A Soft Hold | History as Somatic Experiencing
ANAĂS DUPLAN ON KAPWANI KIWANGA
âI come from documentary filmmaking,â explains Kapwani, though it didnât take long before she felt hedged-in by the traditional documentary format. She now thinks of her work as a search for a new kind of documentationââone that might open up different intelligences in her audience.
Knowing, for Kapwani, is a corporeal process. It requires disinvestment from the mind and a sense of perceptivity instead toward sensory experience.
âThe body becomes much more important,â says Kapwani. âLanguage falls out in this space.â
I wonder whether the falling away of language is at any point a loss. Isnât there a benefit to the written word in conveying the sorts of complex narratives she takes up in her work?
Kapwaniâs 2015 exhibition at South London Gallery was an installation-based retelling of the Maji Maji war. Named Kinjeketile Suite after Tanzanian spiritual medium Kinjeketile, the artistâs solo exhibition arises out of Kinjeketile’s prophecy: that if the people accepted his offering of sacred water, they would be immune to the attacks of German colonists. Colonial East Africa then became the site of a spiritually-driven revolt in the early 1900s.
The writer in me imagines several books worth of information that could be conveyed about this event; however, language may ultimately keep us tethered to a mind-driven approach that would fall short of embodied, experiential knowledge Kapwani desires.
âIt’s true that the information itself does get lost. That doesn’t bother me at all. Because the facts of the document are not as important as the effects,â she says. Whatâs important are the effects and affect, she adds. Affective narrative-building is layered and elliptical and rises out of folklore, local knowledge or oral history.
Despite her suspicion of the written word, archives and libraries are a consistent launching place for Kapwani. She roots her work in an archival sense of the historical events and legislature that have led us to the present moment.
âYou talked about going to an archive in Tanzania?â I ask, referring to an earlier part of our conversation.
âMm-hmm.â
âThe phrase âthe archiveâ is fairly open-ended. How important is it to privilege physical archives when we talk about archives?â For the last couple years, Iâve been researching the history of Black experimental documentary, which I define as an approach to documentation that privileges sensory experience over the legibility of the information being transferred, but that nonetheless has a vested interest in truthfulness. One commonality Iâve found in the artists Iâve researched is that archives, literal and figurative, are usually the starting point.
âEverything is an archive,â says Kapwani. In Tanzania that was so clear. The physical archive was so meager. What I found was that the archive was everywhere else.â
She described her trips to rural Tanzania, to battle sites and sacred sites alike, as she learned about Kinjeketile. âThe elders had knowledge,â she continued. Sheâd found only little bits and pieces of information in the National Museum and House of Culture, with additional data coming from The Maji Maji Research Project, a study of University of Dar Es Salaam history students from the 1960s. Everything elseââwhat would become the foundation of her later workââcame from her fieldwork.
I ask how pertinent her training in anthropology still is to her work. Beyond artmaking and documentary filmmaking, Kapwaniâs background includes both anthropology and comparative religion.
âAnthropology’s a funny one. I don’t know how much I’ve taken from anthropology apart from how to access an archive and read a bibliography. Things like that,â she says. She names comparative religious studies as continuing to be important too, as they provided a foundation for her ideating around philosophy and various world cosmologies, as she does in her work on Kinjeketile.
âThe documentary filmmaking is still quite present,â she continues, as she ruminates on the myriad aspects of her educational background that have led her to this moment. Perhaps these experiences make up a sort of archive for her, or within her, as an amassment of memory. So too are her installations as an assemblage of images that pursue us as we navigate through space, this sequencing of imagery according to tempo and rhythm another marker of her documentary background. Even the body is drawn into the vocabulary of filmmaking.
We always come back to the body: the body taking things in, the limits of its, its permeability with the environment. Bodies interacting with, or absorbing, each other; ambulating.
âI don’t actually know exactly how to ask this,â I begin, somewhat carefully. âIn poetry, we sometimes say that the work has to teach the reader how to read it. Do you feel your work needs to do this? Do you ever worry people wonât know how to access things?â
âI don’t know,â she said, and then said it again. âI don’t know. It’s not a thought of teaching necessarily or instructing. Iâm trying to get people to slow down and to see the layeredness of things. Itâs not so much teaching, but creating an experience of an alternate space,â she explains. In this alternate space, both historical violences and the wisdom of somatic knowledge are highlighted.
âI don’t try to evacuate it into a soft fluffy world,â she adds.
