Artists

Zibi, Philisa

Born of The Sea, 2019
Courtesy: Philisa Zibi

Imagine a giant serpent, often invoked through song, dance, and myth, imbued with properties that speak to a harbinger of justice who brings about restoration by inciting chaos. Inkanyamba hibernates beneath the surface of the physical world, ready to erupt when provoked ... beware its wrath!
The intricate geometric patterns, ancient African symbolic references, and the ritualistic processes involved in weaving this brass and aluminum sculpture speak to the incessant research, synthesis, interpretation, refinery, and objective self-scrutiny required in our efforts to challenge the archive, creating a vast imaginary which inverts our gaze while expanding the collective Black imaginarium.
Inkanyamba inhabits a liminal space in our Sub Saharan psycho-spiritual discourse where Blackness audaciously expresses its divinity beyond the borders of coloniality.
It is in this meditative space that this work seeks to conjure the spirits of our metalsmith ancestors and vociferate their silenced rage at the face of the systematic economic exclusion of continental Africans and people of color across the globe. This work, therefore, repugns unequivocally the invisibilization of Black artistry which does not pander to the need to ingratiate itself to the white gaze in order to be deemed palatable. In this manner, it is a statement of vehement protest, a reclamation of artistic and socio-political agency by an artist invested in poking the wound, peeling the keloid, and draining the puss of a contentious past which begs redress.
When Inkanyamba awakens, it devastates the landscape, raises everything to the ground and leaves an indelible trail of destruction. In this apocalyptic aftermath, we are invited to craft a world which is just and unfettered by inequality.
Its resurgence from the ruins of our psyche mimics our own desire to subvert our universal dispossession, boldly wading through our harrowing subjugation to confront and heal generational trauma ...

Text: Vuyokazi; deutsche Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler

Imagine a giant serpent, often invoked through song, dance, and myth, imbued with properties that speak to a harbinger of justice who brings about restoration by inciting chaos. Inkanyamba hibernates beneath the surface of the physical world, ready to erupt when provoked ... beware its wrath!
The intricate geometric patterns, ancient African symbolic references, and the ritualistic processes involved in weaving this brass and aluminum sculpture speak to the incessant research, synthesis, interpretation, refinery, and objective self-scrutiny required in our efforts to challenge the archive, creating a vast imaginary which inverts our gaze while expanding the collective Black imaginarium.
Inkanyamba inhabits a liminal space in our Sub Saharan psycho-spiritual discourse where Blackness audaciously expresses its divinity beyond the borders of coloniality.
It is in this meditative space that this work seeks to conjure the spirits of our metalsmith ancestors and vociferate their silenced rage at the face of the systematic economic exclusion of continental Africans and people of color across the globe. This work, therefore, repugns unequivocally the invisibilization of Black artistry which does not pander to the need to ingratiate itself to the white gaze in order to be deemed palatable. In this manner, it is a statement of vehement protest, a reclamation of artistic and socio-political agency by an artist invested in poking the wound, peeling the keloid, and draining the puss of a contentious past which begs redress.
When Inkanyamba awakens, it devastates the landscape, raises everything to the ground and leaves an indelible trail of destruction. In this apocalyptic aftermath, we are invited to craft a world which is just and unfettered by inequality.
Its resurgence from the ruins of our psyche mimics our own desire to subvert our universal dispossession, boldly wading through our harrowing subjugation to confront and heal generational trauma ...

Text: Vuyokazi; deutsche Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler

Born of The Sea, 2019
Courtesy: Philisa Zibi