Sven Christian [SC]: So Shepherd, what’ve you been busy with?

Shepherd Ndudzo [SN]: At the moment I’m working about twelve hours a day. I’m trying to do everything I can to have a whole body of work for this show over- seas.

SC: I know that when Obed reached out to you about Afropolitanism, you were still busy making the works that we eventually included. Are the one’s you’re busy with now connected to those?

SN: Yes. I’m working with the issue of migrants. It was mostly inspired by people crossing the Mediterranean, going over to Europe to look for greener pastures, but also in our own context, you know? People crossing the Limpopo River, going from Zimbabwe to South Africa. So the boat is just be a medium that people use to get to different places.

SC: In the metaphoric sense, so it’s not necessarily about the boat?

SN: Exactly. It’s a symbol. Immigrant (2022) is more of a psychological journey; somebody who is in the process of moving or in a different environment already. You are in a state of transition, you know? You want to learn more about your new environment, about the people you live with, the language, the culture. At the same time, you’re thinking of your family back home, and they thinking about you. So when I look at it, it’s not just about the indi- vidual experience, but that of the collective. It’s perhaps more evident in the other artworks that I’m making, whe- re people are helping each other. They are struggling together. They are doing these kinds of things together, probably to survive. Whether they succeed is another question.

SC: You mentioned the psychological aspect of the work. There’s a gestural quality to them — Immigrant (2022), and Heavy Winds (2020); a body language of sorts. With Immigrant the figure is hunched over, their arms stretched out in front of them. It’s a bit ambiguous. Are they praying, could they be in despair...? There could be a lot of things going on there.

SN: Exactly. There’s a degree of uncertainty that is quite important: the uncertainty of the place that you are going to; the uncertainty of your surroundings; the uncertainty of the people around you... It’s like somebody who is leaving everything to God; leaving everything to divine intervention. I’m sure you can decipher different mea- nings from that. If someone looks at it they will arrive at their own conclusions. Maybe they’ll see someone who is praying, or someone who is just relaxing, you know? But when I was making it I was thinking about someone who is looking out for the divine, whether one believes in something or not. Some believe in the universe, you know?

SC: Heavy Winds also has that sense of leaving it up to fate, in some respects. It’s a person falling, but they’re not trying to put their arms out to catch their fall.

SN: Exactly. Heavy Winds also has to do with change. It also fits into the theme of migration, because you are facing different things, different changes. Some of the winds might take you, but at the end of the day you have to stay rooted. The culture might take you — different things. They can be good too; it doesn’t mean that tho- se winds of change are necessarily bad. They can show you things that you tend to overlook, or introduce you to things that you haven’t been exposed to, which may make you a better person.

SC: And it’s always this thing of the individual, but within a larger context?

SN: Exactly, yes.

SC: The elemental aspect of these works is quite appea- ling to me too. On the one hand you’re dealing with wind, on the other you’re alluding to water, but both are invisible, in the sense that you can’t see them. They’re not ‘represented’, per se. Does this have something to do with the uncertainty you’re speaking about; the push and pull of factors that are external to oneself?

SN: It could be. It’s only now that you’re raising it that I’m beginning to see the connection. But it’s part of the interpretation, these extra meanings. If you can add your own interpretation it’s a plus for me. When you talk about the water and wind, I realise that dimension, but for me it was more psychological, more physical: the journey of moving up and down, and the process of being blown by this external force.

SC: Walk me through how you go about making a work? When Obed shared some initial process images, it looked like you were working outdoors?

SN: Yes. I always tell people that sculpture is quite di- fferent to painting. With carving, you’re removing things from a piece of wood. So you have an image in your mind of something that you want to make before you start. In most cases, I think of ideas and then decide, ‘Ok, it has to be like this, like this, like this.’ Then I sketch it, before developing it and seeing what is or isn’t possible. After that I make the sculpture.

SC: A lot of carvers that I’ve spoken to also talk about ‘following the wood’ to see where it leads?

