FORMS OF KINSHIP — ANCESTRAL SPIRITS
with Khanyisile Mbongwa and Li’Tsoanelo Zwane
Wed 7 September 2022, 7—9 p.m.

 

Via ZOOM
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Language: English

During the event curator Khanyisile Mbongwa and researcher/ healer Li’Tsoanelo Zwane will engage in a conversation about ancestral spirits and how they establish various levels of kinship. They will discuss the way they relate to each other as Sangoma's (shaman/ indigenous spiritual healer), the way we can shape relations with idlozi - singular and plural ancestral spirits, with whom, one shares their corporeal body (Zwane, 2021) and brotherhood with ubuNgoma (which can be defined as the overarching theoretical and pragmatic frameworks informing the work of Sangomas) (Zwane, 2021). The discussion will also revolve around kinship from the perspective of feminine and masculine energies that are not static roles, but fluid and always changing. Mbongwa will elaborate on how this form of kinship informs her curatorial practice of care and cure.

Khanyisile Mbongwa is a Cape Town-based independent curator, award winning artist and sociologist who engages with her curatorial practice as Curing & Care. Thus using the creative to instigate spaces for emancipatory practices, joy and play. Her most recent projects include, in 2020 Process as Resistance, Resilience & Regeneration – a group exhibition co-curated with Julia Haarmann honouring a decade of CAT. Cologne’s residency program and Athi-Patra Ruga’s solo at Norval Foundation titled iiNyanka Zonyaka (The Lunar Songbook). In 2021, Mbongwa curated a group exhibition titled History’s Footnote: On Love & Freedom at Marres, House for Contemporary Culture in Maastrict, The Netherlands. Mbongwa is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Create Arts, University of Cape Town and is a Blak C.O.R.E (Care of Radical Energy) Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She was the Chief Curator of the Stellenbosch Triennale 2020 and is the Curator for the Liverpool Biennial 2023.

Li’Tsoanelo Zwane, 31, hails from Gugulethu, Cape Town. Her educational background is trans-disciplinary and includes a Bachelor of Education (Cum Laude) degree from the University of the Western Cape, Bachelor of Education (Hons) from the University of Cape Town and a Master’s in philosophy: Theories of Justice and Inequality (Cum Laude in the dissertation). She is currently a Doctoral student at the University of Cape Town and her research interests are African Philosophy, Metaphysics, African Feminist Thought, Epistemologies and African Cosmologies which are largely inspired by her work as a licensed and practising traditional healer, diviner and clairvoyant medium. She is a lover of the occult and as an academic, writes from the margins and from the perspective of all that has been constructed to be non-existent. In her spare time, she enjoys powerlifting and trips to the ocean.

The event is part of Temporary Gallery’s study group Forms of Kinship. The series of gatherings aims to think collectively about the way we form relations in and with the world, outside of the nuclear family structure. The meetings take place monthly, in person or online. Each session is led by an invited guest, including artists, thinkers, poets, activists and others. The study group is convened by Kris Dittel (independent curator, Mediakunst fellow NRW) and Aneta Rostkowska (CCA Temporary Gallery).

Images
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Funding and support
Temporary Gallery erhält strukturelle Unterstützung durch das Kulturamt der Stadt Köln und die Deltax contemporary, Wirtschafts- und Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH. Kris Dittel ist 2021/2022 Medienkunstfellow NRW.
The participation of Ukrainian artists and activists in both events has been made possible thanks to the funding of Fonds Soziokultur for Art Initiatives Cologne (AIC).

The event is part of a larger endeavor called "Islands of Kinship: A Collective Manual for Sustainable and Inclusive Art Institutions”, in which CCA Temporary Gallery works with six international partner institutions: Jindrich Chalupecky Society (Prague), Latvian Center for Contemporary Art (Riga), Frame Contemporary Art Finland (Helsinki), Julius Koller Society (Bratislava), Faculty of things that can't be learned (Skopje) and Stroom den Haag (The Hague). Islands of Kinship is co-funded by the EU Program Creative Europe.