Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: ab initio

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

ab initio

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum ab initio Publication © 2013 Essay by Khwezi Gule © 2013 Artist’s Images © Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum Photography © Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and David Ramsey Van Every/Smith Galleries Davidson College 315 North Main Street Davidson, North Carolina 28035-7117 davidsoncollegeartgalleries.org All rights reserved. Printed in the United States. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This publication was produced in conjunction with Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s residency and exhibition at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, August 26–October 11, 2013.

Design: Graham McKinney Printing: ImageMark cover: the star + the moon, animation still, 2011 opposite: centrifig., 2013, watercolour, ink and pencil on paper

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum THE VAN EVERY/SMITH GALLERIES

ab initio

Introduction It is with great pleasure that the Davidson College Art Galleries, with the support of the Davidson College Bacca Foundation Visiting Lecture and Artist Program, introduce Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and her exhibition, ab initio.

We invited Sunstrum to spend the first three weeks of the Fall 2013 semester at Davidson College, opening the doors to the studio – and her artistic practice – to our community. Born in Botswana, Sunstrum has lived in different parts of Africa, Asia, and North America, and has spent the last two years in Johannesburg, South Africa. Informed by her transnational experiences, Sunstrum’s recent explorations in drawing, installation, and animation presented an invented alter ego, Asme, navigating diverse geographies and straddling multiple cultures. This alter ego – part reality and part fantasy – spurred Sunstrum to create more mythologically-driven works of art. With interests in autobiography, quantum physics, and science fiction, Sunstrum’s current artistic practice is centered around making mythologies out of everyday experiences.

Sunstrum’s exhibition, ab initio, is comprised of wall drawings and installations she created on-site, supplemented with works on paper and animations the artist completed in her studio in South Africa. The exhibition title, the Latin phrase, “from the beginning,” cues the viewer into Sunstrum’s concept: the work presented is the starting point of her narrative. While Sunstrum’s previous works used characters, heroes, and alter egos like Asme to tell stories, Sunstrum spent her time at Davidson College delving into something new – adding to the narrative primarily through landscape alone. Drawings such as look out present a cosmic scene, while let me show you my ship and prisma depict futuristic architecture. Combined with a projected animation and installation, spin, the story unravels, speaking to many possible beginnings – including

geology, biology, astronomy, and mythology. Sunstrum notes an interest in creating landscapes that feel at once both ancient and futuristic.

At the time of this writing, Sunstrum’s exhibition is a vague notion – it’s nothing more than some conversations, sketches, and ideas – and a whole lot of trust. We have invited Sunstrum here as an artist-inresidence, to develop and evolve her exhibition, while interacting with students, faculty, staff, and the wider community. This is a much riskier endeavor than a curated exhibition; we don’t know exactly what this exhibition will become. We can only trust in the ability and dedication of the artist. It’s wonderful to be part of an institution willing to take such a chance, an institution that appreciates experiential opportunities and understands the extraordinary gains that may result by supporting the critical work of artists, from research to development, and further, when we share these results with an engaged audience.

The Galleries extend heartfelt gratitude to the Davidson College Bacca Foundation Visiting Lecture and Artist Program, making it possible for us to support the academic mission of Davidson College, providing students, faculty, staff, and the wider community, with extended, meaningful interactions with an internationally-acclaimed artist such as Sunstrum. We also wish to thank Khwezi Gule for his insightful essay, Space is (Still) the Place, which provides theoretical framework as we explore Sunstrum’s exhibition, ab initio. Last but not least, the Galleries thank Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum for her willingness to share her process and her art with our community.

We appreciate her time and dedication, and have greatly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know her both personally and professionally. We hope you too enjoy the journey.

– Lia Newman, Director/Curator, Van Every/Smith Galleries 3

to think about how so many artists on the African continent and the Diaspora were again dealing with Afro-Futurism.

Part of what came to the fore when looking at Sunstrum’s work was the recurring image of the scarred landscape. The demands of mining, human settlement and mobility, commerce, agriculture, geology, and archaeology all make their demands on the land, reshaping it irrevocably.

Johannesburg itself is replete with evidence of mining in the form of the ubiquitous mine dumps that are now being re-mined for the traces of minerals that remained after tons of earth was previously removed in an ever-voracious attempt to get to gold veins far below the surface.

