Artist Lungiswa Gqunta’s work grapples with the complexities of the South African post-colonial cultural and political landscape. Focusing on creating multisensory experiences that attempt to articulate the social imbalances that persist as a legacy of both patriarchal dominance and colonialism, Gqunta exposes South Africa’s systemic inequality and different forms of violence and that manifests there.
Q > In what period/location have you learnt the most?
A > When I moved to Cape Town to do my post-grad in 2014, that moment was the beginning of a wonderful and trying learning period that continues to expand even today.
Q > How has your creative practice evolved over time?
A > It seems to have evolved parallel to my own personal journey. From thinking and holding one set of emotions to growing more and working towards a better understanding of things which then led to many parallels in my work in terms of emotions and ideas. I guess there is more room for uncertainty and no resolve in the work than before.
Q > Describe some of the challenges and opportunities you experience as an artist living and working in South Africa?
A > This could be an article in itself but I’ll be short and mention what comes first in my head. Challenges are not enough funding or any type of financial support for artists as well as enough project spaces that do not require resolved works and open themselves up to ideas and suggestions through artistic intervention. The opportunities are minimal and also depend where you live and who you know, not forgetting what art school you go to. There’s a lot that needs work and that needs to function differently to how things are working right now — which is focused on how easily your work can be commodified. I’ll end it here for now.
Q > Could you give us an overview of your video project ‘Gathering’, and tell us which reactions, questions or perception-shifts you hope to raise in the viewer?
A > Gathering is about the different ways and moments in which resistance, refusal, knowledge production and dissemination can take place. It’s about the quiet moments of revolt that don’t make any news, the ones that happen somewhere out of view. It is about what we do every day that enables us to still go out into a world that doesn’t see us and to be able to live and fight for change. Gathering is a celebration of all those collective moments where we gather to resist and to heal together. I want people to feel like any type of refusal — big or small — towards a better life for all is worthy.
Q > Tell us about your relation with the materials you select —and how, directly or indirectly, you use these to explore socio-political themes.
A > The choice of materials is always related to what I’m trying to communicate with the work so the choices I make with each work are specific and layered. Sometimes I put together materials that are complete opposites to create a conflict and hesitation that people have to choose whether or not to engage. Other times the materials chosen are meant to lure people into difficult spaces (in terms of feeling and thinking through political issues) and so the work will look beautiful and approachable until you see what the different materials are and why they are put together in certain ways.
Q > Which questions do you often ask yourself in relation to your work and goals?
A > Am I growing, am I learning as much as I can and am I listening to myself and doing what brings me alive?
Q > What patterns, routines or rituals define or help to shape your life and its rhythms?
A > Eating a good but not heavy breakfast, cleaning my flat, burning mpepho and prayer, talking to my friends and to myself about our goals in life. Looking at houses that I can’t afford and insisting to myself that I will own one of them and live in it with all my friends lol.
Lungiswa Gqunta is a visual artist working in performance, printmaking, sculpture and installation. Gqunta is currently in residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam.
She has also obtained her undergraduate degree at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2012 and her MFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town in 2017. In addition to her independent practice, Gqunta is one of the founding members of iQhiya, with whom she participated in Documenta 14 and Glasgow International.
She has recently participated in the Manifesta 12 Biennial and the 15th Istanbul Biennial and has also been included in the group exhibition, Not a Single Story II at the Wanas Konst Museum in Sweden. She has been actively involved in the South African gallery scene, having exhibited with both the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (Zeitz MOCAA) and the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), as well as held two solo exhibitions, Qwitha (2018) and Qokobe (2016), with WHATIFTHEWORLD.
Her work forms part of the public collections of the Kunsthal Zurich, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, The University of Cape Town and Zeitz MOCAA.
Gqunta’s work has been on display in two Zeitz MOCAA exhibitions: All things being equal… (2017) and Two Together (2019).
