cruel optimism

the belief that love will last.

the hope that justice is possible.

the wish for recognition.

the will to wake each day.

 -       Danai Mupotsa

According to American Professor Lauren Berlant, a relation of cruel optimism can be understood as what happens when something we desire begins to hinder our flourishing (2011). Here, the objects of our desire can be characterised by a kind of love, an affiliation with specific institutions or political projects, as well as a series of habits that promise an improved way of being in the world. Berlant posits that these optimistic relations are not inherently cruel, but rather become cruel when the object that we find ourselves attached to actively blocks the aim that brought us to it in the first place (2011).

If the nature of these optimistic relations is such that we are animated by possibility and yet remain at an impasse, then the Wits Young Artist Award calls for applicants to submit creative responses that grapple with this fraught dynamic. Applicants are invited to explore the complicated relationship between our desires and the forces that impede our willingness to act on them.

Applicants were asked to consider the following...

What happens when the objects and relationships that sustain us begin to threaten the world we have come to rely on?

What happens when our feelings of justice begin to substitute the drive towards enacting the structural transformation we wish to see in the world?

How do we let go of our cruel attachments without losing our optimism in the process? How does the transformative power of love offer us a way out?

How might we begin to imagine alternative objects into being?

shortlisted artists

Raphaela Cocotos

Aneesah Girie

Yakira Gischen

Nina Jacobson

Sehlorana Kekana

Princia Matungulu

Brian Montshiwa

Bronwyn Newcater

Matsi Wa Lesego