Bubblegum Club

Tag: trauma

  • KutalaChopeto // Home is not a place anymore – reimagining histories of belonging

    KutalaChopeto // Home is not a place anymore – reimagining histories of belonging

    KutalaChopeto‘s exhibition opened at The Point of Order on World Refugee Day. Teresa Firmino and Esenje Helena Uambembe are an art duo who work collaboratively under the name KutalaChopeto. Their collective practice began in 2016. For this latest project, they focused their research on different communities based predominantly in the North West and Gauteng province – reconsidering stories of seemingly forgotten and disenfranchised communities. KutalaChopto collaborated with curator Maren Mia du Plessis, visual artists Loyiso Mzamane and Setumo-Thebe Mohlomi and Christiano Selmo Uambembe.

    Born from the rupture of the Angolan Civil War and the perceived ‘threat’ of communism, the South African Apartheid government sought to recruit and re-train a select group of FNLA (National Liberation Front of Angola) troops. The secret division were known as the 32 battalion or “the terrible ones”- most South Africans were unaware of its existence until it was disbanded in 1993. Many of these men were already married or from refugee camps. Those who were unmarried were encouraged to wed Angolan womxn in order to produce more soldiers. Teresa described how, “the system itself was violent, so it continued to produce violent bodies.”

    The soldiers were promised land in exchange for fighting alongside the South African government and therefore were relocated between 1988-91 to Pomfret in the North West. The desert town has become increasingly abandoned – utilities have been systematically shut down by the government as a means to vacate the town under the guise of a safety breach from asbestos poisoning.

    KutalaChopeto’s project is centred around the community itself, specifically the womxn whose voices have been historically silenced. The collective was interested in how they ended up in the camp as well as their experiences with living with men who have undergone war and tragedy. The legacy of that trauma appeared to manifest through the normalisation of violence within the larger community. The duo sought to collect histories and translate them visually. Their chosen mode of rewriting or reconstructing history extends beyond documenting the past and interrogates historically held narratives – through a deconstruction and reengagement of fragmented stories previously neglected. KutalaChopeto locate this narrative within an intra-continental perspective between Namibia, Angola and the Border Wars during the height of Apartheid and also examine what remains. “Home is not a place anymore. It becomes the people you are with.”

  • Artist Wanja Kimani’s interrogations of private and public power

    Artist Wanja Kimani’s interrogations of private and public power

    Kenyan-born artist Wanja Kimani has a visual practice that strings together stories and visual histories which comment on the idea of home, displacement, trauma, memories and imaginations.

    While imposing elements of her own life in public spaces, she occupies the positions of both narrator and character. This is evident in the various media she uses to construct her work, including installation, performances, text, film, textiles and sound.

    One of her recent works Expectations, a collaboration with Annabel McCourt, is a performance that was presented at Dak’Art 2018 – Biennale of Contemporary African Art. It was performed in response to Annabel McCourt’s Electric Fence. The work dives into the complexities surrounding borders, immigration, race, as well as private and public power, and how these forms of power are constructed. These larger themes are interwoven with explorations of mortality as well as personal and physical boundaries.

    In the video of the performance online, the first few seconds create the impression of eyes opening after a long sleep, with shots of lights hanging from the ceiling and wire fencing coming in and out of focus. The voice of the narrator recalls memories from a childhood, presumably the childhood of the character (played by Kimani) that appears on screen. As the narrator goes on to explain how walls will come separate the children mentioned in the recollection of memories, the viewer sees Kimani maneuvering between wire fences and throwing rocks and bricks on top of each other, as if intending to build a wall or to examine what remains of the structure these bricks once constituted.

    The poetic narration speaks of silencing, leaving home, crossing borders, and the traumas that accompany this. The interaction between the words and what the viewer sees create a heaviness, the relevance of which becomes apparent as the story of Charles Wootton is told. The narrator shares how Wootton has died as a result of a racially motivated crime in Liverpool in 1919. He was thrown into the water at Kings Dock, and as he swam, trying to lift himself out of the water, he was pelted by bricks until he sank. Kimani writes his name on a blackboard during the performance. She then goes on to write down the names of many other victims of hate crimes. In this way the victims are mourned and celebrated at the same time.

  • Meghan Daniels – The Photographer capturing honest emotion through the people closest to her

    Meghan Daniels – The Photographer capturing honest emotion through the people closest to her

    Candid intimacy. Grit. Snapshots of personal memories. Longing. These are the descriptions that come to mind when looking at the photographic repertoire of Meghan Daniels.

    Meghan Daniels is a Capetonian photographer whose work falls largely under the wing of documentary photography. Regarding her camera as an extension of herself, Meghan does not view what she photographs as subject matter, but instead a compilation of experiences taking the tangible shape of a photograph. “Basically, I guess I don’t care too much for photography but rather a sense of what I interpret, to be honest,” she expresses in an interview with DEAD TOWN zine.

    Meghan’s photographic practice began as a visual diary of sorts as she is drawn to capturing those closest to her – herself, friends, family, as well as memory inducing spaces. She articulates further that her visual diary acts as a way of capturing her feelings which touch on themes related to sexuality, gender issues, relationships, intimacy, love, pain, mental health and recovery. She sees photography as a mirror of herself and the world around her. “When people ask what I do, it’s difficult to say I’m a ‘photographer’ and that I ‘photograph’.”

    Photography has acted as a medium to facilitate processing the more difficult aspects of life for her. In her personal projects, Meghan captures moments as they unfold with the passing of time. In documentary projects her approach is grounded in research, participatory research methods which including the person/persons the project are centred around, as well as self-reflexivity which plays an integral function. Her commercial practice foregrounds certain visual signifiers that are a trademark of her eye, namely honesty, vulnerability, intimacy and grittiness.

    Meghan works as a photographer and cinematographer in a professional capacity. Her go-to camera arsenals are her Contax point and shoot as well as her medium format Mamiya. She is never devoid of inspiration. She finds it in the work of fellow South African creatives, areas seen while driving and the small details in life such as broken, flickering light bulbs just to name a few. But as is the case with most artists, feelings of melancholy also lend inspiration – trauma, heartbreak and so forth. Meghan often uses her practice to heal her own pain.

    Images of honesty and true emotion. Real people and real events. Meghan Daniels’ practice tugs on the heartstrings as her candid style is one that projects authenticity and the real nature in which she photographs those close to her makes one feel as though you know them or can identify with the feeling they convey.