Otobong Nkanga’s (b. 1974, Kano/Antwerp) The Weight of Scars is a set of four woven tapestries which depict two towering figures with deep blue legs, multiple pairs of colorful hands, and no upper body, holding in their hands a structure that links multiple circular photography plates together. The photographs are images of the remains left behind of abandoned and emptied mines in Namibia, which caused significant changes to the physical landscape with their construction in the early-20th century. These changes are like scars that not only are inscribed in the landscape, or bodies, but also become the legacy and weight that is inherited.
Apart from The Weight of Scars, Nkanga’s participation in GB11 includes another piece, From Where I Stand, which is a large-scale carpet inspired by the graphic shapes and facets of minerals. The patterns that are in the carpet are based on enlarged scans of electron-microscope images of different mica sheets. The idea was to use and layer different types of graphic languages to emphasize the terms that are used to describe a mineral, terms like: fracture, Earthly, tenacity, brittle, flexible, sectile, elastic, hackly, splintery, even or uneven; these terms fit into the language we use to describe the human body, or mental and psychological states.
“To invest in the process [of research and storytelling] is to be interested in its multiple narratives, be they scientific, biological, or historical,” Nkanga once noted in an interview. From Where I Stand is therefore also a platform where multiple narratives, are performed – mediated through human bodies. These performances, which often feature the artist herself alongside collaborators, grow through the acts of experimenting with combinations of mediums/elements such as language, voice, objects, and movement.
The Weight of Scars and From Where I Stand reflect the central concern of Nkanga’s practice: the world’s natural minerals and land resources, their complex relationship with human desire, and the stories and storytelling that develop from such desires. MW
