19:00

‘Where do we go from here?’ is an informal conversation with Dominique White about her practice and aspects of futurity. The discussion will delve into Black speculative fiction, diasporic yearning and ideas of ‘in-betweenness’ with the intention of asking collectively where we think we are currently headed, where we might instead want to go and what we’re doing to get there.⁠ This session has been organised by A/WA member and artist Kumbirai Makumbe.⁠

This session is free to attend and will be held on Zoom. Please register by emailing info (at) artworkassociation.org. Registered attendees will receive the link 10 minutes in advance of the discussion.

Dominique White weaves together the theories of Black Subjectivity, Afro-pessimism and Hydrarchy (from below) with the nautical myths of Black Diaspora into a term she defines as the Shipwreck(ed); a reflexive verb and state of being. White’s sculptures, or beacons, prophesy the emergence of the Stateless; “a [Black] future that hasn’t yet happened, but must.” (Campt 2017 in Yussof 2018)

White’s research is inspired by the sounds of Detroit Techno and Electronic, where she continues to reference Afrofuturist narratives (situated in space and underwater) depicted by DJ Stingray (Sherard Ingram), Drexciya (Gerald Donald and James Stinson) and Tygapaw (Dion McKenzie). Her research also extends beyond the tangible, with a curiosity for both the destruction and mythicism that hurricanes in the Caribbean leave in their eternally transformative wake in the sea. Her visual vocabulary combines an emulation of an abandoned vessel at sea using destroyed sails, tired hand-woven nets, mutilated anchors and deflated nautical buoys with raffia and cowrie shells which are all cast and coated in a ghostly shroud of kaolin clay. She utilises this forceful unification as a means of dissociating the motifs from their original function and redefining them as bodies charged with retaliation, protest and resilience. These works, or bodies, delicately balance the states of preservation, decay and destruction whilst emanating a warning or a threat of what is to come. 

Kumbirai Makumbe currently takes form as a London based artist who believes in the transmutation of the intangible yet experiential. They transform & metamorphose to ceaselessly take on various forms.

They place significant effort into speculative explorations of alternative modes of being and thinking that result in emancipation. They are continually enticed by the materiality of digital matter and its limitlessness. Through this lens, they interrogate the multi-dimensionality of blackness, ‘in-betweenness’, ‘caring’, transcendence and ethereality.