Biography
Sikhumbuzo Makandula is a visual artist and photography lecturer in the Fine Art Department at Rhodes University and an arts writer based in Makhanda. He is a research associate at the Institute for Creative Arts, UCT, and a research fellow at Creative Knowledge Resources at the University of Cape Town. Makandula graduated with a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Live Art, Public Spheres and Performance Art from the University of Cape Town.
Makandula’s research traces and interrogates the material culture of black intellectual history and the knowledge systems embedded in iminombo, izibongo, iimbali and iingoma. In 2023, Makandula co-edited a reader titled eMgwali, published through Creative Knowledge Resources, University of Cape Town. In 2016, he published a book, Ubuzwe, and some of his writing has been published in Art Africa, ArtThrob, and his art has been featured in publications such as Acts of Transgression: Contemporary Live Art in South Africa, Exchanging Symbols: Monuments and Memorials in Post Apartheid South Africa. As a visual artist, his solo exhibitions include, Izwekufa (Duggan Cronin Gallery), Abalozi (Calabar Gallery, Harlem, New York), In Search of a Nation (Njelele Art Station, Zimbabwe), Ubuzwe (Room Gallery), Zizimase (District Six Museum, Cape Town), and his work is part of the public and private collections internationally.
Synopsis
Inhlambuluko is a term that means to purify, cleanse, and transform. In this public live art, I draw from its dual use as a term used in both biblical and African traditional religious senses, which denotes cleansing that leads to transformation. This public intervention and Live Art is derived from my interest in public spheres and discourse about, whose history counts within the cityscape of Cape Town and which language is used to historicize those whose history is yet to be written.
Inhlambuluko will consider using the vice of ukuhuba and ukungqokola, which often sounds like a spiritual groaning of the inner being. As a live art, we will consider how speaking to the dead can communicate 'otherwise'. For instance, what if the dead started to speak, especially through abalozi? The live art further intimates towards a call and response between the dead and living through the medium of umlozi (whistle blowing), which I coin as the sonic aesthesis. Inhlambuluko, seeks to suggest a contradiction and lack of accountability in speaking about a democratic public space and place, yet the majority are subjected to violence at a psychological level.