Space is (Still) the Place A few weeks ago a friend complained that everyone is jumping on the Afro-Futurism bandwagon. At the time I had been meeting Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum over her work that was on exhibition in Johannesburg from where I write this text. Though the context of his comment was unrelated to the conversations I was having with Sunstrum, it did get me 4

In Sunstrum’s work the idea of outer space is closely related to the landscape; it obviates the simple idea that over “there” is very much about over “here” and that “back then” is as much about “now” as it is about “tomorrow.” In this sense, we who occupy this time have to fashion our sense of the world not only from the achievements of the past but also from its debris. In fact, even our visions of the future as partly shaped by past, and often by imperfect and failed visions of the future. This may possibly explain part of the resurgence and rearticulations of Afro-Futurism.

When one talks about space, one is already talking about an entity with dimensions and delimitations. And it is finite. It can be plotted, mapped, demarcated, explored, and even colonised. This is largely made possible by the fact that our relationship with the land has produced these modes of quantifying and possessing. And yet, unlike the land, space is an abstraction and is not a physical thing. This has not always been the case.

By reference to certain forms of cultural expression and story-telling, I intend to illustrate that our current notion of space is based on the land as our primary reference. Furthermore, this reference is invested with political, mythological, and metaphysical qualities. These qualities shape and inform the forms of cultural expression that might at first seem unrelated.

As a child I used to enjoy the Star Trek series but I always wondered why it was called Star Trek. Apparently, Gene Roddenberry’s original pitch for what became the Star Trek series was based on the idea of the Western: “Wagon Train.”1 The opening sequence of each TV episode and subsequent films suggests that the frontier mythology was part of the reasoning that accompanied the conceptual framework of the creators of Star Trek: “Space. The final frontier…to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

It is no great leap of the imagination to conclude that this wagon train also has something to do with the Great Trek here in South Africa, which is represented in Afrikaner mythology as a heroic epic journey through hostile territory on ox wagons in search of greater opportunities in the interior. Of course, the journey was not a singular event, but a journey of small bands of families that constituted a series of smaller events. opposite: let me show you my ship, detail, 2013, watercolour and pencil on paper http://web.archive.org/web/20060924140423/http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/misc/ 40_years/trek_pitch.pdf 1

In both countries, references to Westerns and the so-called Great Trek represent some of the founding myths of the American and Afrikaner Nationalism respectively and an antimony to British imperialism. On the other hand, Westerns, like the myths of Afrikaner Nationalism are based, among others, on notions of racial superiority, a divinely ordained mission, and bringing civilization to a wild and hostile land, largely through advanced technology, hard work (as opposed to the idleness of Native “tribes”), the gun, and the bible. Both rely on the archetypal strong masculine patriarch and the dutiful and stoic mother-figure.

My introduction to this text with the Star Trek narrative enables us to contemplate the intersection of a number of meta-narratives including that of exploration, morality, and technological superiority. They also offer a prism through which myths of the past can be seen as the building blocks for an imagined future. By extension, science fiction in general also illustrates how the past and the future are mobilized in most instances to deal with problems of the present.

This brings me to another matter that is at the heart of our relationship to space and the land. In the book Begging to be Black, author Antjie Krog relates a story of how the founding monarch of the BaSotho nation, King Moshoeshoe, once remarked that for him dividing the land is akin to dividing the sky. This remark exemplifies the distinct ways in which the BaSotho looked at land and the invading Trekkers looked at the land.

The Trekkers saw the land as territory – something to be cut up, owned, acted on, exchanged, something passive and available for occupation, cultivation and exploitation. The BaSotho saw the land as interconnected to the present, past, future, and the rest of creation. This belief was accompanied by a realization that in as much as human life is dependant 5

of open aggression by the Boers towards the BaSotho. His eventual conversion to Christianity on his deathbed was seen by some missionaries, at the time, as a wily attempt by an opportunistic monarch to win the favour of the colonial powers. Whether this was the case or not, it is clear that Moshoeshoe’s desire towards the end of his life was to ensure the long-term survival of his people by embracing an uncertain future, even if it meant relinquishing some aspects of their traditional way of life.

When I was a child of maybe ten or eleven, I remember staring at the cover of the Earth, Wind & Fire album, I Am. The cover was a fantastical scene with pyramids, zodiac signs, spaceships, and tall beautiful black men with clothes that were out of this world. This album cover, which by today’s standard would be considered extremely cheesy, fuelled the imagination of a young boy. To me those images were a portal into another world.

Sunstrum working in the Van Every Gallery on home is here, an installation comprised of a projected animation and drawing, 2013

on working the land, this cannot simply entail wanton exploitation of it.

Of course Moshoeshoe could not have foreseen that in the coming decades of air travel, the sky would in fact be mapped, cut up into national airspace, or demarcated. Nor could he have predicted that people in the 20th century would refer to colonizing space in the same way that that they talked about colonizing territories and continents in the preceding centuries.

