Bubblegum Club

Tag: ancestors

  • Artist Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga on negotiating the relationship between the past and present

    Artist Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga on negotiating the relationship between the past and present

    Eddy Kamuanga Illunga is a young artist from DRC whose work focuses on the nuanced layers of his country and hometown, Kinshasa. He began art studies at Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, and found that it assisted him with the technical aspects as a painter, but muffled his work conceptually. As a result he decided to leave the institution, and found himself drawn to other artists with whom he found an affinity. Collectively they formed a studio called M’Pongo which offered a space for them to share ideas and exhibit together, molding their own styles that were plugged into the electricity of their city, and inserting this into the Fine Art space.

    Individually, Kamuanga Ilunga zones in on the socioeconomic, political and cultural alterations that have taken place in DRC since colonialism. He has created work that unpacks the nuances around the impact of modernity on cultural groupings, and the way in which people in Kinshasa are negotiating change and tradition.

    DRC is one of the largest exporters of coltran, a raw material necessary for the production of computers and cellphones. Kamuanga Ilunga makes reference to this visually through a stylized mimicry of a circuit board painted across the skin and backgrounds of his images. This also has the effect of placing his work, his city and the people he depicts in his paintings within the context of globalization, signifying its overpowering consequences. In his latest series, Fragile Responsibility, we see this motif used as the skin for the figures, while cloth, hats, suspenders, lace table covers, and porcelain objects tap into the history of the Kongo Kingdom, and the exchanges that took place with colonial traders. In this work Kamuanga Ilunga pays tribute to the slaves and ancestors who resisted the human trafficking. The figures appear somber and mournful, with their heads hanging low and cloth barely hanging on to their bodies, symbolically pointing to the loss of life and de-centering of African cultures through colonialism and the condition of coloniality.

    To check out more of Kamuanga Ilunga’s works visit his Instagram.

  • Open Time Coven – Mxit and Mythology

    Bogosi Sekhukhuni consolidates millennial media technology and inherited cultural practices – creating complex modes of identity in the digital age. Although geographically located in Johannesburg, the web of his reach extends far beyond the metropole. “I was raised to understand myself as an African first, and secondly as a South African. My grandmother is from Botswana and I grew up regularly visiting Gaborone. From a young age I was surrounded by my mother’s peers, a lot of whom were visitors from around the continent.”

    Aspect of heterogeneity precipitate through other elements of his life too. Over the course of his career Sekhukhuni has constructed a visual language matrix. He refers to this process of historical excavation as “throwback visual culture mining”, drawing on his own subjective experience as well as a larger discourse of popular culture. Influences are drawn from his experience of the “black aspirant middle class” and growing up with early South African social media technologies such as mxit. “I mainly draw influence from other artists or people through the attitude they present their ideas in more than the content itself.”

    Consciousness Engine 2- absentblackfatherbot, Dual Channel Video Installation, 2014 two channel video Edition of 3

    KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

    As a conceptual artist, his practice orbits around notions of dismantling oppressive and outdated knowledge systems. “It’s tragic that our curriculums pay homage to the ideas and histories of others more than our own. To me, this is a fundamental problem. Our obsession with the future is based on a materialist approach to space-time. I’m interested in learning about how my ancestors understood reality and applying that to my practice and life.” Sekhukhuni aims to amend the Pan African agenda and shift its focus to spiritual development. “I think we need to draw more from African spirituality and realise the potential for social transformation that’s inherent in it. We need more right brain female energy in African leadership.”

    Sekhukhuni engages with the information economy in his work. His recent launch of Open Time Coven serves as a new platform of access and intervention. As a manifestation of his online presence, the site is a direct conduit to share his ideas to a global audience. Art products and a store will be hosted on the website by Sekhukhuni and his collaborators every new moon. He will also be participating in an annual studio residency exhibition at the Bag Factory – exploring the trauma culture in Johannesburg. Restore the Feeling opens on the 28th of July.