Mbali Dhlamini
Mbali Dhlamini (*1990 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a Johannesburg-based photographer and time-based multimedia artist. She studied Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg from 2008 to 2013. She received a Master of Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 2015. In 2021, Dhlamini was invited to be artist-in-residence at the Embassy of Foreign Artists in Geneva, as well as a residency at the Black Rock Studios, Dakar, Senegal, founded by Kehinde Wiley. Alongside the artist Phumulani Ntuli, she is the co-facilitator of the Preempt Group Collective, which was awarded the Visionary Award 2021/2022 by the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria. The Preempt Group Collective is a multidisciplinary collective working within the intersection of archives, trans-media and open-source technologies. On this basis they engage in the translation of research results through film and hypermedia, critically reflecting on aspects of analog and technological image production. Dhlaminis work is represented by Gallery Sakhile&Me, Frankfurt. Since 2018, Dhlamini has also been a lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. [https://mbalidhlamini.com/]
In her work, Dhlamini engages with postcolonial issues. This can encompass contemporary forms of spirituality and the craft of indigo dyeing in Senegal, with the evidence and consequences of colonialism and missionary work in (South) Africa, traditions of indigenous philosophy and visual culture, as well as the function of language as a medium of understanding and knowledge building.
Mbali Dhlamini’s cultural research and artistic practice finds its roots in the indissoluble interweaving of South African religious traditions with the post-colonial issues felt in that country today. In her series of photographs, as well as videos and installations, she interrogates contemporary forms of spirituality, focusing on subjects such as the craft of indigo dyeing in Senegal, the results and consequences of colonialism and missionary work in (South) Africa, traditions of indigenous philosophy and visual culture, or the function of language as a medium of understanding and knowledge building.
Extending her visual, tactile, and discursive approaches to research into contemporary indigenous practices, Dhlamini is also active in various artist collectives and multimedia collaborative projects. Since 2018, Dhlamini has also been a lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. [https://mbalidhlamini.com/] “Looking into objects or materiality, as a way of simultaneously looking at historical experiences of Black women, has been the strategic rerouting that Dhlamini’s work repeatedly dwelled on. This strange but familiar place of material objects and the matter of Black feminine presence always already reducible to the property of another, is the furtive and subterranean theme that arguably subtends Dhlamini’s project.” (Athi Mongezeleli Joja) On the Works by Mbali Dhlamini in the Exhibition Series Look into (s. Installation-Views) Three photographs: Untitled - Afrique Occidentale, Fille Ouolof, 2021 Untitled - Dakar, Jeune Fille, 2021 Untitled - Afrique Occidentale, Jeune Femme, 2017 During an artist residency in Dakar, Senegal, in 2017, Dhlamini’s work focused on an exploration of the cultural significance of the indigo plant. She used historical photographs as reference points for works that through their titles suggest geographical, ethnographic, and cultural associations. In 2021, Dhlamini was able to return to Senegal for further research, during which time she created a mural made of indigo pigments and drawings. The photographs from her series Look into are sourced mostly from photographs from estates and postcards from around 1900, apparently or actually taken for the purpose of ethnographic documentation, though probably often also for erotic purposes. Fille Ouolof, for example, refers to the large ethnic group residing mainly in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania. “Ouolof,” or the anglicized “Wolof,” is a language spoken by a large part of the population in Senegal. Afrique Occidentale, the title of another photograph in the series, refers to West Africa as a whole, made up of Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and numerous other countries. Dhlamini’s photographs present female figures emerging out from the blackness of indeterminant spaces into the foreground. They are identifiable only by their traditional, indigo-colored garments and by the image titles which define them as women from various indigenous West African communities. Their skin merges totally with the darkness of the image backgrounds; any cultural or personal specificity is dissolved into the no-place of racist understandings. Stereotypical descriptions, like those used in ethnic photographic documents from the colonial era, definitively withdraw any basic sense of lived individuality from the persons whom we are nonetheless unable to resist seeking out. Dhlamini realizes her critical examination of the erasure of Black individuality and history by means of digitally processing original documentary images. The dissolution of the boundary between the feminine physique and the pictorial space forces us as viewers to supplement the ideas of the person and identity of the portrayed in our imagination.
