Memory Proceeding - Bulumko Mbete
Creative Knowledge Resources is proud to support artist, Bulumko Mbete’s Memory Proceeding – an experimental, playful and non-commercial project that ventures to foster community amongst creative practitioners in Johannesburg. The project has three iterations which put together contrasting practices and conventions into conversation with each other, as well as a film programme.
Part 1: Shana-Leigh Ziervogel & Lesole Tauatswala
In the work of Shana-Leigh Ziervogel and Lesole Tauatswala, the two practitioners explore new sentiments of belonging, identity, home and the capacity of time and space to redefine constructs of identity formation and belonging.
Figure 1: Portraits of artists, Shana-Leigh Ziervogel (left) and Lesole Tauatswala (right). Photography courtesy of artists.
In Abyssynia (2019 – 2020) Ziervogel uses objects and spaces that they identify with as home and reconstructs narratives they have been socialised with as a heteronormative so-called Coloured person.
Figure 2: Installation of Ziervogel’s photographic artworks titled Abyssynia (2019-2020). Photography courtesy of Bulumko Mbete.
Meanwhile, Tauatswala’s social research on place making and identity formation in Johannesburg focuses on collective and discursive personal memories of culture and tradition.
Shana-Lee Ziervogel is a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the complexities and challenges they face as a so-called Coloured person within the colonial space that is Cape Town. Their work addresses the generational and hereditary trauma they face through their daily life; identifying with their own blackness in a racial, divided space and how they find ways to heal from these traumas. Through the medium of photography, Ziervogel uses objects and spaces which they identify with as home and reconstructs the narrative that they have been painted with i.e being a heteronormative so-called Coloured person.
Lesole Tauatswala is a Limpopo-born, Johannesburg-oriented multidisciplinary artist, curator, and writer. The point of departure of his works is via the mediums of video and photography. His work focuses on collective and personal memory premised on the Colonial and post-colonial discourses of culture and tradition. He has participated in the 2020 Kampala Biennale, as an apprentice to Laurence Bonvin.
Part 2: Sibabalwe Ndlwana & Lwando Dlamini
Sibabalwe Ndlwana and Lwando Dlamini both have a tactile approach to their artmaking practices that captures colour and form in ways that reimagine the traditional mediums that they work with. There are synchronicities in their vibrant use of colour, particularly in the mark-making of stitching and impasto techniques.
As a weaver, textile designer and researcher based in Cape Town, Sibabalwe Ndlwana’s practice and research focuses on creating and re-imagining material systems through exploring novel ways of reviving, adapting, archiving and integrating the ancient craft of indigenous African weaving traditions and material dyeing methods.
Lwando Dlamini was born in the Eastern Cape but spent most of his upbringing in the Western Cape. Dlamini lives and works between Cape Town and Johannesburg using oil paints and mixed media as his main mediums of expression. His work draws from his lived experiences by reinforcing our awareness of the fragility of the human body. Bold colour and texture are conduits for meditating on this potential for brokenness with a particular focus on memory loss. Lwando has expanded his references to including the imagery of black joy from social media platforms and the imagination of liberated black bodies.
Figure 3: Portraits of artists, Sibabalwa Ndlwana (left) and Lwando Dlamini (right). Photography courtesy of artists.
Part 3: Nyakallo Maleke, DuduBloom More & The Herd Designs
The collaborative confluence or intersection of these three tactile and three-dimensional artistic practices speaks to reclamations of space and how they embody the narratives and histories that one is constructed through practices of making, memorialising and reimagining histories of space, time and being.
Part of the final iteration of Memory Proceeding Nyakallo Maleke creates an installation through her artistic practices’ method of using the medium of assemblage in combination with the work of DuduBloom More and The Herd Designs (Mbali Mthethwa).
Figure 4: Installation by Nyakallo Maleke weaving her practice with fellow artists, DuduBloom More and The Herd Designs (Mbali Mthethwa) showcased at the Constitutional Hill with BLVCK BLOCK. Photography courtesy of Bulumko Mbete.