What Moshoeshoe did foresee however is that the future would be radically different from what he had known. It is for this reason that he encouraged missionaries to come to his kingdom in order to better understand the ways of the newcomers. It is also the reason why wherever possible he sought to forge political alliances and to compromise, even in the face 6

by African myths and their connection to the future. In this view historical processes were not only a matter of human agency, but also part of a cosmic order that is populated by extra-terrestrials, heavenly beings, and one that stretches from creation to prehistory, the rise of civilization to the present, and into the future, including alternate dimensions.

Considering various kinds of configurations of African Futurism,2 it seems clear that some of the claims to African Futurism can only be made I consider African Futurism as distinct from Afro-Futurism because whereas the latter is formulated from a Diasporic position, representing an idealized Africa outside the experience of contemporary Africans, the former is a formulation that is derived from contemporary Africans based on conditions on the continent.

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I later came to know that the cover art, the music, and band persona of the group was an expression of Afro-Futurism. With time I learned that groups like Earth, Wind & Fire were preceded by musicians such as George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic (Funk) and even earlier by personalities such as Sun Ra (free Jazz) and Jimi Hendricks (Rock). In various ways these musicians sought to create visions of the future that would be free from the reality of black ghettos in America. In doing so they relied equally on the popular material provided by science fiction but they also relied on a mythical African past. This vision of the future was again an avenue of dealing with issues that confronted Black America in the ’60s and ’70s. As such, it provided a kind of liberation doctrine.

Later still, I came to know that at the same time that African-Americans were forging a futuristic identity, African writers like Credo Vusamazulu Mutwa were forging an alternate view of the past – one that is informed

retrospectively. It is also clear that the distinction between African Futurism and Afro-Futurism may not be made too hastily. The influence of American popular culture, religion (especially in the form of Evangelism and Millenarianism), and African-American scholarship on African Modernity attests to a shared history between both sides of the Atlantic, and in many ways, also shared dreams of the future. In addition to this, it is clear that both offer counter-narratives and counter-discourses not only to “mainstream” science fiction, which largely tends to exclude the black experience, but also to confront feelings of alienation and dislocation that are a result of traumatic episodes including slavery and colonialism.

Also of importance is the fact that whereas modernity has had a tremendous effect on African subjects, traditional cosmologies cannot simply be jettisoned in light of new scientific, technological, or even political realities, but have to be incorporated into existing frameworks about the nature of existence and our place in it. In this sense, whether one is talking about science fiction a la Star Trek, Afro-Futurism, or African Futurism, these genres must not be considered only as forms of escapism, but are also intended to answer questions of our origins, questions of how civilisation came into being, the meaning of life, and what will happen to humanity in the future.

These genres, however different they might be, rely heavily on mythology, ancient and modern, and on ideas about progress and about agency.

They also seek to address the problem of alienation where the life of the individual is increasingly insular, where the fruit of one’s labour is evermore abstract, and where the significance of pre-modern institutions and norms has been eroded.

– Khwezi Gule

spin, detail of drawing installation, 2013

Khwezi Gule is a curator and writer based in Johannesburg. He is currently Chief Curator at the Soweto Museums, which includes the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum and the Kliptown Open Air Museum.

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below, left and right: the star + the moon, animation still, 2011

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below, left and right: home is here, detail, 2011, site specific installation with drawing and projected animation

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below, left to right: you who are little, 2013, gouache, ink and pencil on paper look out, 2013, watercolour, acrylic and pencil on paper

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opposite: spin, detail, 2013, site-specific installation with drawing, found objects, and projected animation below: spin, 2013, animation still

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below, left and right: spin, 2013, animation still

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below, left to right: let me show you my ship, 2013, watercolour and pencil on paper

below, left to right: what the eye sees is a dream of sight, 2013, watercolour, ink and pencil on paper

let me show you my ship, detail, 2013, watercolour and pencil on paper

we know the frequency, 2013, walnut ink and pencil on paper when I read my own poems late at night, 2013, watercolour, ink and pencil on paper

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below, left to right: why it gets dark then light again, 2013, watercolour and pencil on paper transmit 01, 2012, pencil and collage on paper we give it our all, 2013, walnut ink and pencil on paper

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum EDUCATION: 2007 Master of Fine Arts, Mount Royal School of Interdisciplinary Art, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD, USA 2004

A International Studies, Highest Honours (concentration in B Transnational Cultures), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

