The animated video series entitled Drawings for Projections attract much empathy in the viewer. Kentridge employs narrative elements, graphics and music to generate fascination and emotional involvement. He produces his video using a technique similar to that of classic animation, drawing all images by hand with charcoal and pastels. Instead of drawing each of the figures on a new sheet, however, he performs the entire process of a sequence on a single surface. 1

He reproduces a frame base from which to delete individual elements, in order to then redraw new ones, thus creating a different image every time. In this way, the characters and the stories emerge whenever the artist draws from the traces left by the previous design, creating an atmosphere evocative and poignant.

Kentridge produced eight of his ten animation movies Drawings for Projection – Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City after Paris (1989), Monument (1990), Mine (1991), Sobriety, Obesity and Growing Old (1991), Felix in Exile (1994), History of the Main Complaint (1996), Weighing and Wanting and Stereoscope (1999) – between 1989 and 1999.2

This is a dramatic period for South Africa that, with the end of the Cold War, is strongly pressured by the International community to end apartheid. Between the launch of liberal reforms, and a wave of racial violence  from who opposed it, South Africa achieves the abolition of apartheid and carries, on April 26-28, 1994, the first elections by universal suffrage that lead to the election of Nelson Mandela as President of the Republic (1994 -1998).

Kentridge’s films embody his complex political beliefs, without becoming didactic. His films, intimately connected to the drawing process, are amalgamations.