Date: Thursday 6 October 2022
Time: 17:00 - 21:00
Youngblood Gallery
70-74 Bree Street
Cape Town
Otherness; the innate quality or fact of being different.
Often used within a negative connotation, to ostracize, belittle or Isolate.
How does one quantify difference?
Tatum (1997) states the seven categories historically used to place people in target groups are:
Race or ethnicity | Gender | Religion | Sexual orientation | Socioeconomic status | Age | Physical or mental ability
Challenging the narrative of otherness is essential for growth.
Why is this the case?
Differentiation ensures the disruption of conformity, the idea that things must exist in singularity.
Synonymous with variation, differentiation marks the vast and unique array of human existence, the multiplicity of all things and thus the richness, fullness and multi dimensionality of beauty in all its forms. Otherness informs our idea of the collective, mirrors the ways in which each moving part, though unlike any other, is important and valid in its existence, contributing something irreplaceable and one of a kind.
‘Otherness’ speaks to the power of an individual to strengthen communities. The power in freedom of expression, unbound by a singular notion or way of being. Imperfectly perfect. Respect can only be fostered in the love and appreciation of otherness. - Written by Bontle Wichterich
