Ndizakuyivula Ibhayibile

Blank Projects
113-115 Sir Lowry Road
Woodstock
Cape Town 8001
South Africa

Khanyisile Mbongwa
Ndizakuyivula Ibhayibile

Artist's Statement:
"Looking at the black body as raced, gendered and classed in a literal, symbolic and figurative sense – becomes manifest of the ‘othering’ and its objectification. The availability of the black female body is precisely because black is available. The placing of African female bodies as the sentient black body is bent by colonial weight and injustice into the exotic, savage and fantasies of white imagination. The element of the performing black female body is undertaken in the representation of black identities as subjugated or silent – i.e the victim or the apologetic black.

Post-colonialism is still a western concept, a political project of subversion and deconstruction concentrated on Eurocentrism by reacting against the imposition of European cultures. By no means is this a deconstruction the black female body, but instead it constructs it further for the ‘Pleasure of European Gazers’. But the black female body is not only subjected by this white capitalistic supremacist gaze, it is further subjected to black patriarchy constructing the black female body through its own objectifying lens.

The black vagina can be used as a weapon against oppressors yet it also stands as a site of oppression, i.e: it is the site of contest – men fighting against each other inside and outside the colonial and radical demarcations; it is where war can be resolved and ignited (but this by no means propagates that white will fight or die for black pussy). It can exude a politic of positivity. The impetus of religion (Christianity) in reading the racial and gendered is important for the construction of the black female body. This is only a start of interrogating the content, context and function of religion on black women’s bodies. The idea is to bring to surface the process of subsuming everyday life; the mute world of commodities; text – textures and forms; and the religious reproduction in the contemporary."


Khanyisile Mbongwa was born in 1984 in Gugulethu, Cape Town, she is one of the founding members of the experimental art collective, the Gugulective, that has exhibited locally and internationally. In 2007 she established THE BINARY, a discussion group critically engaging with issues around the black condition and marginalization. She was part of the Cape 09 Bienalle , the fringe collective Artpays and has also served on the board of VANSA Western Cape. Khanyisile continues to produce and perform independently, while contributing to various collective arts initiatives.

In her most recent work, the physical video piece Fragments, Khanyi explores the subjects of racial inequality, intimidation and invasion as it is manifest in the Apartheid legacy.

Through May 1.

[Cross-posted to Signal Fire. Text and graphic from Blank Projects website. Caption: "Khanyisile Mbongwa. Untitled (2010). Production Still.]