I know you’re looking, curated by Lowery Stokes-Sims, School 33 Gallery, Baltimore, MD, USA

nce upon a time, curated by Laura Amussen, Silber Gallery, O Goucher University, Towson, MD, USA

Glossolalia 5.0, curated by Cauleen Smith, The Kitchen, New York, NY, USA

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 2013 ab initio, Van Every Gallery, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, USA

2010

eLineate: Invitational Drawing Exhibition, University of South D Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

Before being asked by the machine, Room Gallery, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa

mva Kwe Sporo (Over the Railway), Becomo Arts Centre, E Soweto, South Africa

pace Station All-Stars, Ithuba Art Gallery, Braamfontein, S Johannesburg, South Africa

2010 A Small(ish) Opera, a solo performance at Creative Alliance, Baltimore MD, USA

pamelaphatsimosunstrum, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX, USA

2009

audax/viator, Arlington Arts Centre, Arlington, VA, USA

see you again, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA

Soft Animal, Minstallation Gallery, Baltimore, MD, USA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2012 Africa Day Exhibition, curated by Nontobeko Ntimbela, Sandton Art Space, Johannesburg, South Africa

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Havana Biennial, exhibition curated by Andrea Barnwell-Brownlee and Valerie Cassel-Oliver, Havana, Cuba

2011

eed your head: The African Origins of the Scientific Aesthetic, F curated by Kalia Brooks, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), Brooklyn, NY, USA

Paperwork, curated by Nina Chanel Abney, Kravets-Wehby Gallery, New York, NY, USA

Glassheart, Point Blank Gallery, Drill Hall, Johannesburg, South Africa

Tactics of Desire, Bag Factory Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa

First Person, curated by Kalia Brooks, Sarah Lawrence College Museum of Art, Bronxville, NY, USA

2009

stro_nautic, with Torkwase Dyson, curated by Jed Dodds, a Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD, USA

Losing Yourself, curated by Cathy Byrd and Jillian Hernandez, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA, and Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD, USA

Summer Guest House, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA

If I didn’t Care, curated by Rick Delaney, Park School of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

To the teeth, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD, USA

2008 Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image since 1970, curated by Valerie Cassel-Oliver and Andrea Barnwell-Brownlee, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, and Spelman College Museum of Art (2007), Atlanta, GA, USA

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ever has she ever, curated by Latoya Frazier, Mason Gross N School of the Arts, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

2009

Vermont Studio Centre, Johnson, VT, USA

2008

Creative Alliance (3-year live/work residency), Baltimore, MD, USA

eekskill Project, Hudson Valley Centre for Contemporary Art, P Peekskill, NY, USA

2007 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, USA

Off Color, curated by Kalia Brooks and Hank Willis Thomas, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY, and Diaspora Vibe Gallery (2007), Miami, FL, USA

ondheim Prize Semi-finalist Show, Meyerhoff Gallery, MICA, S Baltimore, MD, USA

Solid Gold, Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2007 Time-based media invitational, curated by Lia Newman, Artspace, Raleigh , NC, USA

Hyphenation, curated by Jackie Milad Union Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

2003

Taller Portobelo Artist’s Colony, Portobelo, Panama

SELECTED AWARDS AND GRANTS: 2010 Brandywine Prints Workshop Young Artist Fellowship, Philadelphia, PA, USA

reative Alliance Multi Media Resources Project Grant, C Baltimore, MD, USA

renner Faculty Grant for Professional Development, Maryland B Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, USA

2009 Full Fellowship Recipient, Vermont Studio Centre, Johnson, VT, USA 2007

Graduation Speaker, Commencement Ceremonies, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, USA

New InSight, curated by Suzanne Ghez, Art Chicago 2007, Chicago, IL, USA

spectacle and nothing strange, Fox3 Gallery, MICA, a Baltimore, MD, USA

ull Fellowship Recipient, Skowhegan School of Painting and F Sculpture, ME, USA

2004

2006

pulp, Fox4 Gallery, MICA, Baltimore, MD, USA

ouglas Eyre International Studies Award for Best Honours D Thesis; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

“ (which is kind of interesting),” Fox3 Gallery, MICA, Baltimore, MD, USA

2003

hompson Research Award; University of North Carolina at T Chapel Hill, NC, USA

ARTIST RESIDENCIES: 2013 FRAC International Residency, FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France 2012

Main Street Life Artist Exchange, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010

Brandywine Prints Workshop Residency, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Becomo Arts Centre, Soweto, South Africa

Bag Factory Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa

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University Centre for International Studies Research Grant, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA

THE VAN EVERY/SMITH GALLERIES