Matsi Wa Lesego

Nature, Black Body and Place

“...the materiality of the environment is racialized by contemporary demographic patterns as shaped by historic precedents.” – McKittrick and Woods (2007, p.3)

Nature, Black Body and Place is an installation that engages with black geographies through natural materials by enacting a procession. The work entails rendering the black sense of place with nature by using biodegradable materials to engage in our understanding of blackness within the ecology and preservation.

The sculptures provoke thoughts on how we engage with the deaths of the forgotten and unknown black lives that have decayed and integrated into nature and the asymptotic convergences that are embedded between race, death, the afterlife, black bodies and the sense of place/belonging.

The object ontology of each sculpture plays a significant role in my culture in the process of allowing deceased souls to depart and heal. The sculptures which include a grass mat called bonde, bowls, a spoon, a white cloth and a cup are biodegradable gelatine-based sculptures that are constructed using grass, wheat, cinnamon and seaweed. The fragility and decay they possess extend to the role of a decaying body assimilating with nature. The memorial cards are mementos honouring those who have passed on.