Book II: Meli Mpya

 

In an often-quoted phrase, Fredric Jameson (1981) once wrote:

“History is what hurts.”

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This is a poignant statement reminding us how much history is an act of necessity; one which is felt, and sometimes, can be felt by individuals decades or even centuries later. It is a kinship, a virtual experience, a form of necromancy, a form of ‘negromancy’ (Powell, 2016); it is what we believe to be politically, aesthetically, and conceptually legitimate.

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Book II: Meli Mpya is a depiction of a life in the hurts of a history, and was created in collaboration with my mother, who creates text responses to my visual practice. In this book, we follow a story Nankondo who is my matrilineal ancestress (five generations apart). Her name refers to a person who was born of war or in a time of war. Living most of her life during the time when slavery was still at large in the shores of East Africa; Nankondo disappeared from her village one day. As it was common during this time in history, it is believed that she was abducted and taken into slavery, transitioning through the Pangani coast to most likely end up in the Zanzibar Island (or even beyond).

 

The book consists of six works which range between photography, installation, performance, olfactory, video, sound, and text; and which collectively create a space for remembrance—one that is meant to summon Nankondo’s presence for us to have a conversation—for me to make sense of her times and in the process, I begin to understand and make sense of my own situatedness. The book also features a Whisper for Nankondo, a text which was written for and in conversation with Nankondo, by my mother (Demere Kitunga).

 

Featured works:

• Part II: Nankondo (2018)

• The Land Remembers (2019)

• Scents of Identity (2019)

• Ungo: Spaceship (2020)

• The Flower (2015)

• Beloved (An Ode to Mkunde) (2020)