After going through a long phase of the so called 'bloggers block' and consulting my good friend Bahati about it, I decided (well, actually, Bahati advised me to) just make my first post on this blog an introduction of myself and my art.
So - Hi everyone! Habari? Mambo?
My name is Rehema Chachage, a new content author for Vijana FM and a New Media artist. The mediums that I use most in my work (and ones that I am most interested in) are Photography and Video (and Sound). I guess I can say that I am interested in performance as well because most of my work is pretty perfomative in nature. But I don't do a lot of live perfomances as such; most of the performances are captured as photographic prints or videos which are then exhibited as works of art.
The most prominent theme that my work tries to explore is that of 'alienation': Being a stranger, the outsider, the other, alien and often voiceless. Inspired by the social alienation that I experienced in the four years that I spent as a cultural foreigner and a non-South African, black female student in what I considered to be a predominantly white middle class oriented institution.
I would like to show you some of the images from an exhibition that I had with Goethe Institute Tanzania throughout the whole month of March. This was my very first exhibition since graduation, an ensemble of works titled "Chipuza" which builds on a body of work (which I titled Haba na Haba)that I produced for my graduate exhibition at Michaelis School of Fine Arts in December 2009. Consisting of four digital photographs and three black and white videos. "Chipuza", which translates in English as Germinate, tries to explore the theme of voice and rootedness.
For all those who are interested, I will be having another exhibition, showing completely new works this time round, with Alliance Francaise Tanzania (and maybe later on with Alliance Francaise Addis Ababa) which is a collaboration between myself and Henock Getachew, a mixed media artist from Ethiopia. I will post more details regarding the show once everything has been finalized.
So - Hi everyone! Habari? Mambo?My name is Rehema Chachage, a new content author for Vijana FM and a New Media artist. The mediums that I use most in my work (and ones that I am most interested in) are Photography and Video (and Sound). I guess I can say that I am interested in performance as well because most of my work is pretty perfomative in nature. But I don't do a lot of live perfomances as such; most of the performances are captured as photographic prints or videos which are then exhibited as works of art.
The most prominent theme that my work tries to explore is that of 'alienation': Being a stranger, the outsider, the other, alien and often voiceless. Inspired by the social alienation that I experienced in the four years that I spent as a cultural foreigner and a non-South African, black female student in what I considered to be a predominantly white middle class oriented institution.
I would like to show you some of the images from an exhibition that I had with Goethe Institute Tanzania throughout the whole month of March. This was my very first exhibition since graduation, an ensemble of works titled "Chipuza" which builds on a body of work (which I titled Haba na Haba)that I produced for my graduate exhibition at Michaelis School of Fine Arts in December 2009. Consisting of four digital photographs and three black and white videos. "Chipuza", which translates in English as Germinate, tries to explore the theme of voice and rootedness.
For all those who are interested, I will be having another exhibition, showing completely new works this time round, with Alliance Francaise Tanzania (and maybe later on with Alliance Francaise Addis Ababa) which is a collaboration between myself and Henock Getachew, a mixed media artist from Ethiopia. I will post more details regarding the show once everything has been finalized.
Thanks for posting, Rehema! Your work looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteAbout the theme of alienation - I was just reading Vijana FM's posts on Bongo Flava, and some of the issues that Bongo Flava engages... do you think there are some parallels?
If so, do you feel that as an artist, your medium (paint) is defined to the extent that you need to stay within it, or do you think that media forms are 'liquid' or 'fluid' enough to be 'cross-bred'?
The reason I ask is because when I was looking through your photos, I began thinking of music + visual art and how they come together (eg: cd covers, ad campaigns, t-shirts, portraits, etc...)
Hope we see more of you here! Thanks again.
I did some research and found the following article about your work:
ReplyDeletehttp://udadisi.blogspot.com/2010/03/chipuza-at-art-and-culture-corner.html
Hongera! Najua mwanzo mgumu, lakini kuna dalili kuwa Watanzania wataanza kufuatilia sanaa? Au ni jambo geni sasa hivi?
Nadhani sanaa izidi kutumika kukwamua vijana kimawazo na kiuchumi. Ukiangalia nafasi zote ambazo vijana wanaweza kuzitumia kuelezea matatizo na hata kuchangia katika ujenzi wa taifa kimawazo, sehemu hizo zote zimeshikiliwa na wazee/ wanasiasa wasiokuwa na mawazo mapya.
ReplyDeleteHIvyo basi, kama umoja ni nguvu basi vijana katika sanaa mbalimbali waungane kuboresha sanaa, na kutafuta namna bora zaidi za kuwasilisha matatizo na hoja za vijana mbele ya jamii ambayo bado imekalia dhana ya vijana ni taifa la kesho na si leo...
Rehema hongera kwa kazi nzuri na we will all be looking forward to your collabo with the ethiopian guy. This is good to see not only collaborating with another artist who does something different but whats more impressive is another artist from another country. You know what they same, music is a universal language, so is art, only it may give different perspective on different issues regarding to different culture etc etc
Good one, I hope more youths will learn, that art could be used as our political podium to air our views against a stoned wall society that looks down on youths....
one love