Nomadic Figurations of Identity

This study focuses on Berni Searle¿s art, in which she searches foralternative figurations of identity. For Searle, identity as a category seemsinsufficient, as it cannot account for individuals of mixed heritage. Searle¿sbody of work testifies to an attempt to position and locate herself andmarginalised subjects within post-apartheid South Africa. History,tradition, culture, race and gender are pivotal to Searle¿s visualexamination of her body and her identity, as these inscribe the subject atboth symbolic and physical levels. Identity was investigated within SouthAfrican context and the contexts of various postcolonial, postmodern andfeminist debates. Searle¿s works were investigated revealing nomadicsubjectivity, as philosophised about by Gilles Deleuze and theorised aboutby Rosi Braidotti. Nomadic subjectivity promotes the notion that identity isfluid and located in the interstitial spaces between dichotomies andvarious debates. The habitation of such liminal spaces in the intersticesbetween binary oppositions and views relates to what Homi Bhabha hasdefined as the ¿third space¿ and the notion of hybridity.