The two artists seem to be working differently and hitting at two opposite ends of an aesthetic but they are together mainly because they work with recycled material. They give a chance and a new life to what would have destroyed our environment if it was just thrown around and not put into good use like they have. Perhaps there work becomes more important now that it hinges unto our living and welfare as humans today.
She shares with me her findings that we humans not only have a body but also a mind and energy. The mind is a muscle; it needs care just like the body. The question is what do we feed it with? And what does this state look like? Whatever we are thinking inside reflects or vibrates out of us. Prina shares this questioning and experience in her work.
Guzman has an inquisitive mind, ready to find out how the histories of the places he works or lives are connected to other parts of the world, always out of a strong awareness of the effects of migration, of decolonialism and with transatlantic black identity in mind.
Black lives have always mattered through colonialism, the Atlantic Slave Trade, the Jim Crow era, apartheid, and currently, with the ongoing abuse of Black bodies by the police. The atrocity committed against People of Color around the world clearly indicates that social engineering against us has birthed all the negative repression.
Nxumalo’s exhibition was an exercise in how the black male body seeks to find a form of redemption in a culture that is gluttonous with representation and its capability to take voice and power from its subject.