Sethembile Msezane

Sethembile Msezane (born 1991 in KwaZulu-Natal) is a South African visual artist, public speaker and performer who is known for her work within fine arts. Msezane uses her interdisciplinary practice which combines photography, film, sculpture, and drawing to explore issues focused on spirituality, politics and African knowledge systems. Part of her works focus has been on the process of myth-making and its influence on constructing history as well the absence of the black female body in both narrative and physical spaces of historical commemoration. Msezanes work is held in galleries in South Africa as well as internationally and has won awards and nominations. Quotes I discovered this having lived in Cape Town for about five years. I felt a deep sense of dislocation and invisibility. I couldn’t see myself represented anywhere. I couldn’t see the women who’d raised me, the ones who influenced me, and the ones that have made South Africa what it is today. I decided to do something about it. Public spaces are hardly ever as neutral as they may seem. I discovered this when I made this performance (shown above) in 2013 on Heritage Day, a date celebrating the many cultures that make up South Africa. Cape Town is teeming with masculine architecture, monuments and statues, such as Louis Botha on horseback in that photograph. This overt presence of white colonial and Afrikaner nationalist men not only echoes a social, gender and racial divide, but it also continues to affect the way that women — and the way, particularly, Black women — see themselves in relation to dominant male figures in public spaces. For this reason, among others, I don’t believe that we need statues. The preservation of history and the act of remembering can be achieved in more memorable and effective ways. Through my work, I have realized a lot about the world around me: how we move through spaces, who we choose to celebrate and who we remember. Now I look in the mirror and not only see an image of myself, but of the women who have made me who I am today. I stand tall in my work, celebrating women’s histories, in the hope that perhaps one day, no little Black girl ever has to feel like she doesn’t exist. Since 2013 I have been engaged with addressing the hyper masculine presence of white colonial and apartheid statues that commemorate these figures through a singular narrative. It became imperative to challenge these histories through performance while addressing the absence of the black female body in memorialised public spaces. With regards to Chapungu- The Day Rhodes Fell (2015), I have my interpretations of the work which is layered in meaning. The work is partly informed by Zimbabwean and South African history, but more then anything I’ve enjoyed hearing how other people read it in relation to the event, the symbols and their own understanding. Performing that day, I realised that this work was more than my initial idea, it was an instrument of unconsciously beginning to re-imagine the black body in a city that prides itself in Eurocentric ideals that historically for me are a celebration of the pillaging of Africa. In an interview Since the fall of the statue, I think people are still in disbelief. I haven’t been back yet, but I imagine students stand where the statue was and admire the landscape and the view of the whole of Cape Town. I’m not sure that we need statues at all – it’s a colonialist thing, like marking territory. My work is a response, to get people to look at the landscape with a different eye. People haven’t forgiven or forgotten, they’re still harbouring hatred. That’s why the statue needed to fall. It fostered the kind of thinking that is dangerous to a country in healing. I’ve been looking deeply at how one can begin to humanize themselves in a world where there are many reminders that seek to re-enforce black people’s dispossession. Enveloped in the effects of colonial rule, how do we remember the technology, culture and health of our ancestry and how does that permeate to who we are now? My current practice has been a personal journey of connecting with my spirituality as it has always been my guide in creating some of my older works that have been prescient in nature. When this begins to be the norm we will see and celebrate people’s individuality in different spaces. This means that people will not feel they have to assimilate when they are within these institutions. Sometimes at exhibitions for instance, I have started sitting on the floor whilst looking at work or during speeches because it feels weird to be standing at times. With further introspection, I realised in my culture one does not simply stand in a room for hours on end without a function. So, when a person such as myself practices an alternative way of being in such spaces perhaps one day it will become the norm and there will be no pressure even self-imposed to assimilate. The body of work takes us on a non-linear route through the stories and realities of select black women, reminding us that once upon a time they too existed and influenced their societies. External links Category:Women artists Category:Artists from South Africa Category:1991 births Category:Women born in the 1990s Category:Living people