Secretly I Will Love You More

This is the video component of a video-installation I made - called 'Secretly I Will Love You More.' It shows Maria van Riebeeck - a 17th century Dutch woman at the Cape of Good Hope. Maria is on record as having taken a 'Hottentot' (Khoikhoi) girl - Krotoa - into her home for a few years. Between 1652 and 1720, the Cape Dutch almost completely destroyed the indigenous Cape Khoikhoi. This artwork of mine imagines that Maria had so loved Krotoa, that she had learnt to speak Krotoa's language. In the lullaby I wrote for the work - translated by Pedro Dausab into the click-filled Nama language that would have sounded a bit like the now-extinct Khoikhoi spoken at the Cape 300 years ago - Maria sings of her love for the child Krotoa. At one stage she sings: 'I will love you as I love my own children: secretly I will love you more...' This work won the Spier Contemporary Award in 2007.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Dutch
• Baroque
• Khoikhoi
• Khoekhoe
• Khoi
• Hottentot
• 17th
• century
• seventeenth
• holland
• portraiture

[lodgechant]

Thank you Chervenotikveniche! That's very kind of you. With warm wishes from a breath-takingly beautiful winter's day in Cape Town, Andrew

[lodgechant]

Thank you for your kind words, Nahkasohvahumansti! With warm regards from a cold, wintry Cape Town, Andrew

[Mithebe]

I also saw this at the ARS11 exhibition, and I'm so thrilled to find this online. This was easily the most captivating work in the exhibition and also my favorite. Something in it is just incredibly moving and beautiful.

[chervenotikveniche]

Hey, I saw "Secretly I will love you more" in Kiasma too and I was so impressed, I couldn't go away! The most beautiful and powerful piece of art and humanity I've seen in a museum in years...

[Nahkasohvahumanisti]

I saw this in ARS11 in Helsinki today, and it really stopped me. Stunning, fascinating! I must watch this over and over again.