Rugby- a group exhibition

hannalietaute

Jan 31

"The people gathered to watch as the bulls play the final test" 122 x 85 cm Photographic print on board, thread and rubber 2023

Since I don't watch rugby and I don't really get caught up in the hype of this sport I decided to focus my attention on the spectators. Trying to figure out why this sport is so popular in our country, since it actually originated in England. Jaco Taute is a South African retired rugby union player. Are we family? I don't know. My grandmother is not with us anymore so I can't ask her, and my aunt who knows a lot about the Taute Family tree suffers from dementia so I cannot ask her either. But I remember my family gathering around the telly to watch rugby. Most of them were avid Stormers supporters, but for this piece I focused on another rugby team.

Work in progress

I used a family photo for this exhibition and I found the following words to make up the title for this piece: "The people gathered to watch the bulls play the final test." (thinking about a popular slogan and newspaper headline: 'Our blood is blue' which is commonly used to describe the fans of the Pretoria based South African Rugby Union team: The Blue Bulls.) The title I used is composed of words from the fairy-tale colouring book which tells the story of 'The golden fleece' (a Greek myth) which is also one of the oldest myths of a hero's quest. To quote Jim Hamilton a former Scotland lock: "Rugby although the ultimate team sport needs casual fans to buy into heroes. It needs kids to buy into heroes. We need the media to buy into characters. We need to make rugby cool. We need to make it accessible. It doesn't need to be about the game but about experiences, about the stories, the athletes. If it doesn't happen now, we are going to be left behind."