The Monument of Apologies
Performance and Video
Matonge, Brussels
2015
2015
2014
Mo-Ba
Video 09' 14''
Edition of 3 + 1AP (still)
2014
Link to video
2012
Se Sa Feleng ...
Photographic series, lightjet C-print on Fuji Crystal archive paper
123 x 83 cm
Edition of 5 (first 3 editions of each photograph only available as a set of the series)
2012
2009
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
2008
Not Yet (And Nobody Knows Why Not)
Public intervention at Uhuru Gardens, in Nairobi, Kenya
Photographic documentation by Justus Kyalo
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.
2006
Video
00:11:00
Edition of 3
2006