A theatrical research on the life and work of Irma Stern and the complexity of image making.

How to make an image of someone other than yourself?

Irma is a multimedia theatre play about the life and work of Irma stern addressing the complexity of image making by Eva Bartels and Iman Isaacs.

Eva Bartels is an artist and theatermaker from the Netherlands who finds herself in dialogue with Iman Isaacs – a South African director, actor and theatre maker with Cape Malay roots. The conversation uses the life and work of Irma Stern as a point of departure to reflect on themes such as extraction vs exchange, exoticism, political and nonpolitical choices in art, cultural and ancestral knowledge, chasing the sense of belonging, a female future, the activistic power of art and theatre.

Eva and Iman get to the bottom of things, digging their way through history and reflecting from their perspectives as two female artists from different continents both sparked by the desire to change the narrative.

ABOUT IRMA STERN
Found on https://irmasternmuseum.co.za

Irma Stern is considered one of South Africa’s most prolific and powerful artists who played a leading role in introducing avant-garde art to the country.

Born in 1894 in South Africa, Irma Stern received her formative education in Germany where in her early career her work was exhibited to great success. She returns to Cape Town and “The Firs”, now the Irma Stern Museum, becomes her home and studio.