When she was invited to create an installation in Bordeaux, a major site linked to the triangular trade in the 18th century, she built an immersive environment from large, hanging indigo ropes. The former goods processing warehouse was then diffused with blue, powdery light.
âYouâre plunged into this very blue spaceâ she says. The effect of this is a soft, enveloping environment in which visitors could be figuratively encircled in the structural violences within Bordeauxâs history. Rather than instructing us on how we ought to feel, Kapwaniâs work creates what she calls âexit strategies,â which are, in other words, a means of leaving the predicament of Western epistemology.
âThese are these slight fissures or openings that can allow one to exit,â says Kapwani. Once weâve exited, weâre able to experience history as immersive, as all around us and within us, rather than as a distant, disembodied fact. The fierceness of this approach is that we can then no longer escape history. âYou have no choice,â she says, without malice at all.
The work, after all, is an invitation rather than a trap. Itâs a confrontation, no doubt, but a soft, enveloping confrontationââas alluring a confrontation as you can imagine.
Cale Douce | Lâhistoire comme expĂ©rience somatique
ANAĂS DUPLAN RENCONTRE KAPWANI KIWANGA
Traduit par Sika Fakambi
« Je viens du cinĂ©ma documentaire », explique Kapwani Kiwanga, qui sâest pourtant trĂšs tĂŽt sentie Ă lâĂ©troit dans les formats traditionnels du film documentaire. Elle considĂšre dĂ©sormais son travail comme la recherche dâune autre façon de documenter le rĂ©el â qui puisse ouvrir le public de ses Ćuvres Ă diffĂ©rentes intelligences du monde.
ConnaĂźtre, pour Kapwani, câest une affaire du corps. Cela nĂ©cessite un dĂ©sinvestissement de lâesprit, pour aller plutĂŽt du cĂŽtĂ© de la perception, vers lâexpĂ©rience sensorielle.
« Le corps prend beaucoup plus dâimportance, dit Kapwani. Dans ces espaces, le langage nâa plus lieu dâĂȘtre. »
Je mâinterroge sur cette disparition du langage et lui demande si ce nâest pas tout de mĂȘme une perte. Sâil nây aurait pas avantage Ă sâappuyer sur lâĂ©crit pour assurer la transmission du type de rĂ©cits complexes quâelle aborde dans son travail.
Lâexposition personnelle de Kapwani Kiwanga Ă la South London Gallery, en 2015, Ă©tait une installation racontant la guerre Maji Maji. BaptisĂ©e Kinjeketile Suite en rĂ©fĂ©rence au mĂ©dium spirituel tanzanien Kinjeketile Ngwale, cette proposition sâinspire du rĂ©cit de ladite prophĂ©tie de Kinjeketile : si les peuples du Tanganyika acceptaient dâutiliser lâeau sacrĂ©e que proposait de leur fournir Kinjeketile, les balles des colons allemands seraient sans effets sur eux. Câest ainsi que lâAfrique de lâEst est devenue le thĂ©Ăątre dâune rĂ©volte nourrie de spiritualitĂ©, et qui a marquĂ© le dĂ©but du vingtiĂšme siĂšcle.
LâĂ©crivaine en moi imagine dĂ©jĂ plusieurs idĂ©es de livres entiers relatant ces Ă©vĂ©nements ; mais il est vrai que le langage peut nous maintenir rivĂ©s Ă une certaine approche mentale qui ne serait pas Ă la hauteur de ce connaĂźtre incarnĂ©, expĂ©rientiel, auquel aspire Kapwani.
« Lâinformation en soi se perd, câest certain. Mais ce nâest pas ma prĂ©occupation. Parce que les faits dĂ©crits par les documents ne sont pas aussi importants que leurs effets. » Lâimportant, souligne-t-elle encore, ce sont les effets et les affects. Une construction narrative des affects procĂšde par strates et par ellipses, elle est ancrĂ©e dans des pratiques culturelles traditionnelles, des savoirs endogĂšnes, une histoire orale.
Toute mĂ©fiante quâelle puisse ĂȘtre Ă lâĂ©gard de la chose Ă©crite, câest dans la frĂ©quentation des archives et des bibliothĂšques que Kapwani a toujours trouvĂ© le point de dĂ©part de ses travaux. Son Ćuvre sâenracine dans une culture archivistique des Ă©vĂ©nements historiques et des lĂ©gislatures qui nous ont conduits jusque dans le moment prĂ©sent.
