MONUMENT OF NON-MONUMENT - Performance art and public space

Work presentation by Khanyisile Mbongwa (Cape Town)

followed by a conversation with Fiona Siegenthaler (Basel)
Thursday, 7 May 2015, 18.15-19.45h, Center for African Studies, University of Basel
nd
Petersgraben 11, 4051 Basel, Seminar room 205, 2 floor
Monuments and memorials, in their speechlessness and stillness, look strangely
human, while traumatized humans, in their motionlessness and silence, may appear
strangely monumental. Speechless survivors living in their shadows face the blank
facades and blind eyes of our public buildings and memorials, those speechless
witnesses to present-day injustices. (Krzysztof Wodiczko)

Public space is a body of memory, pockets full of desired and undesirable constellations
that either oppress or grant freedom. When we are talking about public art, we are talking
about public culture.
South African performing artist, curator and poet Khanyisile Mbongwa reflects in her art
practice and in occasion of her presentation at the Center for African Studies on the idea of
memory without borders as a mode of re-presentation and belonging to the present. She
presents her artistic work, followed by a conversation with Fiona Siegenthaler and a Q&A
with the audience.
Cape Town based artist Khanyisile Mbongwa has exhibited and performed in and
around Cape Town and Johannesburg, in Berlin, Spain, Hamburg, New York,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
As a curator, she has initiated and curated a number of exhibitions, performance
pieces, and performance projects for galleries and art festivals such as the World
Design Capital, Cape Town Art Week, and the Live Art Festival. It is also a crucial part
of her work to make performance art happen in public spaces of residential
neighborhoods and thus reach audiences beyond the art world.
She is founding member of several collectives, amongst them the internationally
acclaimed arts collective Gugulective that focuses on performance-based and
socially informed art practices to re-imagine the psychological and physical spaces
of the township. Mbongwa also is the executive director for UNIMA SA and The
Handspring Trust and curates the photographic project Twenty Journey.
She has just returned from African Artists In Residency (AIR) at JIWAR, the Barcelona
International Residence for Artists and Researchers in Urban Creativity, and is
currently a visiting artist at Kaskadenkondensator Basel.
Dr. des. Fiona Siegenthaler is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of
Basel, and specializes in African visual culture and art history.
The event is a cooperation of the Kaskadenkondensator Basel, the Institute for
Social Anthropology, and the Center for African Studies, University of Basel.