Questions of Remediation: An Interview with Kapwani Kiwanga

by Makeda Best

An interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of anthropology, science, archival research, and politics, Kapwani Kiwanga explores forgotten histories, resistance, and power imbalance in general—using sculpture, installation, video, and performance to imagine how we might have different relationships to each other and our environment. Plant life is an abiding theme in her work. She not only draws our attention to the harm we have caused—but elevates the species by creating encounters that allow us to recognize how plants have helped humanity survive and even flourish. Residue (2023), a wall of dried banana leaves, refers to the use of chlordecone, a now-banned pesticide used to treat banana plants in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Her paper-flower sculptures, The Marias (2020), depict peacock-flower plants, whose poison gave enslaved women a way of aborting children who would have been born into bondage. She uses the hobbyist papercraft techniques popular with affluent women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by women whose leisurely life was often enabled by the slave trade. In Potomitans (2020), Kapwani features two plants that people living in the condition of slavery once used to poison their enslavers; they are reimagined as silver talismans, which hang from the ceiling in thin chains.  

In the following conversation, Makeda Best, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of Contemporary Art (OMCA), talks to Kapwani Kiwanga about past work—including Flowers for Africa , one of Kiwanga’s most celebrated works—as well as current projects, her process, and what animates her practice.

MAKEDA BEST:  Your exhibition Remediation (2023) is currently at its second stop in Canada, the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Remediation has been described as both drawing from and expanding your artistic practice in new ways, while specifically exploring industrial pollution, environmental health, and environmental regeneration. For readers of Transition, who may not be familiar with your work, can you briefly describe a few of the pieces in the exhibition and how they contribute to this concept of remediation?

KAPWANI KIWANGA:  The exhibition has a number of new works. Keyhole, Residue, and Scorch are those works most directly linked to the concept of remediation. In Keyhole, a planter with concentric arches houses plants in soil and water. The shape of the sculpture is inspired by a design developed in Lesotho to facilitate subsistence gardens for those who were living with HIV and for whom travelling to plots further afield became difficult. The plants I choose to plant are all phytoremediators, that is they filter out pollutants from the water and/or soil. For Residue, I constructed a curved double wall that is covered in banana leaves. The leaves were chosen in reference to the pesticide chlordecone, which was used in the Caribbean to treat banana trees. This chemical has imbued the land and water in some places and as of today, there is no effective way to break down this pesticide. The earth remains charged with this pollutant, which enters into other species—human, vegetal. Finally, Scorch is a floor installation using the Japanese shou shi ban technique, which protects the wood by charring it. By placing this on the floor in contrast to uncharred wood I was evoking techniques of rotating agriculture, which burn fields and let them rest and regenerate as one moves on to another plot to farm. This is quite the contrast to industrial monoculture agriculture. This burnt landscape also recalls forest fires and the ambiguity of fire as both destructive and regenerative. It also speaks of balance, which is omnipresent in this exposition. Balance as one way nature remediates on its own.

MB: Early this year, you were selected to represent Canada at the sixtieth Venice Biennale in 2024. I know you are in Rome at the French Academy, and I read that you have proposed to develop a project called Remédiations. Can you share about that?

KK:  My work here in Rome builds on what I was doing while a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard and also earlier work that looked at toxicity—I’m looking across geographies and across time at the very broad theme of toxicity, how we create toxic environments, be that environmental or social; of course, it’s always mixed in with power. I am in Rome now, as I said, and my research is site-specific. I’m looking at poison and how that was used in antiquity, especially during the Julian period, the intrigues between emperors and different people of power, as well as historic cases of poisoning within the courts of Europe, for example, the Affaire de Poison, when you had numerous European courts, the French, and others, who had this intense fear of being poisoned. Poisoning was a way of—for some people—to get the upper hand in a more immediate way without using official or military systems of arresting power. I will also look at how this pertains to our Earth, our air, and how we relate to one another as humans—all these questions of toxicity. But within that, there’s a question of remediation. Are there ways in which we can care and sustain life without necessarily falling into the trap of purity? Because the concept of purity is always complex and wrought. The history of social hygiene constructs a hierarchy of life and protects those on the highest rungs against threats of impurity. I think we have seen the negative effects of thinking of the world and other beings in terms of purity. I would hope that we can think more about relationships and systems in a continual interdependent movement through which all life is encouraged.

