Dunja Herzog: There is Fiction in the Space Between

Dunja Herzog has taken the title for her Cahier d’Artiste from American singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman’s Telling Stories (2000). The song lyrics address the relationship between subjects and the world around them. Chapman reminds us how important it is to tell and keep a record of our own stories because there is always an in between in our perception of reality that is based solely on the powers of the imagination. This distance between reality and subject is a place where temporal, spatial and social differences are re-envisioned with the potential of changing the world.

Dunja Herzog investigates in her work the distinction between the world around us and the world we perceive. Herzog begins with the observations she made while travelling and living in West, Central and South Africa. The social conditions, the postcolonial discourse and the way in which the territorial construct known as “Africa” is debated are the artist’s central concerns.