Me rappelant une remarque au début de notre conversation, je lui demande : « Tu évoquais une visite aux archives lors de ton séjour en Tanzanie ? »
« Mm-hmm⊠»
« Le champ sĂ©mantique du mot âarchiveâ est assez large. Ă quel point est-il important de privilĂ©gier lâidĂ©e dâarchives physiques lorsque nous parlons dâarchives ? » Depuis deux ans, je fais des recherches sur lâhistoire du documentaire expĂ©rimental noir, que je dĂ©finis comme une approche de la documentation favorisant lâexpĂ©rience sensorielle plutĂŽt que la lisibilitĂ© de lâinformation communiquĂ©e, et nourrissant nĂ©anmoins un intĂ©rĂȘt marquĂ© pour la vĂ©racitĂ©. Les artistes sur lesquel.le.s je travaille ont en commun dâemployer les archives â aux sens propre et figurĂ© â comme point de dĂ©part de leur travail.
« Tout est archive, affirme Kapwani. En Tanzanie, câĂ©tait tellement manifeste. Les archives physiques Ă©taient quasi inexistantes. Ce que jâai appris lĂ -bas, câest que les archives Ă©taient partout ailleurs que dans les archives. »
Kapwani me raconte ses voyages Ă travers les campagnes tanzaniennes, jusque sur les sites de batailles historiques et les sites sacrĂ©s, et sa rencontre avec lâhistoire de Kinjeketile. « Les anciens Ă©taient des gardiens de connaissances », poursuit-elle. Au MusĂ©e national et Ă la Maison de la culture, elle nâa pu trouver que des bribes dâinformations, et quelques donnĂ©es provenant du Maji Maji Research Project, une enquĂȘte menĂ©e dans les annĂ©es 1960 par des Ă©tudiants en histoire de lâuniversitĂ© de Dar Es Salaam. Tout le reste â câest-Ă -dire le matĂ©riau essentiel de lâĆuvre Ă naĂźtre â provient de son travail de collecte sur le terrain.
Je lâinterroge sur lâinfluence de sa formation initiale dâanthropologue sur son travail. Outre un cursus en beaux-arts et cinĂ©ma documentaire, Kapwani a Ă©tudiĂ© lâanthropologie, ainsi que les religions comparĂ©es.
« Lâanthropologie, câest un domaine particulier. Je ne saurais dire lâĂ©tendue de mon assimilation de lâanthropologie, si ce nâest une certaine maniĂšre dâaccĂ©der aux archives et de lire une bibliographie â ce genre de choses. » Kapwani souligne que ses Ă©tudes comparatives des religions demeurent importantes, car elles sont Ă la base de ses rĂ©flexions sur les diffĂ©rentes philosophies et cosmogonies du monde, comme le montre son travail sur Kinjeketile.
« Ce qui est encore trĂšs prĂ©sent, aussi, câest le cinĂ©ma documentaire », poursuit-elle, mĂ©ditant sur la myriade des Ă©lĂ©ments de son parcours qui lâont menĂ©e Ă ce quâelle fait aujourdâhui. Peut-ĂȘtre ces expĂ©riences constituent-elles un genre dâarchive pour elle, ou en elle, comme une sorte dâaccumulation mĂ©morielle. Aussi ses Ćuvres proposent-elles un assemblage dâimages qui nous poursuivent tandis que nous Ă©voluons dans lâespace dâexposition, un enchaĂźnement dâimages sĂ©quencĂ©es suivant un certain tempo, un certain rythme, et qui lĂ encore sont une empreinte de sa formation de cinĂ©aste documentariste. Les corps mĂȘmes sont intĂ©grĂ©s dans ce vocabulaire cinĂ©matographique.
On en revient donc toujours au corps : le corps qui absorbe, le corps dans ses limites, sa permĂ©abilitĂ© Ă lâenvironnement. Des corps qui interagissent les uns avec les autres, ou sâabsorbent mutuellement ; leur dĂ©ambulation.
