wooden boxes – of the sort in which you might keep jewellery or other precious items. Some of these animals are adorned by clothing or fabric and are positioned in an “unnatural” context. In Altar, for example, a miniature cow appears to have fallen off the titular altar nose down, as if purposefully knocked off its religious pedestal. Of course, animals aren’t usually placed on pedestals or indeed on altars. This is the point Alice makes with each assemblage in placing the animals in human contexts, treating them as if they are not only human but are prized beings – those after whom sculptures, art, are made. The animals are the titular “unbearable heroes”, the beings humanity refuses to acknowledge. Though we too could be these despicable beings – “unbearable” due to our arrogance and greed, but also in how we have treated humans as animals – which the reference to old texts in the titles evokes.  

The human qualities attributed to the animals are highlighted through the titles of the works. For example, one reads, In all these countries people wear two cloths, which refers to a work with a cow with a small jumper tied to its body. The work titled Thieves are Invincible, unbearable heroes presents a horse with a shirt draped around its neck. 

Absurdity is achieved through this device – assigning human characteristics and behaviour to animals. We don’t associate animals with “bad” behaviour such as stealing or deception. In this way Alice draws the viewers’ attention to the fact that animals are inherently innocent beings – incapable of graces, and ego or malevolent activities that humans are capable of. From this point of view, who are the lesser beings, the animals or the humans? 

Yet in presenting each animal on a box, that could stand in for a pedestal or a plinth of sorts, Alice seems to suggest that if animals behaved more like humans we might value them as we do some of the so-called historical figures that are the subjects of art, sculptures, even though their greed or avarice were the very characteristics that allowed them to be valued by society. Statues of colonial-era leaders come to mind here and given that Alice has spent a good decade settled in London, she may well have encountered numerous examples of these works in that city. 

Altar. 2016_17. Mixed materials. H40cm.

To make her point, about the wickedness of humanity, particularly concerning its treatment of animals, she works with those that are “everyday” – cows, horses – not like the big five who perhaps are revered to some degree. Not only are cows and horses perhaps taken for granted, but they have been grist for the mill of progress and greed. Cows are reared in such large numbers to keep up with humankind’s consumption of meat, which has led to an increase in methane gas emitted from cows. This has contributed to climate change. 

Horses were once a form of transport and are used in various sports (racing, lacrosse, show-jumping). This historical role is alluded to in the work, They Love learning and are well instructed, where a set of wheels obscure a horse’s legs. The title in this instance, is not only an anthropomorphic device intended to elevate horses, but also draws attention to the twisted manner in which this is used to exploit animals – implying that humans justify their exploitation of animals by claiming they “enjoy” to be trained or to serve humans. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that public sculptures from the colonial era present men on horses, thereby drawing attention to their ability to “tame” and control nature, which no doubt was the underlying goal of colonial-era expansion and the exploitation of natural resources. 

There Are Both Heretics And Believers Among Them. 2016_7. H32cm. Mixed materials.

In this way Alice’s assembly of quirky miniature objects, which due to the dated materials appear to not only hail from another era but dig into our colonial-era past and pry open its connection to climate change, show how it socialised abuse of nature and people. 

These are, of course, all fashionable themes, but Alice’s approach is refreshing and so apt to the subject matter as her vocabulary has been almost entirely repurposed from “the source” – the past and likely British society.   

Read in Daily Maverick: The term ‘emerging’ might not be serving artists

Alice lives the ethos she advocates – in upcycling this bric-a-brac into art but also turning this visual culture, and humanity more broadly speaking, in on itself. This modus operandi is mirrored in the titles, where too the texts are turned inside out, through the objects with which they are paired. These quirky works are also desirable; you feel compelled to collect them – as they are novel miniatures, reflections of the world. For surely humans love nothing more than quirky things that expose our foibles. DM/ML

Unbearable Heroes is at Nel Gallery in Cape Town until the end of May. This text was produced during an independent journalism development project by African Arts Content focused on the Church Street art node in Cape Town.