UNACCEPTABLE
by Donna Kukama
02/02/2012 - 25/02/2012
(click on image for colour version)
WORKS FEATURED IN THIS EXHIBITION
Donna Kukama. 1963. 2012. Photographic Print. 123x83cm. Edition of 5
The exhibition UNACCEPTABLE presents a fictitious story composed of various elements drawn from researched material as well as well memory. The story is a romantic novel set in the 1950's-60's, during the time of the Mau-Mau war of independence in Kenya. It draws inspiration from a collection of various ‘love’ territories previously inhabited by the artist, and forms a series of works that invite a fragile and personal point of experience within spaces that are historically framed as ‘political’. The shift towards fiction and narration allows for one to then enter a space that allows to speak of oneself from a distance.
This story is a follow-up of Not Yet (and Nobody Knows Why Not) [2008], a performance piece that took place during a protest gathering of Mau-Mau war veterans against the current Kenyan leadership. During this performance, Kukama stood at the entrance of the venue where people gathered and, seductively, and ultimately violently applied red lipstick to her entire face.
Through building unlikely relationships between already existing objects, imagery, and histories, this exhibition merges major and minor histories in order to transform a universe that was once immaterial into one that is tangible through sound installation, video, and photographic works.
Johannesburg-based Donna Kukama is a multimedia artist working in performance, video, text, and sound installations. She completed her postgraduate studies at the Ecole Cantonale d’art du Valais in Sierre (Switzerland) in 2008, under MAPS (Masters of Art in the Public Sphere). Kukama has participated and performed in various local and international exhibitions and Art Fairs, including the Joburg Art Fair in 2009, Art Miami 2009, ARCO Madrid 2010, and FOCUS11 in Basel. She has been nominated for various art awards including the MTN New Contemporaries Award (SA) in 2010, as well as the Ernst Schering Award (Germany) in 2011. Together with Kemang Wa Lehulere, she co-founded the Johannesburg-based NON- NON Collective in 2010, which received a nomination for the Visible Award (IT) in 2011. Kukama also works amongst a group of artists, curators, researchers and writers at the Center for Historical Reenactments, a research and project space founded in 2010. She has lectured, and is currently a faculty member at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg.
IPP EVENT UPDATE:
Poets & publishers Gus & Nicky Ferguson and Sue Clarke will host a discussion about informal publishing and poetry on Saturday 10 September 2011 from 11:00 to 13:00.
Jonah
Sack. b. 1978, Johannesburg. MFA Glasgow School of Art. Currently based
in Woodstock, works as a full-time artist and was the 2009 fellow of
the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts.
Francis Burger. b. 1986 in Tshwane. MFA, University of Cape Town. Currently functioning as a researcher, artist, writer and part-time lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch. Based in Woodstock.
Francis Burger. b. 1986 in Tshwane. MFA, University of Cape Town. Currently functioning as a researcher, artist, writer and part-time lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch. Based in Woodstock.
