This special collections item was loaned to the exhibition Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance curated by Kathryn Smith and Roger van Wyk, Iziko South Africa National Gallery, December 12, 2009–February 28, 2010. It is indexed here as part of Smith and Van Wyk’s revisiting of the Dada South? Archive of materials at A4 Arts Foundation.

Possession Arts was a performance art collective that operated in Johannesburg in the early 1980s, echoing earlier initiatives like the Glass Theatre and the Space Theatre. A loose affiliation of artists driven largely by Ivor Powell and John Nankin, incendiary and short-lived, Possession staged multimedia performances at various locations, from laboratory theatres to Powell’s empty rental apartment.

Courtesy of John Nankin.