“I am drawn to the research by the titles used to describe and label most of the images. […] The project intends to Lindela (dwell) on the titles and use artistic interpretations to rethink and rename the images. Through this process I ask: how do you bring back the image to the owner? How do you retract images recorded and shared publicly without the subject’s consent? What is the significance of these images that exist in colonial archives and museums, outside their country of origin? Can the images be erased? Or rather how do you reimagine the image and its place in history?” (M.D.) [https://www.eofa.ch/en/resident/mbali-dhlamini-2/ ]
“Through her reworking of the photographs, Dhlamini makes her own revisions to the mechanisms inscribed in the photographs, as in the depiction and exhibition of Black, female bodies, shifting attention to the colorful patterned garments that conveyed social codes and carried cultural significance in the indigenous communities of Senegal. In Look Into, as is often the case in Dhlamani’s work, a process of un-learning and re-learning takes place which allows for the questioning of (allegedly) established knowledge and for pictorial representations to become legible in a new way.” (Nadine Henrich)
Series Go Bipa Mpa Ka Mabele
Two photographs:
Bugubedu II, 2020
Ya fanang ka seatla se bulehileng otla hlonolofatswa, 2020
First appearing as part of a solo exhibition of her work in Johannesburg 2013, translucent robes have been a recurrent motif in Mbali Dhlamni’s oeuvre, hovering in space as empty shells or, in her videos and photographic series, worn by the artist herself. These works thematize the body of Black women from a post-colonial perspective while at the same time refer to the so-called seaparo, long, wide garments worn by women from religious communities in South Africa. The works in the photo series Go Bipa Mpa Ka Mabele, 2020, can also be seen in this context. The title refers to a proverb in the Bantu language Setswana, which loosely translates as “conceal” or “hidden in mystery”—perhaps in reference to Dhlamini’s keen interest in the visual “uncovering” of cultural practices and indigenous knowledge.
In 2021, Mbali Dhlamini was able to expand on this theme during working visits to Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock artist-in-residence program in Dakar, Senegal, and to the archives of the Ecumenical Center in Geneva, Switzerland. Here she researched the Swiss missionaries who had been sent to South Africa beginning at the end of the 19th century to spread the Protestant faith, found churches, and provide medical care and education.
The photograph Bugubedu lI shows the artist herself in a long robe made of transparent material, with a braided belt, a headdress, and a black Bible in her hands. Her gaze, seemingly elevated, looking down towards the viewer, can be read as a translation of the dominance of ecclesiastical representation into gesture, facial expression, and posture. The simple cut of the garment follows the style of religious robes worn by South African women for church activities, garments intended to cover the body completely. With her awareness of this reference to the religious traditions of her home country, Dhlamini’s exposure of the naked body can be understood as a radical transgression of conventions. At the same time, the effect of the nakedness of the body is softened by the reflections of the material and the superimposed silhouette of color.
In several work series, Mbali Dhlamini is […] “celebrating the religious women of the African Independent Churches (AIC). Historically, AICs were formed by black religious leaders who either broke away from traditional colonial churches or influenced by the redemptive theology of African American missionaries who frequently visited Southern Africa at the turn of the last century. Although these churches enjoy considerable following and stature today, under the British colonial administration their black nationalist inclinations were menacing. […] Seeing these women walking the streets, particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, in their colorful and immaculate church tunics is a common sight in the South African landscape. Like a sacrosanct layer that can be put on, the sumptuary laws the wearer abides by beckons a certain social decorum, that the onlooker must readily perceive and interpassively enjoy, and they [the wearers] must immediately perform, proclaim, and even exploit. A poetics of relation and a performance of dignity.” (Athi Mongezeleli Joja)
“Bugubedu” means “red” in the Southern Sotho language, a title that expresses the close relationship of this color to the earth. In the high-contrast, black-and-white form of the motif, reflections of light convey a sense of spiritual suspending of the garment’s purely material physicality—an optical “veiling” through unveiling. The title Ya fanang ka seatla se bulehileng otla hlonolofatswa is a religiously grounded phrase in the Sesotho language that translates as “He who gives with an open hand will be blessed.” It expresses a deep-rooted cultural conviction that generosity and selflessness have positive effects on one’s own life.