« Je ne sais pas trop comment te poser cette question, dis-je, hĂ©sitante. En poĂ©sie, on postule parfois que câest le texte qui doit apprendre au lecteur Ă lire lâĆuvre. Est-ce que tu as lâimpression quâil faut que tes Ćuvres fassent cela ? Est-ce quâil tâarrive de craindre quâon ne parvienne pas Ă y accĂ©der ? »
Elle rĂ©pond, « Je ne sais pasâŠ, rĂ©pĂ©tant, Je ne sais pas⊠LâidĂ©e nâest pas nĂ©cessairement dâenseigner, ou dâexpliquer. Jâessaie juste dâamener les gens Ă ralentir, pour leur faire voir les diffĂ©rentes strates de complexitĂ© des choses. Il ne sâagit pas tant dâenseigner que de crĂ©er lâexpĂ©rience dâun espace alternatif », Ă©labore-t-elle. Un espace alternatif pour mettre en Ă©vidence non seulement les violences de lâhistoire mais aussi les sagesses contenues dans cette connaissance somatique.
« Je nâessaie pas dâĂ©vacuer les violences dans un monde de douceur ouatĂ©e », prĂ©cise-t-elle.
InvitĂ©e Ă crĂ©er une installation dans la ville de Bordeaux, lâun des principaux ports du commerce triangulaire au XVIIIe siĂšcle, Kapwani y a montĂ© une expĂ©rience immersive, dĂ©ployant des rideaux constituĂ©s de grandes cordes teintĂ©es dâindigo, suspendues aux arches de pierres de lâancien entrepĂŽt de denrĂ©es coloniales, lui-mĂȘme inondĂ© dâune diffuse lumiĂšre bleue poudreuse.
« On est plongĂ© dans un espace saturĂ© de bleu », explique-t-elle. Cela crĂ©e un environnement doux et enveloppant dans lequel les visiteurs se retrouvent immergĂ©s, mĂ©taphoriquement, dans les violences structurelles de lâhistoire de Bordeaux. Mais plutĂŽt que de nous expliquer ce que nous devrions ressentir, lâĆuvre de Kapwani nous offre ce quâelle appelle des « stratĂ©gies de sortie » â en dâautres termes, un moyen de sâaffranchir des carcans de lâĂ©pistĂ©mologie occidentale.
« Ce sont ces minces fissures, ces brĂšches, qui rendent possible la sortie. » Et parce que nous avons pu sortir, nous sommes alors en mesure dâĂ©prouver lâhistoire de maniĂšre immersive, une histoire tout autour de nous et en nous, plutĂŽt que lointaine et dĂ©sincarnĂ©e. LâĂąpretĂ© de cette approche, câest le fait de ne plus pouvoir Ă©chapper Ă lâhistoire. « On nâa pas le choix », dit Kapwani, sans y mettre aucune forme de malice.
LâĆuvre, au fond, est une invitation plutĂŽt quâun piĂšge. Câest une confrontation, bien entendu, mais câest une confrontation douce, enveloppante â aussi captivante quâil est possible de lâimaginer.
Kapwani Kiwanga (b. Hamilton, Canada) is French and Canadian, she lives and works in Paris.
Kiwanga studied Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal and Art at lâĂ©cole des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
In 2022, Kiwanga received the Zurich Art Prize (CH). She was also the winner of the Marcel Duchamp Prize (FR) in 2020, Frieze Artist Award (USA) and the annual Sobey Art Award (CA) in 2018. She will represent Canada at the 60th International Venice Art Biennale in 2024.
Solo exhibitions include Serralves Foundation, Porto (PT); Bozar, Brussels (BE); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (CA); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (DE); Capc, Bordeaux (FR); MOCA, Toronto (CA); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH) ; New Museum, New York (USA); State of Concept, Athens (GR); Moody Center for the Arts, Austin (USA); Haus der Kunst, Munich (DE); Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (CHE); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (USA); Albertinum museum, Dresden (DE); Esker Foundation, Calgary (CA); Power Plant, Toronto (CA); Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (USA); South London Gallery, London (UK) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (FR) among others.
She is represented by Galerie Poggi, Paris; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Cape Town and London and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin.
Kiwangaâs work traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historic narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrowâs possibilities.
Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalised or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance.
Kiwanga co-opts the canon; she turns systems of power back on themselves, in art and in parsing broader histories. In this manner Kiwanga has developed an aesthetic vocabulary that she described as âexit strategies,â works that invite one to see things from multiple perspectives so as to look differently at existing structures and find ways to navigate the future differently.
Kapwani Kiwanga a Ă©tudiĂ© l’anthropologie et la religion comparĂ©e Ă l’UniversitĂ© McGill de MontrĂ©al et a suivi un cursus en art Ă l’Ă©cole des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
En 2022, Kiwanga obtient le Zurich Art Prize (CH). Elle est aussi laurĂ©ate du Prix Marcel Duchamp (FR) en 2020, Frieze Artist Award (USA) et le Prix Sobey pour les Arts (CA) en 2018. Elle reprĂ©sentera le Canada Ă la 60e Ă©dition de la biennale dâart Venise en 2024.
