The Ways We Sing and Move to Become Ocean, the Ways We Remember to Be Ocean
⁠Performance. TBA21–Academy The Current, Chus Martínez, Convening #1, The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s
⁠Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Venice
⁠28-29 September, 2018
⁠
⁠Photos by Enrico Fiorese

Chapter P: The-Not-Not-Educational-Spirits

E.O.T.O. Library

Berlin

2017

Image Credit: 10th Berlin Biennale Public Programme

This chapter of the history book for those who absolutely need to be remembered explored ways of writing "a collective self" by combining personal stories with stories collected locally from conversations and telling them using the books and objects within E.O.T.O. Library in Berlin.

The chapter presented itself as a memoir that is held together by fragments of phrases from books and objects found at the ibraryalongside insertions of the reality of racist encounters in Berlin, all as equal parts of the library and archive. In a way, the memoir can be read as fiction, even though it is real. As a gesture, the memoir is also an insertion of a form of metaphysical writing/text into the EOTO library and one that has the potential to continuously rewrite itself over time. 

The Garden of Excuses
⁠Regent’s Park, London
⁠2017

The Cemetery for Bad Behaviour

Moscow
⁠Photo credit Mariya Anaskina, Courtesy of the Moscow Biennale and M HKA (1)
⁠2015

The Monument of Apologies
⁠Performance and Video
⁠Matonge, Brussels
⁠2015

TO BE ANNOUNCED
⁠Performance at nGbK, Berlin
⁠2015

What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept
Performance at M HKA
⁠Antwerp, Belgium
⁠2015

This work took on the form of a looped continuous narrative, without any beginning or end, and was based on selected photographs by Joseph Makula from the Liberal Archives in Ghent. Seated behind a standard-issue desk from Belgium’s colonial era, Kukama told individual museum visitors fragments of a story that would include segments of history, literature, personal memories, as well as invented narratives whilst presenting the documentary images as evidence of what was being said. The documentary material thus becomes increasingly porous, allowing for perceivably collective cultural and historical memories to be open to doubt. Mostly appearing to be staged, the documentary images Kukama used were of an “elite” group of Congolese people referred to as “Les Evolues” (the evolved ones). The images were taken in Leopordsville (now Kinshasa) in the 1950’s as a way to present evidence to Belgians of how well the colony was progressing under King Leopold’s rule.

Museum of Non-Permanence (MuNPer)
⁠2014

A Catalogue Without Pages (Vol.1 & Vol.2)
⁠2013

The Last Announcement
South African Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale
⁠2013

The Air-State Urgency (shop)
Bordeaux

⁠2013

Black Money Market
Basel
⁠Photo documentation by Ivan Eftimovski
2012

Investment Bank of Elsewhere
⁠2012

The Museum of European Cultures
⁠Museum der Kulturen, Basel
⁠2011

The Museum of European Cultures came as a result of a performance titled “It’s not business, it is strictly Personal”, which was presented during the reopening of the Museum of Culture in Basel. Throughout the opening night, Kukama lured museum visitors into handing over a personal belonging in exchange for something from the artist’s own culture. Once in possession of their personal belongings, Kukama would recite a short poem, sing a song or issue a statement in her own language before moving on.

Mass Action Strike!

Performance
⁠Johannesburg Art Gallery
⁠Photographic documentation by Ivan Eftimovsk
⁠2009

"My performance will involve an action where I break down a constructed wall using a hammer or similar tool over a period of 1 hour (probably more). "
⁠- E-mail extract, sent by Donna Kukama on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 12:14 PM.

I requested a Zimbabwean refugee living in South Africa to build a wall at the public entrance to the Johannesburg Art Gallery. The wall was to be as high as the security fence separating the JAG from the “less desirable” low-economy Joubert Park area right across the museum. I then broke the wall, knocking it down one-brick-at-a-time during the opening of the exhibition US*.

*US was a traveling exhibition that emerged out of the context of the xenophobic violence in South Africa in 2008, as well as the ripple effects of the world economic crisis at the time.

The Swing (after after Fragonard)
⁠
⁠Video
⁠00:04:55
⁠Edition of 3
⁠
⁠Link to video

Video that was developed out of a performance piece that took place at the Mai-Mai Market in the east end of the inner city of Johannesburg. The market mainly trades in traditional medicine, and includes a cooking and eating area where fresh meat is prepared for a clientele of taxi-drivers and people that work in the ‘second economy’ of the east end of the inner city. The work forms part of a series of interventions staged by Kukama that revolve around a particular gesture drawn from archival research conducted by the artist, which then accumulates new and often troubling reference through strategic reconfiguration and redeployment. In this case, the painting The Swing (1766) by Jean-Honore Fragonard - an emblem of Ancien Regime frivolity in the shadow of the impending French Revolution - served as a point of departure for the performance piece. The video piece combines a presentation of the performance together with fragments of conversation and reflection in an incomprehensible combination of French and Setswana.

