African Notes Parts 1 & 2

Artist/Creator: Laiwan (Artist)
Date: 1982-83/2021
ID #: BG6250
Content Notice

Physical Description

Medium: 35 mm slide, projection, audio
Support: –
Dimensions: –
Object Description: 149 b/w Panatomic-X 35mm slides, 1⁄4 inch reel analogue audio tape transferred to digital

African Notes Parts 1 & 2 are composed of photographs that Laiwan took on a trip home to her birthplace of Zimbabwe in 1982, two years after the country's independence. Part 1: Feet of Clay visually explores the site of Great Zimbabwe, where archaeological ruins trace the royal palace of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe built by the ancestors of the Indigenous Shone people. Part 2: In Tended Garden is located at the nearby Kyle Dam, known today as Lake Mutirikwi. The two projections are accompanied by a poetic text that expresses encounters with dreaming, as it variably expresses one's desire for home, the illusions of colonialism and the waywardness of skygazing. African Notes introduces 35 mm slide dissolves into Laiwan's practice. The technology presents images and text in motion, which supports the artist's attention to the effects of migration and adaptation on consciousness.

History

Collection: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Credit Line: Purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2021
Related Exhibitions: Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists

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