Quantum Afterlife brings together six digital drawings and a video to interrogate South Africa’s mining histories and their entanglement with global technological progress. Minerals extracted from African soil power the advancement of the West, while the lives and deaths of mining communities are left unacknowledged yet commodified as content. This project confronts these violent extractions, while also tracing the countercurrents of resistance through activism, artisanal mining, and artistic speculation.
Why “quantum”? Because nothing is fixed. Everything is in flux. The connection between land, consciousness and the cosmos is at the core. This project rejects neat narratives and assured answers and instead asks questions it understands as impossible. It proclaims: There will be no clean break. The resolution will be messy. Using glitched-up, autographic, found and layered media, Quantum Afterlife invites viewers to reflect on systemic power and accepted truths to reimagine how technological futures might be reconfigured towards relation and renewal.
STUDIO PRACTICE
Wherever I am in the world, the studio is my favorite place! The fact that the location of the studio often changes is generative for me. Often it is a place of isolation and even deprivation. I use whatever materials I have at my disposal and the solitude of these spaces means I never know what might happen next.
ACADEMIC DRAWING
Ever since I was very young, I have been attempting to learn and explore through drawing. Once I became the Head of Painting at Rhodes University, I was inspired to push this passion even further. Like any other skill, drawing is about practice. It's a good thing it is also a lot of fun.
INSTALLATION
Installation is the perfect combination of all the things I love about art practice. Not only does it allow me to work with the autographic, it also allows for a performative element and exploration into three dimensional space.
TEXTILES
Whether it was my mother, aunt or grandmother, the women that raised me have always used their hands. It occured to me that their touch was lnked to healing. They were able to take trash and make it into something beautiful. They even moulded me into a thing of beauty. In my practice, I am attempting to immitate this alchemy. It is a constant effort to manipulate the material realities, particularly of undesired objects of poverty.
SELF PORTRAITURE
In the age of selfies, I've found that the best way for me to look at myself is through another kind of self portraiture. Instead of using the camera lens, I get a lot from using ink, charcoal or paint and I find these processes quite cathartic.
