Marumbo Mughogho

Into the Insula

Situated in Mare Tranquilitatis, The Insula is a place for wandering souls - the hidden immigrants displaced in the universe. An unfamiliar yet familiar place greets Space Kid on her journey to The Insula. In a sense, the place is both frozen in time and floating within.

Into the Insula is a story of displacement and disorientation embedded in migration, citizenship, time and transportation. This work explores the decontextualisation of "third culture kids" - people with multiple cultural contexts and identities who have difficulty integrating into society because of misaligned backgrounds and locations. Into The Insula is staged in empty man-made rooms and spaces in limbo like the Top Star Drive-In mine dump in Johannesburg and Funda Community College in Diepkloof, both of which are liminal spaces left in a state of uncertainty after their histories. A science fiction narrative inspired by retrofuturism, a movement of optimistic prophecies of what the future will be constructed by citizens of the past, Into The Insula draws from the imagery of space, the Space Race, the Moon Landing of 1969, and interstellar transportation.