Post-Card photos on Flickr

I looked at the Zimbabwean/South African artist Kudzanai Violet Hwami work which reveals a deeply personal vision of southern african life . She draws on her experiences of geographical dislocation and displacement, her paintings combine visual fragments of images, they collage the past and the present. She expressed her cultural displacement. It is a concept that describes the process of a culture either being physically separated from its roots or having the imposition of another culture eclipse and or replace that culture. In Kudzanai Violet Hwami's smaller series called ‘speaking in tongues’ this is referencing Shona spirituality, while also referencing the square images that dominate social media, providing a perfectly “curated” glimpse of a home away from home. This comments on both displacement and an attempt at reconciliation, reflecting on lived experiences as well as family photographs.

I have taken a collection of pictures that depict the life of Zimbabwe and fragments of this to better explain the remanisant that fell from being displaced from these places. Hwami’s pieces are what she remembers from her time being in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the memories that these hold even though she had to leave. Her piece with the man on the back of the truck is typical of what to expect in Zimbabwe, wearing his blue suit showing that he is possibly a groundsman and is going or coming from work sitting at the back of a run beat car. The picture appears to have a post card marking as if it is going to be sent to a relative. I have taken this inspiration from her pieces and transpired it into mine creating that home away from home perspective, that my sister would better resonate with.

Hwami recent works in her exhibition “gas chambers embodies a personal search by layering digital collages produced on an iPad, and become the starting point for her larger scale canvases that reflect on a specific role of meditation taken by digital technology and online communication in the everyday lives of diasporic subjects. Her works overlap these narratives that begin to combine stories providing a personal take on representation of not only the black bodies but gender while raising questions about familial roots and displacement. I deeply wanted to evoke this through my works whereby i used her sames techniques in creating a smaller digital canvas that would be transpired into a larger scale painting as she points out is like right in your face when you enter her exhibition which is what she wanted to communicate thus placing my works on a singular page speaks of this volume.

Digital pieces that evoke this feeling of home away from home in a series of photos.

Mukudzei Muzondo-

“I want to explore how migration affects both the person moving and those they leave behind.”

In an article featuring mukudzei muzondo, he mentions the issue of people leaving Zimbabwe in search for a better life. That ‘ In 2002, Zimbabwe’s Population and Housing Census recorded that, at time of counting, 908 000 of its citizens had left the country—— 84% emigrating in search of employment, education and training. Of the population of 16 million, over a third are now living abroad.’ Born in 1983 in Kwekwe though recently swam against the migration tide by swapping urban downtown Harare to Marondera.Mukudzei has been using his experience of home and abroad to explore what he calls the “state of being” —what it is to exist as a human being within societal and political spaces. He typically uses his own silhouette in his paintings as “it's my way of representing the society that I'm in — a society that is changing as more and more Zimbabweans leave the country…wanting to explore these transitions that affect both the person and those they leave behind.” He creates a passageway that shows the journey through life in where he is coming from and where he is going. Displacement has the same effect showing it's the same journey as well, though in this case it is the searching for a safe place to move.

While some of his pieces reflect an immigrant's journey, others embody the solitude of leaving one's home country. He shows long figures standing at the end of a corridor, the eye drawn to the furthest point by carefully calculating lines of perspective. He writes that “when one leaves their country there is much loneliness, so much uncertainty about where you are going and what’s going to happen,” and therefore writing these emotions down evokes a more emotional and personal feel to the pieces. Muzondo uses old-school screen-printing techniques as the base of artwork. This therefore makes it not accurate all the time and gives every piece made in this way unique and having no common structure therefore invoking a whisper on what he is wanting to convey rather than it be blatant. ‘Gateways/ mikova’

This was interesting in better exploring my ideas and connecting this to the rising diaspora in Zimbabwe as a second view to the wider topic of displacement. This correlates with my topic in the way that it voices the concerns of one leaving their home. I've created my own prints where I use the silhouette of my sister who has left for university, and applying piles of book and paper prints emulate this.

I have created small collages of multiple school papers that would mimic my bigger project that I was going to portray that better shows the chaos with all the papers everywhere however in a more orderly way.

Mona Hatoum -

A British- Palestinian multimedia and installation artist, She was born into a Palestinian family, Lebanon and has lived and worked in London, leaving due to conflict wars arising in Lebanon. Mona’s performances, videos , photos, sculptures and more take on an investigation of displacement, marginalization and state violence. She often uses grids or geometric forms to make reference to systems of social and physical control. I found this interesting when looking at Hatoum work when figuring out how to give displacement a physical meaning without it being too literal, and found with this interpretation whereby the use of rigid structures and use of objects as a means of danger and instability in the homes i could mimic the emotions that come with displacement in the way that, although its your home it's not always the safe space that you thought it was.

