Dineo Ponde

My artistic practice is interested in how my lived experience as black, as a woman, and as “other” fit into the broader South African social-political context. Concepts surrounding belonging, identity,  memory and storytelling are the central themes in my practice. I investigate the complexities and nuances of the above topics by distorting and interrogating familial archival material. Discomfortingly I question the gravity of my physical and metaphysical presence in certain spaces. I am of the belief that everything functions in-and-through community. My practice is concerned with how an individual forms part of the collective and vice versa. More so, it investigates the intricate intersections between the personal and the political 

Feminist New Materialists suggest that the past, present, and future are unfolding simultaneously. It is this constant simultaneity and interconnectivity that informs my creative framework. Upon viewing my work, you are called to bear wit(h)ness and direct that gaze inward. The contemporary artists Wangechi Mutu and Obatong Nkanga also inform my artistic practice. Both artists deal with aspects of blackness, belonging, identity, and home, Nkanga begs the question “ is possible to have multiple belongings?” and if so, how do you belong? I have been asking myself different iterations of this very question throughout my practice. Naturally, I understand that there is no definitive answer to this very thick and textured question. My practice attempts to make sense of this hodgepodge. Through excavating individual and collective memories, and archival material, I find the visual vocabulary to reimagine and tell stories.