Exhibition

Reciprocal Narratives about Place about Home

22 November 2013-16 January 2014

Picture by Preston Rolls

The exhibition speaks in various media: video, photography, written text, and performance. The artists are drawn by birth from the physical spaces of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Wales, Germany, and some exist in between different places.

Reciprocal Narratives about Place about Home is an exhibition that reviews the parallels and differences in our interactions with place or places, and how place(s) impose on our identity, perceptions, experiences, and sense of belonging. Further exploration of the theme leads to the breakdown of boundaries between place and home, and thus the exhibition discusses and asks: what is place, what is home, and to what extent and with what results can we extract ourselves from places and their powers?

“As humans in trying to identify or simplify things, we irrevocably desire to categorise things and events according to time and place and thus impose this form of contextualisation on basically all narratives. Place and time become the tangents to how we position as well as relate events from one to the other. For example our national identities or demographic dispensations are coined according to the geographic, ethnic and racial differences that we enacted as ‘civilisations’, there is therefore an unavoidable desire to name, to locate, to place thus Meghan Judge’s myth or legend falls into the context of being placed as a narrative from Madagascar. This is the power of places they come up with various unique narratives be they fictional or myth they have a spatial origin as we discover in “Who is Master Pierre Be?”

Curator : Mthabisi Phili

Artists

Charles Bhebe : Zimbabwe,

Sindisiwe Buthelezi : South Africa,

Justin Davy : South Africa,

Jade Gibson : South Africa/England,

Christopher Hunt : Wales,

Meghan Judge : South Africa,

Zodwa Nyoni : Zimbabwe/UK,

Mikkel Rytter Pulsen: Denmark/Zimbabwe,

Preston Rolls : Germany,

Thabiso Sekgala : South Africa,

Allen Sibanda : Zimbabwe

Who is Master Pierre Be? In 1984 the Madagascan Kung Fu Riots broke out in Antanarivo led by a mysterious Master Pierre Be – these rioters were attacked by the Tanora Tonga Saina, Ratsiraka‘s private presidential security force. At the time, the only coverage of the tragedy was that which the government told to be true, claiming they had killed the man and the people who were making the market place ‘unsafe’. Yet, nobody was shown to the public, thus allowing Master Pierre Be to slip into myth slowly building an almost cult-like following. That was a long time ago, but today the story is still alive, or, as some claim, it never died…

At this stage is it safe to say that most narratives both fictional and non-fictional speak more about place than they wish to? Nonetheless, there are other spaces therefore that are not Madagascar per say, these spaces have their own histories and trajectories that made them into places, into towns or cities, whatever they are now they were once voids: empty spaces, and by passing through time and happenings they gained context and content and become places with narratives.

There are different stories, heroes and fragments from other places even the collective memory has layers and they is no better way to explore the questions ‘what is place?’ ‘what makes a place?’ than to bring into cognisance the unique narratives of various places and encounters between places and people, various opinions of what is place and what is home hence the exhibition brings these views into discussion through works of various artists. The performance work of Zodwa Nyoni (Zimbabwe/UK) explores the idea of home as inextricably linked to her family. She says, “I can no-longer return to the point of origin…homeland has changed…Zimbabwe is my beginning…it gave birth to me, gave me a name…England is my every day…it has loved me and rejected me and I realize that I exist in the space between Zimbabwe and England. I pull from both to identify who I am.”

Justin Davy (South Africa) is a filmmaker and visual artist, whose work interrogates the relationship between public and private spaces within the postcolonial South African context, focusing on unravelling personal narratives. His video My Town profiles South Africans’ journey to work in a unique culture in proximity to song and dance.

Thabiso Sekgala is a South African photographer, whose Homeland Series looks back to the Apartheid era and explores the ideas of place and identity. The politics of place are closely linked to those of land, ownership, and identity––leading to conflict. His work in the exhibition helps us negotiate the comparison of two places––Zululand and Bulawayo––an interesting pairing, as these two places are linked by historical politics.

’Exhaustion’ photograph by Sindisiwe Buthelezi

’I know a place’ paper collage by Allen Sibanda

“It is less greener than they say it is” painting by Charles Bhebe

The discussion about place and home conjures up a consciousness of our geographic position––a position which is becoming more and more negligible in this time of globalization, rapid migration trends, and technological advances. A question arises as to how we redefine and identify ourselves in these changing times, and thus the exhibition questions the role of place or lack thereof.

Perception 360

30 June – 30 July 2011
Curator: Mthabisi Phili Artists Christopher Hunt, Virginia Chihota.

Perception is seeing and a way of seeing, 360 degrees is a state of completeness. Perception360 embodies a way of seeing and a state of completeness in viewing diverse realities. Perception is observation with opinion and therefore perception varies from person to person: we may all see a similar reality but we may come to different conclusions on what it is and what it means. This is the starting point of the exhibition, it implies that it brings into cognisance diverse views from 2 artists, it brings in their perceptions: how they bring about different opinions and observations through their works.

The artists in this exhibition are Virginia Chihota and Christopher Hunt. Hunts photographs, exhibited here can be said to be critical narratives of ‘people in their conditions’. Starting with the latter, the exhibition contains 16 images that reflect Hunt’s impromptu observations and encounters with peoples and their place from Burma to South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, and Tibet to Zimbabwe. The most connective element in the collection of the images is the conscious or unconscious comparison of people in their different spaces which Hunt travelled, he travelled more than 30 different countries most of them former British colonies his native land.

Elements of class structures, repression and humanity start to appear as one moves from one image to the next. One can compare the ‘tramp’ and ‘policeman’ below: 2 very different public figures: with the latter having all the airs of control, order, regulation, robotic and confined existence in contrast with the laxness, unpretentious, disorderly but carefree life of the tramp.

