On the 21st of March 2007, Cape Town–based artists Douglas Gimberg and Christian Nerf began a year-long collaborative project with the simple but serious brief: “Build a boat, grow a beard.” The random events and interventions included Planting an Apple Tree in Paradise, for which the pair planted a tree in Paradise Valley, near the South African town of Knysna, and producing an Afrikaans translation of Anton Szandor LaVey’s controversial book The Satanic Bible.
The significant climax of Gimberg and Nerf’s collaboration was titled Escape to Robben Island and took place on May 9, 2008, when the pair, along with passenger Barend de Wet, another South African artist, rowed their way to Robben Island in their small, handmade wooden boat.
Robben Island, just off Cape Town, is most famous for being the political prison where the leaders of the struggle against apartheid, including Nelson Mandela, were incarcerated. There are a few recorded escapes from the island, but sharks and strong seas separate the island from the mainland.
Despite inhumane treatment, Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and the other prisoners on the island engaged in rigorous discussions, which have contributed to the image of the prison as an influential site of political intellectualism. Today the entire Robben Island is a museum, a commemorative symbol of the strength of the human spirit through adversity.
Gimberg and Nerf started building their boat in their studio in central Cape Town, and then later completed work in a backyard behind a shebeen, or drinking spot, called Mlamli’s in the township of Guguletu. During this time the artists, who are white, lived in the small room in the yard that a group of young black artists known as the Gugulective—a conflation of the words Guguletu and collective—use as a shared working/exhibition space.
Many observers in the art world doubted Gimberg and Nerf’s journey to Robben Island would actually take place. It seemed as if the act of building the boat was enough of a performance. But on the appointed day, which was cold and windy, the two artists and de Wet posed on the beach for prelaunch photos, and according to their later reports reached Robben Island three hours later. There harbor authorities refused permission for the three to land, and they had to turn and row back.
Although the artists took photos of the journey, they say these will not be released until 2018. No other conclusive evidence of the actual trip exists. The appeal of the sprawling, extended performance piece Escape to Robben Island lies in the complex symbolism of its intriguing concept and in the smokescreens thrown up by Gimberg and Nerf, which might be read as a sophisticated exercise in myth-making.
Planting an Apple Tree in Paradise 2008
85 x 63.3 cm
Archival digital print
Image courtesy of the artists
Photographer: Daron Chatz
© Douglas Gimberg and Christian Nerf
Escape to Robben Island 2007–08
Image courtesy of the artists
Photographers: Various
© Douglas Gimberg and Christian Nerf