Unpacking Voices of Forced Migration: Personified Significations of the Ubiquitous Plaid Bag in the Works of South African Artists Nobukho Nqaba and Dan Halter

Mullen, Sophie-Anne

Abstract

This research examines how South African artists Nobukho Nqaba and Dan Halter interpret the ubiquitous plaid bag in their artworks to reflect the ineluctable entanglements between migration and identity. Utilising Ferdinand de Saussure’s sign formula, the research exposes the bag’s lack of a universal name due to its complex association with migrant communities. When the bag is further deconstructed using theorist Irit Rogoff’s rematerialisation of the sign formula when examining luggage and suitcases, the bag is shown to have a paradoxical definition of both ‘displacement’ and ‘home’. Isolating and deconstructing the intricacies of the artist’s portrayals of the bag within this context reveals how the bag exists as more than just as a metaphor for arrival or departure. Instead, it resides in a sort of spatial-temporal transmission, thus interpreting the concept of identity as something that exists in constant motion.

Citation

Mullen, S.-A. (2025). Unpacking Voices of Forced Migration: Personified Significations of the Ubiquitous Plaid Bag in the Works of South African Artists Nobukho Nqaba and Dan Halter. SOAS journal of postgraduate research, 16, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00043298

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jan 23, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 23, 2025
• Journal: SOAS journal of postgraduate research
• Print ISSN: 2631-3812
• Electronic ISSN: 2517-6226
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 16
• Pages: 1-18
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00043298
• Keywords: Plaid mesh bag, forced migration, South African artists, identity, displacement, sign theory, post-colonial theory, migration narratives
• Publisher URL: https://www.soas.ac.uk/research/soas-journals-and-books/soas-journal-postgraduate-research