Are there ways in which we can care and sustain life without necessarily falling into the trap of purity? Because the concept of purity is always complex and wrought.

What is more—how does one really own what we’ve done to each other, to the world? And then slowly shift some things to make it a bit more balanced, always keeping in mind that we’re part of this question of balance, of this continual negotiation of trying to find that sweet spot where toxicity is present, damage is acknowledged, yet it’s not so overwhelming that we can’t live and, in contrast, create context in which life thrives.

MB:  I like that your work is often looking towards this other space—that it is very much immersed in a historical awareness of oppressive systems and structures, and yet through the forms, materials, and experiential qualities, the work also suggests other ways of thinking and being in the world. You remind us that we don’t have to just imagine another relationship with the earth, there are other models that exist right now, and there are other models that are yet to be created. Through the experiential and sensorial qualities of your pieces, you’re materializing ways of thinking and histories that can feel so far from us. But again, the works aren’t only reminding us of what relations exist, but of the potential relationships with the earth and the natural world that we have yet to form.

KK:  Yes, exactly. There’s the question of just trying to hold space for that. Acknowledging that it’s there. There may not be critical mass yet and may never be. But it’s still really important to defend those spaces, just relate in a way that is maybe a bit more just…just being in relation in a way that is much healthier. And it could be on a very, very small scale. Looking to the past, there are examples of that. There are examples in our present. Urban farms and food initiatives addressing food disparity in the US, for example.These examples do not need to be perfect; they can be as flawed as we are as humans, but they are attempts to support life. And there could be imagined structures and ways of being in the future as well. But I mean, there’s always this space which I think of as the potential space of the now that honors the past, acknowledging that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There have always been ways of creating reciprocal relations with our environment. One finds this idea across diverse cultures; in those traditions, relations are less transactional, or not transactional at all. But instead, they are rather cyclical or interdependent with an understanding of respectful cohabitation inside and alongside ecosystems. This way of relating has always been here. But it has historically been violently repressed and in our present, it can get drowned out by other loudspeakers. And so, I think of always honoring what there has been, what there will be, I hope, a kind of mixing of times (past, present, and future); this temporal mix is always in the work. This principle is perhaps most obvious in my cycle of performance lectures, Afrogalactica, but it is also present in installations like Plot, which was shown at Haus Der Kunst. There’s something in the imaginary—a flexing of the muscle of possibility, of what could be. If we don’t practice that, that muscle is going to disappear. We have to keep it alive.

MB:  It’s also labor to hold that space and to construct that space. Both the harm and the redressing of it take labor. Constructing those structures of oppression, those structures of toxicity took labor; they didn’t just appear. That was part of the whole system. And then you’re constructing a counter-system. The space that you’re holding requires intention and labor. But there’s also an interesting way in which the viewer’s doing work. It’s emotional, it’s hard, you are forcing us into this balance. It also hints at more work—can we begin to account for the myriad of ways humans have impacted the natural world? I saw this with my project on what militarization has done to the domestic environment here in the US. The opposite of structures of oppression and toxicity will also require different forms of intellectual, manual, social, and political labor. Right? There’s going to have to be work to hold that space.

