27 Aug 2015

Perhaps, poet Berry Heart is right to say we are a hypocritical society leading a double life.  She argues that many of us are sinners mingling gracefully with the innocent. Conversely, she might be wrong or just out to defend her artistic creations that many believe blur the thin line between the acceptable and unacceptable.

Whatever the case, Berry Heart, an artist whose creations are not bound by moral codes, strongly believes that art imitates life. Many still recall the controversy she stirred after she posted some of her nude pictures on social media. She would later tell us that she did so to draw attention to the inherently ugly soul of men in a patriarchal construct. 

Since then, Berry Heart has been talk of the town. While many people are wondering whether the artist is reckless with art or has gone explicitly too far in relaying her message or is simply going through some sort of psychological collapse, others defend her as just a creative artist in the footprints of likes of Shumba Ratshega and Ratsie Setlhako whose lyrics have also been deemed distasteful by many. 

“Mine was just to pull down the facade to put in plain sight the ugly face of a patriarchal society. Women are sexual slaves, we don’t own our bodies, whether we put on clothes or not, we still get raped and that is the message my picture conveys,” she reckons.

With a clean shaven head, sculptured eyebrows and somewhat weary smile illuminating her seamless countenance, she says through her nude pictures she wanted to reveal the crude reality of sexual slavery of women. 

Unfortunately, she says, her art has been unjustifiably subjected to a hostile moral reading. However, the question that then arises is whether society must be a passive consumer of art? “I belong to that generation that calls a spade a spade. Someone must do it to change the way we think, and I chose to do it,” says Heart somewhat in subversion of convention.   

Regrettably, it seems the message she intends to convey may never reach its targeted audience given the imagery has been subjected to mockery, false interpretation and misreading particularly from those on the conservative side of the binary code. 

“It just shows how people are still illiterate in so far as art is concerned. I cannot control the way people interpret art,” she retorts, dismissing contentions that she actually wanted to marshal support for her new album, Berry Heart for Dinner.

“It has nothing to do with that. I never do anything because I want attention,” say the free spirited gender and human rights activist.

Nakiso Kubangi, an officer in the in the Department of Art and Culture, presenting her personal views, says people should not get worried if messages are distorted in any piece of art. “It must not be obvious, people must be allowed to ponder what the artist wanted to communicate. That is the nature of art,” posits Kubangi.

In complete contrast with other women who coast silently through life with a heavy burden of patriarchal entrapment, Heart understands that women too are entitled to a real life and should not be subjected to any deprivations.

“The way you see that picture is exactly what men see when they look at a woman. That’s why, we, women are raped no matter what we wear. Can you give me a reason why grannies are still raped? They don’t wear mini-skirts, they have all their bodies covered, but they still get raped. The eyes of perpetrators do not see our clothes,” laments Heart.

Heart says those who find the picture indigestible should also condemn men’s actions towards women. Whatever reasons she advances, it seems she would not escape the wrath of those who find her art offensive.

 “A 29-year-old a tlhola a apotse mo facebook le fa gotwe in poetry you express yourself, she must be watchful of scandal or losing dignity,” are just some of the comments on facebook punching holes if not making mockery to the manner she does her art.  

“I know some people have even gone to the extent of insulting me, we are a hypocritical society. Who buys my CDs, who attends my shows, who wants me to sign their autographs? These are the very people who in public tell you that my art is offensive,” she says.

However, there are those who stand with Heart that ours is a society failing to come face to face with its soul and that art does not in any way reveal the life of the artist. “Art at its best,” today you berried my heart, I am impressed by the level of your confidence,” are some of the expressions on Facebook landing support to the artist. Ends