Donated by the artist.
From the artist’s Lockdown Series. Limited Edition Digital Inkjet Print of 10, on Hahnemuhle, German Etching paper.

About the Artist:
Susan Woolf is a professional artist who has used her career in art to communicate and challenge. She began to document the taxi hand signs used by commuters in 2004.
Susan Woolf has exhibited in South Africa and abroad, including in Atlanta, Washington and Germany. She participated in ‘Talk to Me’ at the MoMA in New York, where a system she designed for people who are blind to read Taxi hand signs, was exhibited.
Her Museum exhibitions in South Africa include Museum Africa, Wits Art Museum (WAM), South African Jewish Museum (SAJJ). Museum exhibitions abroad include: Klutsnic Museum in Washington, Jewish Museum in Atlanta, Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).

About the silent gestures of Taxi hand signs:
Taxi hand signs, a silent gestural system communicated by word of mouth, is a creative innovation born out of the desperate need for transport for millions of Black people during Apartheid and is still fully operational till today.

About the Work “Dictionary GRID”:
This artwork represents the culmination of years of research and documentation of the many taxi hand signs. At the same time, it is the catalyst for a future series of artworks that demonstrate the significance of the narratives that so profoundly relate to history, time, place and South African culture and highlight the creativity that taxi signs bring to the fore.

It is a compilation of 50 individual watercolours of gloved taxi hand signs and shows the equivalent graphic sign system Woolf designed for people who are blind. Political and historical events and narratives, and moments of significance referred to by commuters or drivers make up these silent gestures. Descriptions of place, objects or incidents that may have occurred in the past or more recently, are narrated through them.