KK:  Exactly. You know, some institutions that have welcomed me to make work have sometimes been challenged by my work , sometimes joyfully so. Other times, it’s more complicated for them to really be in that space of care, laboring with care and also rethinking labor and dealing with a situation of: “It’s not what we usually do.” Some things can be automatic in terms of administration, and other things just can’t be. Institutions and structures have to reinvent. They have to rethink. There’s never been huge resistance to my approach because people know who they’re inviting. But there’s been this recognition of, “Wow, we really have to invest in this—invest in it intellectually, structurally or politically, in whatever way. And it’s not often with the big “P” of political but in the quotidian. They have to embrace this new way of being. The work itself also creates bridges with the viewer, really welcoming them, truly saying, well, you know, if you want to engage deeply, then you can, and we’ll be here to engage with you in that way. And if you want to fly over the surface, you can do that, too. That’s where it gets interesting: the work isn’t changing systems across the board, but it’s still impacting them.

MB:  I love that you used the word quotidian, because I think of the forms and shapes that you use—spheres, arches, walls—shapes that are familiar in everyday life. They’re so common, yet they’re also very ephemeral. And yet there’s this tension with the labor it has taken to construct the work and the intentionality with which you install them and present them. It seems, you’re in this weird space of very purposeful intention as you create these familiar spaces. Scorch, for example, is wood flooring that has been burned. Such an unassuming form for a piece that expansively recalls the ways humans interact with the natural world is so appropriate. We are all familiar with the experience of looking out at a landscape that we know has so much history, and yet there’s nothing visually “remarkable” about it. You don’t see it and say to yourself, aha, this is what pollution or toxicity looks like, as we sometimes expect to. Causality, consequence—these things are not obvious and are often imperceptible and not spectacular. It’s actually very banal, persistent but banal. Every day, toxicity just builds and builds. This can be seen especially in the way communities of color suffer. There’s no dramatic moment of recognition; the suffering isn’t immediately apparent. It’s just every day. And so, I’m just curious about how you approach form. Like, do you see pieces like Scorch, as distillations, as essences—what are they?

KK:  My relationship to materials is never about the aesthetic at first. I eventually find the aesthetic in the form. I’m really drawn to how materials operate in our structures. How or why is it important in terms of politics, in terms of economics? What role do they play? And, in addition, I work a lot with archive. So, I think “How can this be a new archive?” Or can we look at this as an archive that can hold meaning, can hold history, can witness. On top of that, there’s always a desire for sculpting shapes, the proposition to be a space of invitation, so it invites people to think, to feel, to be differently. The work is never meant to be a confrontation. It doesn’t mean there can’t be difficult things looked at. But it’s not meant to continue the violences that are already out there. There can be anger without it having to be a force that pushes away. The forms should be a force that draws in and says, wait. Let’s sit with this. Let’s sit with how hard or ugly or whatever this thing might be. But sit with it. The work, Residue, in that regard, is welcoming. The fact that the material is taken from the everyday, like the banana leaf…sisal, on the other hand, in my work Elliptical Field, is maybe a bit less familiar: you don’t see that much in North America or Europe, where I tend to show my work most. The question of context is also interesting, because in some places something may be familiar, and in other places it is not. Wherever you’re coming from, your code looks at the material and says, that’s new or that’s familiar, but I haven’t seen it for some time. I don’t like things to be too precious. Artworks should not feel like they’re removed, or that they should be venerated. They should be considered. But I would hope that the body feels that they could touch it. Sometimes scale does make the body feel something else, but I think it should never feel dominated. And so, I guess that’s how I move around form. But I’m always thinking about the visitor—the soul and the body that are going to encounter this thing. It should be a personal experience for the individual who is encountering it.

The work is never meant to be a confrontation. It doesn’t mean there can’t be difficult things looked at. But it’s not meant to continue the violences that are already out there.

MB:  I am a historian of photography, and I know that for some time you were a documentary filmmaker. I’m interested in the way documentary, as a cultural form and practice, informs your work. The way you consider the role of witnessing and the way you describe visceral responses to objects, as well as your use of the everyday, reminds me of vernacular photography. The choice to do documentary versus experimental work is also very specific and indicates to me the ways in which someone is, for example, drawn to realism. For a time, you were also making photo-based works and screen works. Have documentary time-based practices informed your work?

