Nkhensani Mkhari

Nkhensani Mkhari (born 1994) is a South African contemporary curator and multidisciplinary artist. Quotes AI is an active project removing entire epistemologies, entire philosophies, entire ontologies The question I constantly ask myself is how I can “give language” - not in the spoken word sense, but in the visual sense I address issues of erasure by trying to find a universal language I'm seeking a language that doesn't facilitate the process of erasure What makes human beings special is that as creatures we have imagination. My question is how we do imagine new epistemologies and modes of reality in the world? A lot of the research that I do is thinking about the different civilizations that existed before us and try to create these interfaces When we think about colonialism, it's so deep. We must be so surgical about it There is a source within you, the mystery that is keeping you alive I think we've forgotten about the mystery of what are we doing here There's an essence where we should draw from instead of those external conditions that have been imposed on us. Monotheism, monoculture, mono-… colonialism tries to do that! It tries to compress things into a thing. Plurality should be the case instead Podcast #4 with Nkhensani Mkhari, Jazmin Morris, Vanessa Amoah Opoku & Linda Dounia Rebeiz n.d Even the term “artist” feels slippery to me My work aims to subvert the Western idea of what art is When I write, I’m casting ideas into the world, connecting my family history and broader South African history to pre-colonial philosophies. Kwaito is a subculture deeply reflective of Johannesburg, a collage city where different influences collide—American, Italian, Zulu. Kwaito is genre-defying and anti-disciplinary, much like my practice My work often critiques coloniality and confronts ideas shaped by the perpetrators of colonialism. So, it feels like my work is more for them than for South Africans I’m less interested in the victims of colonialism and more focused on addressing the perpetrators Cultural resurgence must first grapple with heritage and resistance Nkhensani Mkhari for Gibela by FEDE Arthouse n.d I am engaged in excavating and preserving lost artifacts of our ancestry When you don’t speak about something, you create a chance for it to reemerge I just can’t imagine a world in which we forget about where we’re from, as Bantu The more people think something has power, the more power it has If there wasn’t fake news and propaganda that affects the 3D, tangible world, then the internet would not be a real space With the chaos that’s happening elsewhere, Africans are stepping into their power That is the war we’re fighting. Who gets to create knowledge? What knowledge is accepted? It’s heartbreaking to be relegated to fantasy and a myth when something is real for you The more people who participate and believe in the power of a nkisi, the more power it will accrue 3 March 2021 Category:1994 births Category:Living people Category:Artists from South Africa Category:Curators