ancestry
Arjuna Neuman
Artist, filmmaker, and writer Arjuna Neuman has been working in tandem with philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva since 2016. The result of their collaboration is an ongoing series of films and installations that merge poetics and critical theory, in a dreamlike polyptych that is disorientating and grounding in equal parts. Their so-called “elemental cinema”—part documentary and part personal essay—considers often overlapping events and disasters of the past, present and future history of the planet: from slavery and police brutality to ecological collapse and the biodiversity crisis.We sat down with Arjuna Neuman to talk about planetary body horror, wind, clouds, blues, tenderness, and the not so evident autobiographical threads in their films.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some outtakes from our conversation with South African artist Sethembile Msezane, who riffs on our disconnection from nature. Movement, water, ancestry and spirituality also come up, along with some side notes on the different types of relationships that institutions and public space make possible.
Sarah Nuttall
Over the past 10 years, South African scholar Sarah Nuttall's work has focused on post-colonial criticism, urban theory and literary and cultural studies, especially in relation to Africa and its diasporas. Her current area of interest revolves around water, heavy rainfall, flooding and hydrocolonialism, and how they intersect with materiality, time and daily life. But also around how water can be traced and analysed across works of literary fiction from the African continent. ‘Pluviality’, the umbrella term she coined for this purpose, serves as a conceptual framework and a methodological approach to her study of rain in an era of extreme climate emergency.
Sethembile Msezane
Working from the foundations of historical narrative and its constructs, African knowledge systems, and a contemporary take on colonial wounds, South African artist Sethembile Msezane has an interdisciplinary practice that goes beyond critique. In this podcast, Sethembile talks about her rejection of modern throwaway culture, convinced that the history and experiences of ancestors contain clues and know-how that allow us to imagine different futures. She believes that good omens must enter through spirituality and dialogue with ancestors. Art is simply a tool.