KK: It was a very conscious decision, which was very much about where I wanted to put my energy and my soul. I, and the documentary form, like to be in the everyday. And then there is the moving image—how far can you reach with that? You don’t need to be able to read or write. You don’t even have to be able to hear. You can just experience it. Problems with vision, that’s a different barrier, but even then, you may be able to access the sound. I don’t like the word democratic when talking about the moving image, but it felt broad enough and welcoming in this way.

As for the question of working with time—the moving image is part of my practice in a sensual way. I do think that there is a rhythm in the changing of perspectives—frames if you like—when moving through an installation. This movement is not a loop, it’s more like a champ contre champ, the shot and reverse shot convention in cinema, but it’s more complex than that. I was frustrated by just working with single or multiple screens when I was making films and video installations. But there’s an interest, I think, in the idea of assemblage, an assemblage of image and bodily perspectives. When the body moves through space, it’s similar to a plan sequence (a continuous shot) or a montage where the body is the camera. There need not be a  visual recording or assemblage though I insist on the body; all aspects of the body are recording devices.

Going back to the idea of the archive and what is the document. What are those new documents I would like to think about? I’ve been frustrated by going into archives and finding only text, images, and sometimes oral history. The archive can still feel so fixed and lifeless. That’s where the ephemerality, the kind of flux in my work starts comes in. I start thinking, this has to move because life moves. The complicated thing for me with photography is that it captures, it arrests. I never did that much photography. Documenting and witnessing—that is definitely in my work, but I think more in terms of the use of rhythm and time in a space, as an assemblage.

I start thinking, this has to move because life moves. The complicated thing for me with photography is that it captures, it arrests.

MB: Looking at your work over the years, it seems like earlier on you were more committed to the work of representing the world in a more direct and realistic way through the incorporation or engagement with photographic imagery, and then there was a shift away from that around 2019 into more sculptural works. 

KK:  It just happened. I was standing in front of things, for example during my first solo exhibition. I was working on Rumours Maji was a lie, whose starting point was the Maji Maji War, which transpired in what is now present Tanzania in 1905-1907. I was spending a lot of time in archives, in ethnographic storehouses. Which means in a lot of dead space, but also in a space of captured imagery, arrested objects. I made something that was trying to push against that, trying to create movement, trying to bring some life into something that was removed from life. There was a lot of reproduction in that work. It felt fine at that moment of time at the beginning of my practice. There’s always been a little bit of playfulness or, I don’t know—

I hesitate to use it, but I will use the word—spirituality that I try to infuse into the earlier kind of video documents that I did. Not documentaries, but video documents. This happened little by little by asking myself, what is this offering? Am I just reproducing? I was very conscious of this when I was doing the Flowers for Africa (2013–ongoing) work. I was in Dakar, Senegal, and I was looking in different public archives for images and documents of independence, and the same kind of images came up over and over again. How would showing them bring anything to this past moment that I was really interested in? What was the potential of that moment? What did that mean to those people who were not at the center of power? All these questions were not held in these archival images. That’s when there was a clear choice to abandon the document. In the series, I’m working with this intriguing space with both life and death present. You have these cut flowers that are no longer alive, and we’re allowing their cycle to come to an end. There are a lot of people who say, can you show us the images that this work was inspired by? No, the archival reference has nothing to do with what we’re trying to work for. At the moment, I was making that, I was thinking about activation and ritual. How one can pay homage by reliving, reactivating without having to hold onto…and instead just acknowledge this moment in time, and acknowledge it will fade into the past. So, one creates these bouquets. They will wilt away, and that’s it. It’s not revisiting that past event. It’s just acknowledging that it happened. And keeping it alive in its past. That was a very clear decision.

How one can pay homage by reliving, reactivating without having to hold onto…and instead just acknowledge this moment in time, and acknowledge it will fade into the past.

MB:  That’s the only body of work, to my knowledge, that’s ongoing. Is that correct?

