Sue Clark
THE GODS OF PRETSHWANE
Madiba's ear hare
The sculptors of the Mandela statue, Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan van Rensburg were not permitted to sign the statue and instead inserted a small hare in his ear as their mark. The tiny hare in Madiba’s ear was deemed disrespectful and removed, evidencing the importance of what a statue memorialises.
The controversial hare is depicted jumping in and out the ear of a life-size section of the Mandala statue’s head in an augmented reality animation of the graphite drawing.
The hare is often associated with being a trickster in the African myth and this particular hare lives on in the legacy of the statue.
Madiba's hare. 2021
Graphite pencil on paper, 63 x 31 cm
Augmented reality animation
Process
The movement cycles stages of the ear hare looking from side to side and turning around were hand drawn in pencil, scanned, and animated using Adobe Premiere Pro and After effects.