Her (Hot Spot) piece that she describes as a ‘world continually caught up in conflict and unrest’ that specifically brought me to hatoum work looks at how she contours the continents with an outlined red neon, presenting the entire world as a danger of which i present in showing the conflict of the clothings through my work that are tied against red string. I used this concept after tying up my clothes that would represent a packing movement in a way, as though someone was packing up to leave their home from the dangers they have endured.

Measure of distance (1988) is another by Mona Hatoum whereby she constructs a video showing images of her mother, with animation of a conversation between them. though this portrays the emotional intiam. This constructs images of Hatoum mother in the shower of their family home in Beirut, the Arabic writing overlaying these images like a curtain veil represents her mothers letters from Beirut to the artist. Hatoum says that it portrays the emotional intimacy of the relationship between mother and daughter, ‘it also speaks of exile, displacement, disorientation and a tremendous sense of loss as a result of the separation caused by war.’I think this greatly responds to my topic in the way that it represents the emotions and tensions between families and friends having being displaced from your hometown away from family. The language barriers are interesting depicting the difference in life and cultures now as well.

I took inspiration from Hatoum measures of distance and Shadins quilt implementing both by projecting a video of my sister and other sources who had moved away onto the quilt to represent the moving from one place to another in a symbolic way. Putting it in an ominous setting I felt would give it a more scary and invoking feeling thus creating tension between the audience and my work.

Kamruzzaman shadhin -

Inspired by artist Kamruzzaman shadhin “migration is never a unidirectional force - it leads to inter woven networks of movement that interact with and shape each other”who suggests that for those that have been displaced from their homes, migrants and refugees they are all in search of a ‘safe haven’ and with that she created her 2017-2018 piece ‘Haven is Elsewhere.’ From those people in northwest Bangladesh, she creates quilts from the used clothes of displaced people, these clothes carry the pain, tears and trauma of displacement. They are sewn together. This is able to capture the stories of displacement through these once-used clothes. The search for security, whether through the promise of better livelihoods/ freedom becomes the impetus for a vast web of interconnected migration. This quilt is like a metaphor that can be dubbed as being a large map joining together different regions brought together to form a distant yet unified piece of geographical land. Shadhin says “to have migrant clothing hanging from typical Venetian clothes lines in a traditional neighborhood works as a powerful metaphor for this aspirated ‘better life’ that brings many people.” I wanted to invoke this as though while their clothes hang securely from the traditional Venetian houses, immigrants continue to suffer the consequences of not getting access to these clotheslines. (majhi.org)

I started by looking at the significance of the symbolism of clothes as a means of someone’s past sufferings and trauma that comes with being displaced. Clothes hold memories whether they are good or bad, in this case they hold the indication of danger and act as an active system of reminders.Having many relatives that have left Zimbabwe due to their own struggles and in searches of a better life, education and other, i have looked into creating a quilt like installation that will create a tunnel like vision that represents the path of leaving and creating the illusion of actually going to this ‘safe haven.’ This will be a compilation of their old clothes that hold memories to them.

Exploration of final piece :

I explored the different ways one might be displaced, looking at cultural, educational and forceful ways of displacement. Each piece representing this in contrasting way however shares a similarity that they are isolated in their transition, and in connection with my artists, who have used similar meaning behind their pieces. I wanted to create statement pieces that would invoke these feelings while also making you feel and see the hardships, and traumas that they may have faced. I’m creating installations whereby you are able to walk through the experience creating an intense experience as well as a sense of interaction as you walk through the tunnel.

I started by collecting my family members' clothes, as well as visiting those whom lost their families from hardships and had to move away. These clothes are dumped and left by people that have left in this search for a better life. I then decided to sew them all together creating a quilt that symbolizes not only the warmth and protection one might feel from it but even deeper, a quilt presents the ability to tell stories, showing a time and place, the lives of people who make them and capture slices of life. I wanted to create that feeling by joining all of these together, similarly to Shadin throughout their work, that has inspired me.Hanging this in a spacious, ominous room creates the feeling of isolation and longing of something. It also creates a more cold feeling with all the different life stories told through the colorful clothes that can make you imagine anything for their life.I liked putting it in a more dark unwell lit room thus it creates a more tempting to figure out more feeling within the audience.

I compiled school books and papers of the intention to represent the movement of my sister having left Zimbabwe so that she could gain a better education and further a better life in the future. The books and papers all scattered can be portrayed as though all the battles and hardships that she is yet to overcome along the way as she travels. I sewed all the papers together creating a collage of all these papers. I then got assistance and created a wooden box that would be the incision of the tunnel putting all the papers along it creating that chaos and emotion of leaving. With the photography I wanted to create that illusion of walking through as well.

post card from China by Alfred Ng

When I got back to Toronto from Pittsburgh I received this post card from my friend Michael, it was mailed from Beijing China. the mail man and the dog salt and pepper shaker are from my friends Susan and Bongi, they got it while in San Francisico. it was made in Japan. it has a international feel to it.

Post Card Exhibition by Temple Honors