KK:  Yes, it is ongoing. There are a couple of others that are open-ended as well. They’re related to other archival research; if I came across something, I would open them up again. There’s one project around disciplinary architecture and color used in institutions. That is somewhat ongoing, although I haven’t really worked on that for a bit. That is a project I feel I’ll also continue because it also requires continual archival research.

MB: Flowers for Africa was first shown in 2013? How has your relationship to it changed over time? If so, is part of what has changed your relationship to the archive?

KK: It’s so lovely for me to be in physical archives and not just online. There’s a lot of digitized stuff. And when I can go to an archive that hasn’t been digitized completely, and spend the time there, that’s optimal, but I’ve not had the chance to do that as much as I had at the very beginning. Sometimes I would have friends or friends of friends that would be able to go physically into archives, and then pull out some material for me. But that’s changed. I don’t have the time to travel as much to get to different archives…but the process of going to the archive is still an important exercise for me because it helps me plunge myself into a moment of time. I find crucial political histories and I want to know them in a different way. I find crucial to political histories. I want to know them in a different way. But it’s always an aspiration to be able to be there physically. This is what working in the archive offers.

MB:  I wondered if the context of the status of the archive in contemporary art has changed, because there’s so much historical imagery in visual culture now, even more than there was five years ago; there’s just so much content. I wonder if, because of the visual familiarity with the historical image, Flowers for Africa starts to resonate differently with viewers.

KK:  Yes, that’s really interesting because the source images are multi-perspectival. More creation has gone into them. At the time that I was making Flowers for Africa I was looking at images that looked as if they had been taken from the likes of Time Magazine. I didn’t want to reproduce those sorts of images. They lock things down into a very particular viewpoint which was—I don’t really like the term so much, but for shorthand—from a Western lens. If we’re talking about something like African independence, reproducing those images as is didn’t sit right. What interests me is what’s going on outside of the frame of the photograph. There’s a narrative that’s somewhere beyond the frame. For example, we have these official people shaking hands, mostly men. What’s going on beyond the frame of what we see, who is watching this? And what happens after the fact? What happens after the ceremony? What’s the everyday of this moment? And its repercussions? That’s what I’ve always been interested in. And of course, that’s not what’s recorded in the photograph. That’s why there had to be another document for me; in some way, the flowers represent many, many people, and many perspectives. Those things that didn’t get framed by the journalistic photograph because they weren’t seen to be important enough. I was very conscious to not be in a documentary kind of process—to not reproduce that power narrative around these political moments and to simply talk about nationhood as referenced by those photographs. What do the photos mean to its country’s citizen; if we’re talking about nations that are meant to be democracies, or even not intended as democracies? That was one of the positions I decided to take; it was more about where I wanted to focus, as opposed to necessarily pushing against representation although representation is complicated for me in so many ways.

I was very conscious to not be in a documentary kind of process—to not reproduce that power narrative around these political moments and to simply talk about nationhood as referenced by those photographs. What do the photos mean to its country’s citizen

MB:  I am so intrigued by what is an ongoing theme in your work: nature is a witness, a very complex witness. And even those flowers which are manufactured, which are constructed, they’re witnesses, they’re witnessing; they’ve been there a long time. They were genetically modified varieties in many instances. And then they are shaped into these strange forms, and then there are the people who did this labor. They were constructed, and so they also bear that kind of history. These arrangements become these kinds of witnesses to an expansive concept of time—before (their cultivation, their cultural currency, their replication/construction) and after (their ongoing cultivation, cultural significance, and manual arrangement). Then, they persist in your reconstructions. These kinds of floral arrangements are found across cultures as commemorative and decorative objects, and they’re familiar. The viewer recognizes them in a sense.

KK: Definitely. When I was in Dakar, it was really interesting to look into the history of its first commercial greenhouse and this question of how one creates a little microclimate for particular flowers, flowers in demand. One can look to the global economics of Kenya’s floral exports. Then those flowers are in one’s everyday reality, and by the fact of being present in the daily context they can become witnesses. As can we. But the floral sculptures just offer another perspective to look back at oneself, or to look at a society. And also, to look beyond ourselves, hopefully, and to our environment, which is populated by so many other beings.