This comparison says a lot about authority: how it becomes tied, limited and bound in its “being” especially through oppression and preservation of appearances. The policeman’s’ fine-clothed and looking polished in his well-kept black uniform really resonates with the times of the colonial era, as much as the tattered and sagging chair can denote of “fissures in a system.” The picture was taken in India. The policeman is displayed in mid-air with an indistinct and faded background. There is not much connection in terms of the persona with the camera besides the vague eagerness of him wanting his picture taken.

Link2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44482107@N07/5174635663/in/set-72157625090555127

The photographer advances from his technical arguments and experimentation with the lens into a more inquisitive and questioning gaze at the condition and situations of his subjects. In the photo ‘Fishing for Democracy’ the Burmese fisherman is transformed into a question mark ‘Will he ever catch the fish or will he tumble over and fall into the great sea?’ and also an idea of ‘waiting’ is implied by the photograph “is he waiting for the fish or for an elusive democracy?’ democracy has been elusive in Burma as much as it has been in Zimbabwe. In both states there is a plight of the ordinary people economically and politically; there is remoteness of freedom and civil liberties. The 2 countries share an almost similar state of affairs.

Virginia Chihota is a Zimbabwean, her themes are more centered on Zimbabwe. Her artwork titled ‘no clear road’ (2010) points to a boggled mind, frustrated and waiting anxiously for things to change or waiting anxiously for a political reprieve? She is more or less in a quest of questioning this period in Zimbabwe, this time of “a deceptive independence” a freedom that has brought turbulence and instability instead of prosperity. This leads her to do pieces titled “I search for Peace” and “Uncertainty” Her works included here are a commentary of the social, economic and political environment of Zimbabwe. Her work presented here varies from small serigraphs in centimetres to relatively big pieces such as the 7 metre “Bandage my Sores” piece which is Serigraph on Hadenga. Her preferred hues and tones are dark for these artworks.

Virginia’s prints highlight a huge investment in technique; she textures both the fabrics and papers to enrich the surfaces and thus the creative process; her technical manipulation results in a very rich tapestry of imprints, contents and engraved impressions. Her body of work exhibited here has her medium ranging from brown paper, calico, and watercolor paper.

Virginia Chihota:”I search for Peace”

No clear road- Serigraph

The Artists:

Christopher Andrew Hunt (Welsh)

Hunt is currently doing his MFA in photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Hunt has travelled and photographed extensively in Burma, India, Tibet, South Africa and Zimbabwe etc. Hunt’s photos are critical and intelligent summaries of the spaces he has been. He has exhibited at Voices in Colour Annual Exhibition and at the Gwanza Month of Photography.

Virginia Chihota (Zimbabwe)

Chihota, she studied fine art at Harare Polytechnic and attended the British American Tobacco (BAT) workshop in Zimbabwe. Her major is print-making, paintings and textiles. Her work is incorporates a lot of textured fabrics, paper: Serigraphs. Intense and expressive use of colour renders her works psychologically moving. She has had countless exhibitions in and out of Zimbabwe. Her work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Delta Gallery, Verandah, and Art for Hope amongst others.

Blue-pencil 2010
Curator: Mthabisi Phili
Artist: Mthabisi Phili

Peace, Mixed-media, 2009

Street signs and situations, Charcoal on Canvas, 2009

2010 sees Zimbabwe deep in the trudges of political turmoil, there seems no end or hope for the situation: rampant inflation, economic meltdown, di-industrialization have all brought the country to its knees, in a bid to re-gain control and power which is slipping into the hands of the opposition party MDC, Mugabe through state agents: the Police , the army and generally all parastatals and governing bodies has revved them up towards a state machinery that represses everything not in line with its agenda and is foreign. Therefore the point of departure for the Mthabisi Phili, is informed by the Zimbabwean experience and situation in the Mugabe era; from the observations and realities in Zimbabwe since 2000 to present day 2010.

The exhibition is centred on issues of state, the relationship between government and the people, as well as the ruling governments’ policies that have led to the dire situation on the ground. The concerns of the exhibition are to question, expose and comment on existing undesirable realities in Zimbabwe in all aspects. The theme Blue-pencil comes about as a result of intense censorship directed at all forms of expression by the government. Artists, the print and digital media are censored by the government because of the political situation in Zimbabwe. Blue-pencil means censorship, is an appropriate and pregnant theme for this exhibition in 2010.

Mthabisi Phili says of his work “In the situation of ‘Zimbabwe’ in the past years and to present day: the police under the Mugabe regime are known for their corruption, brutality and unfriendliness. I took this reality and produced a satirical image of the police as a subject in my artworks: that of a policemen holding up a peace sign (refer to image). The silhouettes or figure of the police is used both symbolically and satirically in my work. Police have changed from being the public protectors to being the public persecutors in the Mugabe Era especially in this period. This was the reality in Zimbabwe, the state agents are the most feared. Censorship by police under the guise of internal security is a problem. The secret police are virtually everywhere, we exist in a state of Big Brother or 1984 reflected on by George Orwell, hence the placing of the police figure/silhouette is repeated in most of my artworks to reflect their presence almost everywhere”

The Song, Oils on Aliminum, 2010

The exhibition has seen six art pieces being entered for the Freedom to Create Prize 2010 and this will see them tour 4 continents. Habakkuk Trust a partner in the exhibition, held a follow up workshop that was attended by participants from 8 secondary schools, the workshop touched on the social relevance of art and youth participation in decision-making processes. To make the exhibition a reality Voices in Colour partnered with The National Gallery in Bulawayo and Habakkuk Trust.

Exhibition

Reciprocal Narratives about Place about Home

Perception 360

The Artists:

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