Art_Africa_2016_02_

ARTAFRICA

CURATOR’S INSIGHT

THE PORCUPINE IN THE ROOM / GITANJALI DANG 7/7 ARTAFRICA

There is the endeavour, coming from a post-colonial context, to create

visibility for ideas that are peripheral within society, and in a predominantly

patriarchal society. There is also the question of creating circulation for ideas

and possibilities in a context that is still predominantly Euro/America-centric.

Why is it that certain things are always marginalised? How do we renegotiate

what it means to be human?

Khanabadosh seems to produce spaces for poetic and political connection,

exploratory spaces for intellectual and creative inquiry.

Khanabadosh is a Hindu word that means ‘those who carry their homes with

them.’ We don’t really have a home; we move around.

How has your residency at Delfina developed your thinking?

Through the ‘porcupine project,’ which became a kind of intellectual labour, I

was able to put my thinking into writing and an exhibition. There are so many

people at Delfina to talk to and explore ideas with. Intimacy became this

object and everyone who came into contact with it, through conversation,

opened it up in new and unexpected ways.

With the exhibition, we started to think about all our conversations and we

looked at them in relation to the tensions of intimacy across time and across

geographical and cultural contexts. For example, I had a lot of interesting

conversations with Lantian Xie. We realised that we had a lot of affinities, and

we thought about intimacy in relation to belonging and unbelonging in the

sense of Dubai where he lives. I hope that in future projects intimacy becomes

a lens through which to explore what it is I am doing. I like to imagine art as

a philosophical exercise.

Yvette Greslé is a London-based art historian and art writer. She recently

completed her PhD on South African video art, history and memory at

University College London.

‘The Porcupine in the Room’ ran from 14 - 23 September 2015 at the Delfina

Foundation.