MB:  But in that piece, that ongoing piece, you’ve isolated these flowers. In this way, you’re playing with historical time because they’re now outside their context. By isolating them, they are placed in contrast to a vast historical backdrop, if you will. That distortion of scale is part of their power. The flowers somehow move between background (in the original photographs) to foreground as the objects that viewers see. Scale is another tool that you use in your work. I’m thinking of the massive arch that is part of the Flowers for Africa works.

KK:  That’s Rwanda.

MB:  All of the sudden the scale and volume are greater than. The piece is densely packed with leaves. Can you share how you approach these ideations of scale. How do you think about scale?

KK:  It’s the archive, again, that guides me. What I love about Flowers for Africa is that it spans from the very small—like a boutonniere (as in the case of the sculpture related to Tunisia) which can be worn on a lapel, close to Habib Bourguiba’s heart, a public discourse made intimate—to something that is an architectural structure in the middle of a dusty road in Kigali. It’s all of that.

Every independence history is so particular. Did independence come about by blood, negotiation, was it celebrated or simply acknowledged? Then of course, there is labor in all of this. The formal variety of the arrangements, themselves, hint at the unique contexts that led to each country’s independence. For example, for Mozambique, the floral arrangement sat in the middle of a negotiation table. With this work we’re in the context of a war for liberation. The more “ordained,” ceremonial British protectorates’ independence ceremonies were more decorative and protocolar. This variety speaks to the history of how these different nations came about. By looking at them deeply, one can get a sense of what the conditions were. What was the landscape of power? How did the two groups of power agree—begrudgingly or opportunistically—to the change?

I think diversity is really interesting—from this little, tiny boutonniere that represents Tunisia to the big archway. There are so many ways of engaging with this work, ways in which you can position yourself to history. Do you want to be listening to the story around the dinner table or in the kitchen, or are you going to the back halls of parliament?

MB: We’re talking now about the ways that through your work the archive, and the conditions and the experiences of that archive, are materialized. In a lot of your more recent work, there is the sense of more of an energy. And a lot of that seems to be achieved through your use of color. Can you talk about how color has emerged in your work as a real force?

KK: That started very clearly from a project on disciplinary architecture; I knew I was interested in how buildings shaped our bodies, our minds, and societies. In a similar vein, I became interested in urban planning. But I didn’t know how I was going to go pursue those interests in my practice. Then at one point, I landed on color. It came up in a few different articles I was reading. I was thinking about color theory in terms of manipulation or control, not symbolically, I was mostly interested in how it can affect one’s behavior and/or comportment. That really grabbed me. From there color grew as a theme in my work.

MB:  Your use of color is very specific, though. There is a muted quality. In the Linear Paintings, there’s a particular level of saturation and range that you’re working with.

KK:  That’s not my choice. The colors come directly from the archive, interpreted a little bit, of course, because I’m using whatever color palette exists here, mixing different hues and all the rest to get as close as we can to an original. Sometimes I only have references to the color, in terms of the values, and sometimes I have paint chips. It depends. So, in that series I don’t control the colors much. There are other works where I’ve been using purple quite a lot. There are many reasons for that. I’m working on a new carpet piece, and there’s a lot of green in that. Then there’s the joy of being able to think of how an atmosphere can be achieved through color. I mean, it’s quite basic, but it’s also powerful. I hope it’s not replicating what was done with disciplinary architecture, trying to control behavior, but maybe just encouraging a state of attention or a slowing-down.

MB:  Or referring to a different kind of energy and memory. An image of a place or mood arises. Right? The viewer associates the colors with certain social settings and experiences because these colors have been so ingrained in institutional settings, and they continue to be used. For example, the greens that you find in hospitals—they’re still used—there’s a visceral way in which we respond to these.

