Conversations Ancestrale

6 June 2019

Multidisciplinary artist Rita Mukebo’s latest body of work, Conversations Ancestrale, is the culmination of a three-week residency (9-31 May), held as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Wits History of Art and Heritage Management Department and Waza Art Centre. It is the second residency to have come out of this collaboration.

Starting from 1 PM until late, this day of curated events included talks, a film-screening and more. Functioning in conversation with the exhibition Artist Unrecorded, which was held at Wits Art Museum (WAM) during May, Conversations Ancestrale is comprised of a video performance and installation that explore themes of migration, isolation and bureaucracy.

Curated by a group of post-graduate students from Wits History of Art and Heritage Management Department, Conversations Ancestrale highlights the challenges that Mukebo faced in obtaining her visa from Lubumbashi (DRC), as well as the language barrier she encountered during her residency in Johannesburg.

Where Artist Unrecorded attempted to provoke the absences in the museum’s archive and collection of cultural material objects from the DRC, Conversations Ancestrale employs shoes and water as motifs to evoke wear and tear, as well as the cycles of life and death, the notion of time passed, distance travelled, and things lost or gained along the way. In this way, Conversations Ancestrale, creates a conceptual link between musicological practices, immigration policies, and the migration of objects and people.

Curated by Emma Brent, Zakhele Ndlovu, Gemma Hart, Nomvula Dlali, Nikita Raubenheimer, Stefanie Jason and Sven Christian, this project is funded by Standard Bank and the Goethe-Institut, and aims to engage ongoing conversations on collection histories and museological practices.

Photography by Reshma Chhiba