Nyakallo Maleke (b.1993) is an artist and writer based in Johannesburg. Her practice is grounded in an expanded concept of drawing, which she views as a means to tell stories about space, movement, and walking. Maleke’s drawings take shape through various media, techniques, and disciplines, and are manifested as installations, performances, sound pieces, prints, or sculptures. Her recent works are invested with materiality, often combining traditional drawing media with meticulous embroidery-like stitching and unconventional materials such as wax paper.
Duduzile (DuduBloom) More (b. 1990) is a visual and textile artist based in Johannesburg. In 2018 she graduated from Artist Proof Studio as a Printmaker and completed her 4th year in Professional Practice in 2019. She is the winner of the 2019 Cassirer Welz Award, a 10-week residency hosted by The Bag Factory Artist Studios and Strauss & Co.
Founded by Mbali Mthethwa, The Herd Designs is inspired by and pays homage to the iconic beading culture pioneered and mastered by Nguni women. Beading as a form of communication has always been a labour of love for which Nguni women have devoted time and energy as a creative proclamation, since time immemorial. Over the years the practice of beading has been whitewashed, taking away its ability to be truly understood for its divine spiritual beauty. The Herd Designs arises out of an effort to bring about a more meaningful and exhaustive appreciation for the practice of beading.
Figure 5: Portraits of artists, Nyakallo Maleke (left), DuduBloom More (centre) and The Herd Designs (Mbali Mthethwa) (right). Photography courtesy of artists.
Film Programme
Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu was born in Lagos, Nigeria where she currently lives. Her work is in constant evolution as she is inspired by the theme of change. Ukoha-Kalu currently focused on delving into the processes of documentation and research with an intent to use learned and invented tools to create and build archives within a Nigerian context. Ukoha-Kalu uses research and documentation of everyday life to instruct her creations, resulting in true exploratory experiences taking place in imaginary spaces. She describes curiosity as her motivating force and this compliments the futuristic elements evident in her work. Carmilla is directed by Nosazemen Agbontaen + Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu and Photographed by Iyesogie Ogieriakhi.
Figure 6: Still image of film Carmilla directed by Nosazemen Agbontaen + Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu. Photography by Iyesogie Ogieriakhi.
Ayabonga Magwaxaza flips historical notions on their head with his modern take on visual art and film. He depicts the inner and outer-world around him. The fundamental theme of Magwaxaza’s practice is always centred in the inner reflection to the outer. Magwaxaza visualizes this through a morphed reality that investigate societal structures and struggles challenging the reality that we privilege.
Figure 7: Still image of film Warmth directed by Ayabonga Magwaxaza Photography by courtesy of artist.
Khanyisile Mawhayi questions the family archive, or lack thereof, and how one begins to make sense of their past without oral, written, or photographic archives. In One Gold Sticker, she explores affirmation, empathy and concepts of repair through the acknowledgement of our daily accomplishments towards living and navigating the society that we live in.
Figure 8: Still image of film One Gold Sticker directed by Khanyi Mawhayi. Photography courtesy of artist.
Anna Sango investigates the roles of gender, transnational mobility and the informal socioeconomic networks shaping African cities. This, in turn, has informed her photography. Using the medium to document urban African environments, and the people who inhabit them, Sango roots her practice in the everyday experiences of people in the area she lives in. Dystopian, fragmented and imaginary in their approaches to constructing videographic narratives. The artists have used animation, play, childhood storytelling, and affirmations to communicate current realities that they exist within.
Figure 9: Still image of film by Anna Sango. Photography courtesy of artist.
This collaborative experimental exhibition project manifested in the form of an open studio exhibition from 28 April – 3 June 2023 at Studio 52, Creative Uprising Hub, Transwerke, Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg.
Figure 10: Portraits of filmmakers, Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu (left), Ayabonga Magwaxaza (left centre), Khanyisile Mawhayi (centre) and Anna Sango (right). Photography courtesy of artists.