Willie Bester: Untitled (Recent work: as yet unnamed) detail The work itself is set in a thick round wooden circle, with a square cut out of the inside, creating dimensions within the work. Inside the square is a main horizontal panel framed in wood, depicting a carefully oil-painted scene of a 'black spot' with a seemingly endless row of toilets. The landscape is barren, except for a monstrous yellow bulldozer looming dangerously in the background. In the foreground is a single tap, dripping water, as a little child holds onto it. The child looks lost and abandoned. Behind the child is the torso of a policeman holding a gun. His face or any other defining features are beyond the scope of the panel, but he has a guarding, menacing stance. Filling the cavities below and above the painted panel are pieces of computer motherboards and many discarded items Bester found in nearby squatter camps and townships. The pieces of computer systems are a play on words, since Bester thinks of both the past and present governments as systems. He does not know how either a computer or a government system works, thinking of them both as vast confusing networks. In the bottom cavity is a guitar made out of silver steel which to Bester symbolises the structure of power. He is referring to the Afrikaans term ""Jy sal moet dans soos die musiek speel," which means "You have to dance as the music dictates." The significance of the term is that people living in a country are part of a system, and they cannot simply do what they want; they have to comply with the standards and structures within the country. With the guitar are little objects such as a child's shoe, pieces of rubber and telephone wires. Each object has a specific meaning pertaining to the past Apartheid state or the present situation, and pressures that people encounter in a system. The small white shoe he is using to comment on the killings that continue in the country, simply because of skin colour. There are a couple of small simplified colourful images of two people placed on top of the horizontal painted panel in the centre. They represent the people of South Africa who are now for the first time also responsible for the system, because they have a vote. The two figures are "standing tall" both literally and figuratively, because they can make a difference; they are able to change the system - they are hopeful. They can challenge the government on this kind of forced removal, and not vote for them in the next election. They can bring the government into line. Bester himself said "In the past I couldn't care what was happening, because I didn't have the vote. I just had to wait for the outcome. But now I can make a difference." On the thick wooden frame around the sunken square are pieces of an antique telephone, both the wall fixture and handpiece. They represent a toy telephone, which is often the only status Bester gave to promises by the Apartheid government, such as the Open Door Policy, which he addressed in one of his first resistance works. Painted on the frame are two sets of concentric circles, depicting people during the struggle who managed to oppose the Apartheid state without violence. Also stamped or stenciled on the wood are numerous groups of five or six letters of the alphabet in order. Simply black, they represent the dehumanisation process Apartheid carried out, where people were not seen as individuals. Also stenciled in red is the industrial sign meaning 'fragile' to show the industrial and impersonal government.