ARTIST STATEMENT – Ladeirarte

My art exposes the human side of displaced people on the continent of Africa and around the world. I am a victim of two civil wars, and I use my own lived experience of displacement to shed light on the daily struggles and humanity of ordinary people. My works celebrate as well the originality, cultural wealth and artistic diversity of the African continent. The works are meant to reminds us of the discord that prevails in the African continent.

“My works are meant to remind us that we have the chance to recommit ourselves to civic engagement for our humanity.”

Art Practice:

My “Crossing Over” exhibition portrayed a tragic human crisis at the Mediterranean Sea. The displacement and demise of young African migrants in search for a better life is a human crisis.

“The tragedy on the Mediterranean Sea, raises awareness of our own passivity to injustice, human suffering and violence and neglect. My works elucidates how we, as by-standers, divorce ourselves through our silence, viewing the story through filtered lenses, essentially perpetuating the suffering and consigning of migrants to a status of the ‘Other’, detached and dissimilar to ‘me’, ‘you’ and ‘us’. I also draw parallels in how similar ‘you’ and ‘we’ are to ‘him’ and ‘them”.

For this body of works I chose to work on a combination of drawing, collage and paintings, where images consist of collage, drawings and painting on canvas. My choice of multimedia is deliberate and has to do with the fact that as an art form, it includes different properties that comes together to create one body of work. This echoes with the life of migrants from different countries, cultures and religions found themselves on a single boat with the aim to cross over the Mediterranean Sea and reach Europe in pursue of a better life.

I use bare bodies and not grounded figures, to symbolizing lack of identity, or not belonging to any geographical location. Their extraordinary lives have been reduced to one word “struggle”. The spread out bodies on my canvas suggests mass tragedy, conceptually and figuratively this presentation of multiple images epitomizes the life of the migrants that has become routine and taken for granted. By painting over the images, on the fabric used as background, I brings an element of originality to the works since paintings cannot be repeated like the prints (on the fabric) can be. The idea of originality echoes the cold, dark, deep and stormy Sea, a unique experience that migrants goes through the crossing ordeal.

I am inspired by works of a few contemporary artists such as the British/Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, (use of the fabrics) or the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (Law of the Journey, 2017), the South Korean artist Kim Sooja (Bottari Truck, 2002 – 2009), Kara Walker’s silhouettes, or Kehinde Wiley’s works with brightly colored fabrics on the background.

My works are mostly made with “brightly colored Dutch wax fabric” that are today widely used in most African countries. Without doubt this has become a contemporary symbol of African attire, where it became known as African fabrics. I cheerfully use the brightly colored wax fabric to dress up my canvas as an element of playfulness. The combination of fabric and identity is used by artist Yinka Shonibare where he dresses up his eighteenth century artworks figures with brightly colored Dutch wax fabrics. The use of brightly colorful wax fabric adds a playful element to my work. For For me it is a unique opportunity to celebrate the life of many innocent people in pursue of a better life. Metaphorically, playfulness in this case can been linked with the idea of a playground for politicians or smugglers who make a profitable business out of this tragedy.

The challenges these migrants face, such as lack of job, housing, privacy, electricity, water or poor sanitation, cannot be divorced from the “poor governance or leadership” from countries where they come from. A condition that has become a norm in most under developed countries.
For me, these works represents an opportunity for an exceptional moment to contribute meaningfully to the current discourse on the displacement of people and social cohesion. This is an opportunity to give voice to the voiceless through art. It is a moment for civic engagement to inspire compassion and to return ‘Ubuntu’ and the human face to the suffering of the marginalized members of our communities. This is also an opportunity to celebrate the greatness of this Continent. As an artist, I believe to have a social responsibility to make a positive comment, no matter how small, to engage my audience in this dialogue. I further believe that by shifting the focus from the negative and confrontation, as manifest in this tragedy and brutal images, I will be giving a chance to the audience to look at the migrants, men, women and children from a different angle. Consequently, this act aims to restore the dignity of the migrants and sensitize the passive spectator to take an interest in the suffering of migrants.
I make a connection between own story and the images of the migrants I portray, due to the fact that I am an immigrant myself, and for many years I lived with anxiety about the next step to follow…“I often ask myself, what is going to happen to me next? Will I get the right documentation to stay in the country? Will I be able to find a job? Am I going back to my country? All these questions fill up my mind 10 times a day, and create tension within me.”

Early 2000, I did Silkscreen on metal sheets – where I used metal sheets to create prints. This medium refreshingly deviates from the tradition of using paper or canvas as the foundation of my artworks. Pictures or portraits are printed out of rusted metal plates using silkscreen technique. These images are suggestive of fragments of people’s memories. The philosophy behind this production of work is that, often we pick up objects out of the ravages that could remind us of someone or simply moments of the past. These particular prints are symbolic of the civil wars around the African Continent where people continue to lose their lives, possessions and in many cases, they have to move to other places for shelter and security. The works can be viewed as commemorative prints for all people living in areas affected by political strife, economic instability and poverty. Printing faces onto damaged and rusted metal plates suggests the drama of loss, disappearance and the displacement of a population. These rusted metal plate prints on silkscreen speak for the people who lost their lives. They speak for those who are about to lose their lives. The images on these plates represent me, you, them and all of us. The work is therefore not about the loud sound of the cannons, explosives or machine guns but the silent ghosts that dwell on the surfaces of dilapidated houses, walls, roads, bridges and wreckage. These works cast light on the deep expressions in the eyes of every man, woman or child and carries the untold stories that the world often does not know-the stories the world chooses to ignore.

From the year 2000 to 2006, my projects involved working mostly with groups of women affected and/or infected by HIV in informal settlements and townships such as
Eshowe, Endlovini, Welkom, Winterveldt, Ivory Park. These projects were coordinated by Phumani Paper from Technikon Witwatersrand (now merged into University of Johannesburg) and were aimed at providing jobs opportunities for single parented-mothers and HIV Positive women. There are 21 satellite units located at various informal settlements in 6 different provinces in South Africa.

On these programs, I taught the women the craft of sustainable papermaking.

For some years I worked with a group of (mostly women) from KZN Papermaking and Craft Project in Eshowe. I commitment was to alleviate the struggle of the women ceramists especially with the problem of transportation from their village to the nearest city where they sold their products at the market. During transportation of the finished products to the city, at times up to 40% of their products will get broken! To maximize their profit, he suggested a collaboration plan modeled on Participatory Action Research Methodology, allowing participants (the ceramists) to be directly involved in the planning and implementation process. In taking ownership of this project, the women felt motivated in contributing with their ideas, time and creativity. Working with them was an opportunity for me, not only to share my ideas as well as to learn from their long tradition of “ceramic” craft making. “We enjoyed working together because it allowed us instead of experiencing problems emanating from our different backgrounds; we celebrated our diversity by enriching each other with new ways of approach in preparing and using the clay bodies.” As an artist I also learned from this experience and had an opportunity to share practical and constructive information with the Eshowe community.