Out The Archive is a project that aims to process and a publish a documentary film shot in the 80s. Cambrian explosion tendrils of gossamer clouds a still more glorious dawn awaits stirred by starlight a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena paroxysm .
Visionary artist and spiritual leader Jackson Mbhazima Hlungwani (1925 – 2010) was born in Nkanyani Village, Gazankulu; now part of Limpopo. Despite learning Tsonga wood-carving techniques from his father, Hlungwani initially showed no desire to practice as an artist. Instead, he worked as a migrant labourer in Johannesburg until an industrial accident in 1944 cost him a finger and his job.
In 1978, a severely-ill Jackson Hlungwani experienced the vision which would define the rest of his life. In it, he saw God’s legs in the sky, and was given three instructions by the voice of Christ: He should start his own church, he should begin making wood carvings, and he should use these in his teachings.
Spirituality and art-making for Hlungwani were therefore fundamentally intertwined. His sculptures served as an earthly manifestation of a deeply-personal theology for a world united by peace and acceptance. His sculptures are idiosyncratic and distinctive, religious figures are often depicted playing soccer.
Jackson Hlungwani is most renowned for ‘New Jerusalem’, a sprawling sculptural sanctuary on a hill near Limpopo centred around two altarpieces. While the individual works were dispersed into institutional collections in the late 1980s, they have subsequently been reunited for various career retrospectives.
Venda sculptor Noria Mabasa was born in 1938 in Xiaglo Village, Limpopo. Initially, her work with clay encompassed the geometrically patterned pots that were the traditional purview of Venda women. In 1965 Mabasa experienced recurring dreams of an old woman instructing her to produce clay sculptural figures. In a drastic break with tradition, she began producing these works in 1974.
Mabasa’s astute figures reflected the daily life of her community, initially focused on young girls and later expanding to reflect the politicians, bureaucrats, and military personnel that accrued with the apartheid government’s so-called bestowal of independence to the Venda Bantustan.
Inspired by further dreams, Noria Mabasa began to work with wood carving in the 1980s, remaining the only Venda woman to do so. In contrast to the quiet intimacy of her clay figures, the multifaceted wooden works are often massive in scale, depicting elaborate social commentaries with human and animal figures.
While the immediate documentary and allegorical layers are universally accessible, the prevalence of dream-imagery and direct communication with the ancestors imbues Mabasa’s work with a number of spiritual and cultural codes inaccessible to external audiences.
In 2002, the South African Presidency awarded her the Grand Counsellor of the Baobab.
Nelson Mukhuba (1925 -1987) grew up near the Lutheran mission station at Tshakuma in the area of Venda. He worked in Johannesburg in the 1950s as a carpenter and electrician. He, however, returned to Thasakuma in 1958 and began carving, making amongst other object wooden figures used in girls initiation ceremonies. At the mission station he carved Christian subjects, such as the famous Nebuchadnezzar and Christ Crucified. He also made music forming various Marabi dance bands and made recordings. In the 1980s he sold his sculptures in the side of the road. He was encouraged to join a commercial gallery in Johannesburg. On returning from an exhibition in Johannesburg he cut down all the fruit trees around his house and killed his two wife and daughters. He then set fire to his house and workshop and hanged himself. The reason for these tragic actions have never been fully understood.
Dr Phuthuma Seoka (1922-1997)left school at the age of 16 years old to become a herbalist. In the 1950s he established a small business selling patented herbalist medicines and remedies in Johannesburg. It was through this practice that he gained his title ‘Dr.’ He turned to carving figures from horn, stone and wood after consulting a healer about a recuring dream involving a large mountain snake.
The dreams became source in inspiration for his sculptures. As Sue Williamson quoted him in her seminal book Resistance Art: ‘I get the [sculptures] by dreams. They show me. If I can see that man in my dream …I look at the wood [and] I see the people standing there … then I know I must cut it like that.’
Seoka rose to fame as a result of the ground-breaking exhibition Tributaries, curated by Ricky Burnett in 1985. His work was then shown to critical acclaim alongside that of Norman Cathrine’s in Basle, Switzerland. His painted sculptures with their wiry elongated limbs, painted in blazing colour, took on political and social themes. Williams noted works such as ‘Angry Boer’ (1986), ‘Cross Madam’ (1986) and ‘PW Botha’ (1985).