Feet Under Fire
2017 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">14:54 minutes</span>
Lungiswa Gqunta
Feet Under Fire by Lungiswa Gqunta depicts the artist’s lower legs swinging in and out of frame, above a bed of charcoal. She wears a pleated white dress, two identical white anklets, and a set of bristle brushes as shoes. Affixed to the base of each scrubbing brush is a black strap so that the brushes don’t fall off of her feet. In the video, Gqunta recalls the frequent occurrences of devastating fires, accidentally ignited by open cooking flames, that decimate informal settlements in South Africa. The fires have resulted in thousands of fatalities, some people are even consumed by flames whilst asleep in their beds. The video is accompanied by the artist singing a childhood nursery rhyme in isiXhosa, an official Bantu language of South Africa. The rhyme, titled Umzi Washa , translates to “The house is burning” “Go look there; there is a fire, pour water!” It is an instructional song used to teach children who live in informal settlements about safety and survival. Gqunta’s video illustrates how domesticity and danger commingle in everyday South African life. Due to their frequency, such unintentional fires have, over time, united communities living in settlements. The fires often travel quickly throughout the area and therefore inhabitants are required to work together to put out the flames, as well as remain vigilant about potential fires. The artist states that these burning homes are indicative of widespread systemic inequities in South Africa and that Black communities must collectively organize to initiate change. As it poses such a potent symbol of community responsibility and resilience, for Gqunta, the element of fire acts as both a metaphor and a catalyst for change.
Lungiswa Gqunta’s practice addresses issues concerning South African post-colonial culture and the country’s contemporary political landscape. Through performance, printmaking, sculpture, and installation, the artist’s work exposes the systemic inequality and violence in her home country. Gqunta constructs multimodal experiences that call attention to and critically reflect upon the varied forms of oppression that continue in present-day South Africa due to the hegemony of patriarchal and colonial legacies. Gqunta is also one of the founding members of iQhiya.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTFORUM
New York’s Rubin Museum to Shutter, Pursue Decentralized Model – Artforum Read Next: ITALIAN CULTURE MINISTER VITTORIO SGARBI EXITS UNDER PRESSURE Subscribe Search Icon Search Icon Search for: Search Icon Search for: Follow Us facebook twitter instagram youtube Alerts & Newsletters Email address to subscribe to newsletter...
© » KADIST
Nadia Myre
2018First exhibited as part of the recent multidisciplinary project Code Switching and Other Work , at Art Mûr, Berlin in late 2018, Nadia Myre’s Untitled (Tobacco Barrel) takes inspiration from the cylindrical vessels used to import tobacco from North America to Europe during periods of early colonial settlement...
© » KADIST
Sheelasha Rajbhandari
2018Agony of the New Bed by Sheelasha Rajbhandari brings out the familiar yet often ignored reality of gender discrimination and taboos built within the construct of marriage...
© » KADIST
Will Rogan
2014Will Rogan’s video Eraser (2014) shows a hearse parked in a clearing amidst leaf barren trees...
© » KADIST
Chemi Rosado-Seijo
2016Map of the Universe from El Cerro continues Chemi Rosado-Seijo’s long-term engagement with the community of El Cerro , a rural, working-class community living in the mountains of Naranjito, Puerto Rico...
© » ARTSJOURNAL
DSO extends music director's contract through 2031; new album on the way BRIAN MCCOLLUM DSO extends music director's contract through 2031; album of Wynton Marsalis symphony on the way Brian McCollum Detroit Free Press View Comments Detroit Symphony Orchestra music director Jader Bignamini has been given a contract extension through 2031, the DSO’s governing board announced Thursday...
© » KADIST
Ximena Garrido Lecca
2014Destilaciones ( Distillations , 2014) is an installation composed of a group of ceramic pots, presented on the floor and within a steel structure...
© » KADIST
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige
2017Produced for the Prix Marcel Duchamp and presented at the Centre Pompidou in October 2017, the installation Uncomformities is comprised of photographs, archaeological drawings, and narratives, based on the analysis of core samples from different sites in Beirut, Paris and Athens...
© » KADIST
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger
2017This triptych is based on a Tesla whose interior the artist customized on the Tesla website...
© » KADIST
Abel Rodríguez
2018Abel Rodríguez’s precise, botanical illustrations are drawn from memory and knowledge acquired by oral traditions...