Education
2016
Master of Fine Arts, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013
Bachelor of Technology (Fine Art), University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012
National Diploma (Fine Art), University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009
Advanced Printmaking, Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg, South Africa
Solo Exhibitions
2022
Go Bipa Mpa Ka Mabele, Sakhile&Me, Frankfurt, Germany
2015
Non-pomised Land: Bana Ba Thari Entsho, Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa
Group Exhibitions
2023
Intimations, Sakhile&Me, Frankfurt, Germany
Le 19m, Théodore Monod African Art Museum, Dakar, Senegal
2022
Buffer Zones, Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria, Johannesburg, South Africa
Black Rock 40, Curated by Kehinde Wiley, Dak’art Contemporary Art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal
2021
Self-Addressed, Curated by Kehinde Wiley, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (CA), USA
Friendship. Nature. Culture, Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, Germany
I See You, Blue, Everywhere, Black Rock Senegal, Dakar, Senegal
2020
Spatial Fabrications: An Uninhabitable World, Fak’ugesi Festival, Online
Time in transition, The Frankfurt Art Experience, Frankfurt, Germany
Figures, Sakhile&Me, Frankfurt, Germany
2019
Personal Structures - Identities, European Cultural Center, Venice, Italy
Les sabar artistiques, Dakar, Senegal
2018
E.A.S.T Station #2: Rendering Visible, Island, Brussels, Belgium
Open Lab – Ephemeral Archival Station #1, La Colonie. Paris, France
2017
Zig Zag, RAW Material Company, Dakar, Senegal
2016
Woza Moya, Goethe on Main Project Space, Johannesburg, South Africa
2015
See Africa, African Futures Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa
TWENTY: Art in the Time of Democracy, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa; The Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa; Beijing Biennale, Beijing, China
2014
Only Parts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
The Longest Night, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
South African Voices: A New Generation of Printmakers, Washington Printmakers Gallery, Washington (D.C.), USA
Sasol New Signatures, Association of Arts Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
2013
Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
Afrika Rea Bolela (Afrika Let's Talk): ARTiculating the constitution, Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa
Afrika Day, Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa
North-South: Student Showcase, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa; Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein, South Africa; University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa; Vaal University of Technology, Gauteng, South Africa
2012
Images of Women, Upstairs at Bamboo (Vula Amehlo Art Development), Johannesburg, South Africa
Bronze Age(less), Pretoria Art Association, Pretoria, South Africa
Teaching Experience
2022
Lecturer (Fine Art), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
2021
Sessional lecturer (Fine Art), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Residencies & Awards
2022
Visionary Award (with Preempt Collective), Tim Hetherington Trust and the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
2021
Art and Stories Laureate, Embassy of Foreign Artists, Carouge, Switzerland
Artist-in-Residence, Black Rock Senegal, Dakar, Senegal
2017
RAW Academy Fellowship, RAW Material Company, Dakar, Senegal
Collections
JP Morgan Corporate Collection, Paris, France
Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Berlin/Stuttgart, Germany
exhibitions
voices from abroad⎮Dhlamini, Okore, Siwani
November 9th, 2024 - February 8th, 2025
Dr. Renate Wiehager, curator of the exhibition
artwork
Untitled - Afrique Occidentale, Jeune Femme, 2017
Digital Print on Textured FineArt Rag
100 x 71 cm (5/5 + 2 AP)Enquiry