-Joseph Gaylard & Donna Kukama, 2009

Does a Snowball Have to be White?
⁠Chateau Mercier, Sierre, Switzerland

2008

The speech “does a snowball have to be white” took place during the symposium “Schnee bis zur neige”, held at the Château Mercier in Sierre. The symposium was dedicated to the promotion of the sport of snowball fighting, and engaged speakers and performers presenting wide-ranging research on the ethical, environmental, scientific, political, theological and literary dimensions of the snowball. During the manifestation, I became obsessively concerned with the colour of the snowball, and repeatedly asked the question “does a snowball have to be white?” In different tones, volumes, and voices, I continued asking. I asked walls, light switches, and different elements forming part of the castle’s interior structure, all of which were white in colour and did not respond to “does a snowball have to be white?” I continued moving along a staircase, narrow and leading to a terrace with a view. There were clouds in the sky, and I screamed at the top of my voice“does a snowball have to be white?” Still, no answer was provided.

Not Yet (And Nobody Knows Why Not)
⁠
⁠Public intervention at Uhuru Gardens, in Nairobi, Kenya
Photographic documentation by Justus Kyalo

⁠Link to video

2008

Approximately fifty-five years after fighting off the British in order to gain independence for Kenya, the Mau-Mau war veterans gathered in 2008 at Uhuru Gardens, in Nairobi to protest against the current Kenyan Government for its lack in recognizing their role in their country’s independence. The performance Not Yet (and nobody knows why not) made use of this situation as a back-drop to speak of personal desperation as well as the unavoidable circle of seduction and war in politics. The passing crowd of 70 to 80-year- old war veterans would be seduced by a slow, sensual act of applying red lipstick to my lips, until the act soon transforms into an increasingly violent act of spreading the cosmetic product to the rest of my face and neck. As seemingly outrageous an act as it was, one or two people’s attention would be caught, and usually not for too long until they continued on their paths. The same people gathered had been heroes of a certain era, and their significance in today’s life merely a fading memory. The unannounced performance/intervention lasted for over an hour.

Treason 2 (We stand by our leaders)

⁠Public intervention (Collaboration with Joseph Gaylard & Joubert Park Project)
⁠Photographic documentation by Cristian Valenzuela

2007

During the period between Saturday the 15th of December and Thursday the 20th of December 2007, Treason 2 was developed and realized across various locations in Sierre, located in the Valais canton of Switzerland. This project existed in dialogue with events that were simultaneously unfolding at the 52nd conference of the African National Congress in Polokwane, Limpopo, South Africa. On the morning of December 21, 1956, 156 leaders of a diversity of liberation movements across South Africa were brought to the Drill Hall for the first day of what came to be known as the 1956 Treason Trial, which would continue for a further five years. December 20, 2007 would mark the final day of the Polokwane Conference and the announcement of the new leadership of the ruling party, drawn from a list of 158 nominations.

The performance involved walking across different locations carrying a sign that states “We stand by our leaders”, similar to that of supporters of liberation leaders during the treason trial 50 years prior. Images of this were disseminated in South Africa via email during the course of Thursday the 20th of December 2007.

“I must always speak softly, always holding my breath”

- Ndwawi Linah Ngqabaye’s description of the long term effects of being beaten by police with sjamboks outside the Drill Hall on the first day of the Treason Trial, Testimony to the Truth and Reconcilition Commission, 1996.

The Red Suitcase

Public intervention at the Elia Biennial Conference, Ghent
⁠Photographic documentation by Oscar Martinéz

2006

This public intervention took place during the 9th Elia* Biennial Conference, attended by ministers of education, student representatives, professors and directors from various European institutions of art. I arrived at the event pulling a red raveling suitcase filled with my personal belongings, and approached each person I encountered to take a look inside and select an item. Once a desired item has been selected, the interested person is informed that they can have this item, but not for free. When asking the value of each object/item, I would propose for the potential buyers to decide on a price themselves. With each offer made, I negotiated the price upwards, resulting in all the items sold at a price higher than what was originally proposed by the buyers.

* Elia is the European League of Institutes of the Arts, a network of approximately 315 European Art Education Institutes

Silang Mabele II

Performance

The Container (FAC-ECAV),

Sierre, Switzerland

⁠Photographic documentation by Abrie Fourie

2005

Kukama is seated on a chair, whistling the tune of a childhood folk song, Silang Mabele. Across her is a table with a mix of oranges and bloof oranges. A chair sits across, on the other side.

Visitors were individually invited inside a shipping container to share an orange whilst across Kukama, who is whistling while peeling and eating an orange whilst continuously. Skinning, dividing, and handing out pieces of orange to each person seated across, she enters into an unpredicted rhythm of tears and smiles. The audience/participant is either contaminated by overwhelming emotion or left imitating the tune of the whistled song.

Those outside the container witness a live projection of only the hands handling the food on the table, projected as a series of meticulous and graceful gestures of exchange and sharing.

The two realities that are witnessed and experienced from inside and outside become hugely contradictory and perhaps telling of the subtleties surrounding human experiences as seen from varying perspectives.