Future Generation Art Prize 2010


Dineo Seshee Bopape

(b. 1981, South Africa)

Dineo Seshee Bopape was born on a Sunday. If she were Ghanaian, her name would be Akosua/Akos for short. During the same year of her birth, the Brixton riots took place; two people were injured when a bomb exploded in a Durban shopping centre; bobby sands dies; 100 were killed during riots in Casablanca; MTV is launched; the Boeing 767 makes its first air flight; uMkhonto we Sizwe performs numerous underground assaults against the apartheid state. Princess Di' of Britain marries Charles; Bob Marley dies; apartheid SA invades Angola; AIDS is identified/created/named; Selman Rushdie releases his book "Midnight's Children"; Winnie Mandela's banishment orders are renewed for another 5 years; in the region of her birth her paternal grandmother dies affected by dementia; people cried and people laughed...
The world's population was at around 4.529 billion... today she (Bopape) is 1 amongst 7 billion - occupying multiple intersecting adjectives.

Illustration

MAIN PRIZE WINNER

Illustration

A multi-sensory installation which merges traditional draftswomanship with digital technology, sound and interactivity. Evoking global examples such as the elderly Acholi women in Uganda who used their naked bodies as a weapon with which to resist land annexation, or indeed FEMEN in Ukraine, who fight against gender inequality, the women in 'Boswell's piece stand in various emotional states of protest. The title Mutumia, which means 'woman' in Kikuyu (the artist's mother's tribe language) and can be translated more directly as 'the one whose lips are sealed', explores the capacity of language to reinforce societal perceptions of the female body, while the interactive features of the work entrust the viewer with the responsibility of enabling multiple voices of women of different backgrounds, nationalities and generations – a choir of voices – to be heard.

Illustration

Dineo Seshee Bopape. mabu/mubu/mmu, 2017 Soil, ceramics, herbs, crystals, coal, ash, sound. Co-produced by PinchukArtCentre

Exhibition at PinchukArtCentre

Illustration

Collateral event at Venice Biennale

Illustration

Artists Profiles

Illustration