KK:  The green is especially interesting. When I was doing my research, I spoke to a historian of science at the Canadian Museum of Science, David Pantalony. He had done some research on green and how that color became so prevalent in the medical field. When we see particular greens, we’re used to associating it with a hospital context; it’s been there for decades.

MB:  Going back to our initial point about oppression and systems and structures, it is the color of the system. As a person of color from the States, you know, that color is a part of a system of control you recognize. You ask yourself, why were you at that place? Why was somebody brought there? And how are those colors all the same? My parents worked in prison reform—— the same person who designed the local prison designed some of the schools. It’s unnerving.

KK:  It’s unnerving because you understand without understanding. And so, you fall into line without knowing that you’re doing that, your body conforms to what certain architectures have taught us over time and exposure. It’s the same thing with light in institutions. Artworks have this, an energy or an immaterial quality that is transmitted, but of course that’s happening in a manipulative setting. Visiting the museum or exhibition space is controlled. The colors of the institution are intentional. The colors are communicating something, and you’re reacting and thinking, “Stay straight, you know where you are, this is a serious space.” You understand as soon as you walk in.

MB:  The way the paintings are installed is also important. The installation corresponds to how museums install works. So, in this way, you recall and call attention to the act of viewership and the ways institutions position bodies in space and in relation.

MB:  The term research-driven artist is, as you know, used a lot. I’m curious about what you think of that term. What does that mean to you?

KK: I think it gives a bit too much gravitas to what research is. Research is a huge part of my work, but I think that term might pen it into what people might think of as academic or conventional approaches to the archive. People are researching all the time in their studio just by looking at a line on a page. It’s part of their thinking process. The term “conceptual art” also feels very much of a time as well. So, I think it’s like with everything, the answer is “but-and.” Can we add another hyphen “…and, and, and, and, and?”

The research for me is sitting at the bus stop. It is looking around at the airport. Listening to people talk to one another. It’s going to the market and seeing what the colors of the moment are, what foods are available. That’s research. It’s just being attentive and observing. And so, in that sense calling myself an ethnological artist—sometimes others put that in the description—makes sense in terms of those sorts of observation. It’s not participatory observation but just being attentive and curious.  I would say that of the work itself, sixty percent is spent with the research. And forty percent is finding its form. Maybe I even spend more time on research. In some ways, just sitting and thinking about how I want to position myself, what is it I’m trying to contribute to a dialogue…that is how I find out what the form might be. I think all these terms are a bit reductive; they flatten things.

The research for me is sitting at the bus stop. It is looking around at the airport. Listening to people talk to one another. It’s going to the market and seeing what the colors of the moment are, what foods are available.

MB:  Going back to earlier pieces that use duration and time and finding the form through long processes, is there a through line between your works? Do you see them as in dialogue? Is there a question that you’re constantly going after? Or is the question finished when they are?

KK:  Some are open. And others…well, there was a moment when I was working in chapters, so I spent a lot of time researching, reading, thinking about a general subject. Then a series of works would come out of that because I’d have the budget, the space to present it. And so I’d say to myself, oh, now I can make a bit of this thing that I wanted to do. Now a lot of things happen in parallel. So, I don’t know, I never see the through line apart from asking what is going on between us as human beings, and what is this power thing between us? What is going on? Why isn’t it working for everyone?? That’s the question that’s always there for me in the world that I’m working in. If I were not an artist, I think it would be there in another way. That’s the through line for me in terms of my questioning. A work like Greenbook both looks at the power imbalance and ways of circumnavigating that, if your life and wellbeing are threatened by this dynamic. As for the works themselves, they sometimes feel like they are represented in very different languages. I don’t know if they connect. I just opened a retrospective exhibition  in Germany, and I kept thinking, well, the curator sees connections there so I will trust in that, but how is the audience going to understand how these disparate works relate? The through line is that question of power and trying to relate to one another in a more just way. That’s the simplest way to explain it.

© Kapwani Kiwanga

Reprinted with permission