Representation is sought for by those in the artistic discipline. There are those in the practice who paint the landscape of their community, encourage sustainability and inventiveness. Patterns amongst these artisans include respect for the integral elements that make the fabric of the nation; taking paths that inform the agency of the people and speak to the soul of a nation, respect for the craft, which is sustained by teaching and learning. These techniques are passed on from people who have understood the principles and can guide the use of material.
We can gain insight into art looking at the turn of the socioreligious culture: The mosaics observed in the Byzantine Period; Dalmatian stones and the Judeo Christian practices of Britain. There are lawful tablets and stones in history that instruct the system. Ordinances set the path be followed by a revered figure.
Apart from following principle, there is a sense of creating to delight the senses, showing new pursuits and collaboration.
Seyni Awa Camara is a clay sculptor who models works as ritual practice and forms creatures taken after proverbial addresses in her traditional belief. Her artistic approach is respected by Magdalene Odundu featured at the Gallery of Everything in 2023.
‘Many cultures obliged the new slave to make symbolic gesture of rejecting his natal community, kinsmen, ancestral spirits and gods…’1
Referring to The Convert written by Danai Gurira. It is a fictional story rooted in an account of cultural, socioreligious practices of 1859 Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia. Using history as a guide, the writer relied upon factual existence of the Matabeleland and Mashonaland and its people. She highlighted the very relevant choices made by children of hybrid cultures. Having lived between different cultural scenes, there are different respects to civil life post colonialismm the invading West with the introduction of Christianity.
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga is an artist and also a maker. He chooses to depict the children of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The artist makes important reference to technology.The silhouette is like a negative space: a black circuit board of connectors. This refers to the land’s rich minerals, linked to its history of producing a wealth of minerals,mined for the benefit of the Western world. Ilunga commentates on the fabric of this ethnocentic culture. He engineers the scenes with set design such as furniture pieces, of which are the customs the ventilation bricks like those of Brazzavile. the features seen along the coast were breezeblocks with patterns that resemble the arabesque Jali screens. The memory of the mission to expand the Catholic message is the thread woven into the artists concept. He relied upon descriptions and his own memories of its legacy in present time. The strengths her looks to show are experiences of people with connection to former practice: an intuitive way of living. His art tells of the importance of carrying one’s community.
Kamuanga exhibits at the Contemporary Art Fair. He explores religious practice and the ways in which it has crystallised in the consciousness of generations. It is woven into their thoughts, effecting the reflection on times past. In the scenes, the characters look to relics of catholicism, symbols associated with cleansing and blessing, seen to clutch at them. The thurible clearly is in the clasp of the young adults, who we perceive to be young children. They reflect the sides of a generation, past and present, showing existence in the former colony- the precious terracotta clay breeze blocks which adorned fences Within the tale is some bidding to continue the work of the mission which seems to affect the lives of families. Where the function is to document and recall the past, the artists express a sureness in their people. There is a tale within the literal earth.
Olamide.
Taken from Houghton, G. Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga: Ghost of the Present, Published by October Gallery, 2018, p. 30
Notes:
- Patterson, O. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982, p.54. ↩︎