Structures of the forgotten

Dinokana fuses art, history and spirituality to reflect on land, memory and survival

- Kibo Ngowi

Installation art has always fascinated me. The idea of an artwork that you can touch, interact with, and even walk in and out of, takes the meaning of the word “immersive” to a whole new level.

Which is why I’m excited when I hear there’s a new exhibition at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation.

Structures doesn’t disappoint. This latest exhibition is an exploration of the factors — historical, cultural, racial, spatial — that inform the way people shape and create the environments they call home.

The works were created by a selection of artists and architects from Algeria to Angola, France to Iran, India to Tunisia, Switzerland to Brazil and, of course, right here in South Africa.

The variety among them is astounding, running the gamut from an ancient Algerian city recreated with 300kg of cooked couscous on a wooden table to a series of “prayer clouds”, made of beads, wire, thread, linoleum, fabric, twine and cotton, reflecting the hopes of the residents of a small Cape Town community.

But the one that most caught my attention was simply titled Dinokana — named after a village in North West, rebuilt after the Bahurutshe were dispersed during the Mfecane. The installation was produced by the Johannesburg-based interdisciplinary artist collaborative Madeyoulook, led by Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho.

They've been working together for 16 years and their practice centres around knowledge creation, particularly knowledge that emerges from the rhythms and routines of black urban life in South Africa.

As Moiloa said during the media preview I attended on the eve of the exhibition’s official opening: “We make our work from this place and for this place. So, it’s really an incredible gift to be able to share it here.”