This curatorial project takes itself as a point of departure into the inquiry of Memory as a location. Memory as a productive terrain (or site) of identity exhumation, identity-making, and of place-making. I am interested in the notion of memory work, the idea that investigates Memory as a site of study. The aforementioned will be the framework that will guide our journey in traversing the terrain of memory, and its potentialities in the present; how it allows us space to imagine ‘future memories’.
place-making
How do we locate ourselves in space and time? How do we choose to remember where we belong? These questions are the point of entry into investigating the idea of belonging via the route of memory. The idea that our sense of home is,to an extent, the materiality of memory; made up of things that we cannot leave behind.
identity-making
Upon the effective locating of ourselves in the private or public terrain, how do we handle those memories to furnish our identities? How much of it do we carry? Here, I am interested in strategies that artists use to incorporate the archive in their practice. How the archive becomes a location of access into memory, and also how the locations in the archival materials are also triggers of memory. Here, the location of memory is two-fold: literal (physical archival devices) and metaphysical (the idea that we carry memories in our ‘minds’).
Artwork above: Khwezilokusa Mathonsi, Lebo, Braamfontein, 2016, digital photograph, A3, edition of 3 + 2 APs, R4,500 ex. VAT
Sherwyn Jantjies, Untitled 2, 2020, Oil on board, 44.5 x 35 x 4.5 cm, R5,000 ex. VAT
Bulumko Mbete, Tsomo/Scotland to Tsomo, Digital print, 2020, A5, R10,000 ex. VAT
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. He is currently doing his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand.
302 x 571 cm | 118 7/8 x 224 13/16 in.
© Gilbert & George. Courtesy White Cube
Matthews Kweana, Accepted and Forgiven, 2021, acrylic paint and chine collé on paper, 64 x 62 cm, R8,400 ex. VAT
To enquire about any of the artworks in this exhibition
Further Reading In Articles
African Artist Directory