Race and Technology in Dineo Seshee Bopape's 'is i am sky'
Portia Malatjie's essay in Afterall Journal 48 examines Dineo Seshee Bopape's video work 'is i am sky' (2013) as a meditation on land, memory, and black experience. Bopape's practice combines soil, ash, video mixers, gold leaf, candles, petrol, flowers, feathers, and sound to address dispossession and healing. The video features the artist singing 'Hamba Kahle Mkhonto', an apartheid-era struggle song, while her face and landscape merge through digital manipulation. A rupture halfway introduces a cosmic sequence of flashing colors and distorted sound, symbolizing an alternate existence for black memories. The work originated from a 2011 residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where Bopape learned of Julius Malema's trial for singing 'Kill the Boer'. This connected apartheid-era policing of black expression to contemporary judicial attempts to suppress black experiences in South Africa.
Key facts
- Essay by Portia Malatjie in Afterall Journal 48, published 19 July 2019.
- Focuses on Dineo Seshee Bopape's video 'is i am sky' (2013).
- Bopape's practice uses materials like soil, ash, video mixers, gold leaf, candles, petrol, flowers, feathers, and sound.
- The video features Bopape singing 'Hamba Kahle Mkhonto', a struggle song from apartheid-era South Africa.
- The work includes a cosmic sequence with flashing colors and distorted sound.
- Originated from a 2011 residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
- Bopape was inspired by news of Julius Malema's trial for singing 'Kill the Boer'.
- The video connects historical apartheid policing to contemporary suppression of black expression.
- Bopape's installations use intense physicality to articulate dispossession and healing.
- The essay is part of Afterall Journal 48.
Entities
Artists
- Dineo Seshee Bopape
- Portia Malatjie
Institutions
- Afterall
- Headlands Center for the Arts
- African National Congress Youth League
- University of Chicago Press
Locations
- San Francisco
- United States
- South Africa
Sources
- Afterall —