Elle a bĂ©nĂ©ficiĂ© dâexpositions personnelles Ă Serralves Foundation, Porto (PT); Bozar, Bruxelles (BE) ; Remai Modern, Saskatoon (CA) ; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (DE) ; Capc, Bordeaux (FR) ; MOCA, Toronto (CA) ; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH) ; New Museum, New York (USA) ; State of Concept, Athens (GR) ; Moody Center for the Arts, Austin (USA) ; Haus der Kunst, Munich (DE) ; Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (CHE) ; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (USA) ; Albertinum museum, Dresden (DE) ; Esker Foundation, Calgary (CA) ; Power Plant,Toronto (CA) ; Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (USA) ; South London Gallery, London (UK) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (FR) parmi dâautres.
Elle est représentée par la Galerie Poggi, Paris ; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Le Cap et Londres et la Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin.
Le travail de Kapwani Kiwanga traite des asymétries de pouvoir en faisant dialoguer des récits historiques, des réalités contemporaines, des archives et les futurs possibles.
FondĂ© sur des recherches, son travail questionne des histoires marginalisĂ©es ou oubliĂ©es, en utilisant diffĂ©rents matĂ©riaux et plusieurs mĂ©diums comme la sculpture, l’installation, la photographie, la vidĂ©o et la performance.
Ainsi, Kiwanga a dĂ©veloppĂ© un vocabulaire esthĂ©tique qu’elle dĂ©crit comme des « stratĂ©gies de sortie », des oeuvres qui nous invitent Ă multiplier les perspectives afin d’aiguiser notre regard sur les structures existantes et d’envisager le futur autrement.
AnaĂŻs Duplan is a trans poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of book I NEED MUSIC(Action Books, 2021), a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture(Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus* (Monster House Press, 2017). He is a professor of postcolonial literature at Bennington College, and has taught poetry at The New School, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College, amongst others. As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and ReykjavĂk. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2021 received a Marian Goodman fellowship from Independent Curators International for his research on Black experimental documentary. He is the recipient of the 2021 QUEER|ART|PRIZE for Recent Work, and a 2022 Whiting Award in Nonfiction. In 2016, Duplan founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa Cityâs artist-run organization Public Space One.
An Duplan est un poĂšte, commissaire d’exposition et artiste trans. Il est l’auteur du livre I NEED MUSIC(Action Books, 2021), d’un recueil d’essais, Blackspace : On the Poetics of an Afrofuture(Black Ocean, 2020), d’un recueil de poĂšmes, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), et d’un recueil de nouvelles Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus* (Monster House Press, 2017). Il est professeur de littĂ©rature postcoloniale au Bennington College, et a enseignĂ© la poĂ©sie Ă la New School, Ă l’universitĂ© Columbia et au Sarah Lawrence College, entre autres. En tant que commissaire d’exposition indĂ©pendant, il a accompagnĂ© des projets curatoriaux Ă Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe et ReykjavĂk. Il a Ă©tĂ© boursier 2017-2019 pour les programmes publics conjoints au Museum of Modern Art et au Studio Museum in Harlem, et en 2021, il a reçu une bourse Marian Goodman de l’Independent Curators International pour ses recherches sur le documentaire expĂ©rimental noir. Il est laurĂ©at du du QUEER|ART|PRIZE 2021 pour son travail rĂ©cent, et d’un Whiting Award 2022. En 2016, An Duplan a fondĂ© le Center for Afrofuturist Studies, un programme de rĂ©sidence pour les artistes de couleur, basĂ© Ă Iowa.
In Avignon, Outremonde emanates the same feeling of solitude: Mercier places his audience as if weâre looking at the last survivors of a cataclysm that swept away the human species.
The performers wander through a succession of galleries as they walk around large sculptures made of sand. One of them, a Gothic window, is collapsingâor rather crumblingâinto the heap of sand it is placed on. Its upper part retains its pointed arch and ornaments but, on closer examination, the window has been bricked up. Two troubling matte black spheres are placed nearby. They offer a sharp contrast to the beige sand structures. In a contiguous room, a gigantic foot, 2 meters high and 2.5 long, is a focal point that resembles an archaeological relic with a fragile fate. A dogâalso in sandâwatches it nearby.