Dineo Seshee Bopape Discusses Art, Materials, and Nomadic Practice in Interview

South African artist Dineo Seshee Bopape, born in Polokwane in 1981, creates installations using materials like soil, clay, herbs, crystals, ash, and plastic water bottles. Her work often explores themes of colonialism, patriarchy, and history through site-specific responses. Bopape exhibited at the Sharjah Biennial in 2017 with +/- 1791 (monument to the haitian revolution 1791), installed in a courtyard with burnt bricks and coal. She has shown at Art in General, New York in 2016 with carved soil, at Palais de Tokyo, Paris the same year with rubble, and created mud murals for the Artes Mundi prize in Cardiff. A graduate of Columbia University in New York, she has lived nomadically through residencies worldwide, including a six-month stay in Paris where she studied mineral energy. In an interview with Ross Simonini, Bopape discussed her artistic process, preferring longer residencies and allowing installations to evolve organically. She reflected on thoughts, control, and influences from Bessie Head's 1973 novel A Question of Power and Kara Walker's commentary on narratives. Bopape also addressed plant intelligence, intuition versus education, and her experiences in Amsterdam and New York, noting Dutch amnesia about slavery and New York's openness. Video and music, including by Nina Simone, are consistent mediums in her practice.