SN: When I started making sculptures, I was making some abstract pieces. They were more influenced by the shape of the wood; looking at its shape and following it to come up with something else. Now my process is different. I will have a certain idea that I want to explore, and I’ll actually impose it on the material, to transform the wood, so that what is in my mind can take physical shape.

SC: So on the one hand we’re talking about fate — peo- ple waiting for divine intervention — but on the other the- re’s this very pre-determined approach to making?

SN: Yes. When you go into the bush, different trees have more or less the same shape. The gum trees are straight; the ironwoods have got a particular shape too. Around 2002, when I was making more and more work, I reali- sed that I was making pieces that turned out to be more or less the same, because I kept following the shape of the wood. That was my experience; it’s not the same for others. So it was during that process that I felt I needed to break away from what I was taught. My father used to follow the shape, and wonderfully. He used to make some incredible pieces, but I realised that that approach was going to be difficult for me to express what I wanted to, so I had to look for an alternative. At the moment, I’ve been developing work in line with Heavy Winds. I’m using those round bubbles, those round things, trying to develop them further — to take them a step further into something that is more abstract.

SC: How did the bubbles come about? I tried to make a woodcarving for the first time the other day, when we were doing the workshop with mam Noria Mabasa, and I’ve been chipping away at it ever since, but going back to your work after trying to carve has given me a whole new appreciation for just how difficult it must have been to make those bubbles.

SN: Yes, that’s the other reason why I’m working around the clock. I hired three guys to help make those bubbles for me. I spent the whole day trying to teach them how to make those round bubbles, and they failed. [Laughs].

SC: But it’s strange, because it’s actually the first thing, right? As the widest point of the work, the bubbles are the very first thing that would emerge as you carve into the wood?

SN: No, actually, the bubbles are the last part. You do the rest of it first. Each and every bubble is done indi- vidually. You can’t make shortcuts on that. But it’s also part of the process. It’s about potential. I’ve been making sculptures for twenty five years. At the moment I feel I have found something that I always wanted to express, but for a long time I didn’t know how. So the bubbles, those round things, are like individual seeds. Each and every individual is a seed. By putting those bubbles to- gether, it’s to say, ‘Ok, with the potential that you have, how can you multiply that to make something bigger? How can you multiply that to make something that is diverse? How can you use that thing to tell your own story?’ We’ve got all this potential to make great things, but at this moment everybody wants to be rich without taking the baby steps. Nobody wants to go through the process, you understand? When I did my first show in Joburg, around 2005, I had a sculpture with those round things titled Vendas, and those people were selling to- matoes, right? So I included those round things. In 2006 I made another sculpture called Bubbling with Joy. It was a simple sculpture, with those round things extended as toes. In 2015, I did another sculpture called The Fashion Girls. There were four ladies in modelling clothes, and the one in front was made of those bubbles. So that’s how the idea developed. It’s a slow process, and some of these things take time to develop.

SC: Do you see your process as one of world-making? Do you feel like you’re creating a world with different characters and that kind of thing?

SN: Yes, I think so. When I talk about the bubbles, I’m talking about uniqueness. Differences. So how can I tell my story in a way that allows others to enter my ima- gination? It’s like, you live in this world and are seeing these things, but people don’t see what you’re seeing. They might get it, or they might not. I’m fine with that, but I think the whole idea of imagining something and then nurturing and developing it, seeing it grow, seeing it come to life — that’s an awesome experience for me.

SC: There also seems to be a lot of finessing that goes on — all of your work seems very balanced to me, streamli- ned. I can see you playing around with mass (in the broader sense), form, shape... It’s particularly evident in the afternoons, when the sun comes through the Cove- red Space. It casts shadows, and creates contrasts that aren’t so apparent in even-lighting. Then you start to see the work differently.

SN: One thing that has influenced me a lot is music. So- metimes I realise that I like certain music, but I don’t know why. When I listen closely, I can separate all these diffe- rent instruments. I can notice the patterns. So when you look at those sculptures, they might look random, but the proportions are very calculated. It’s similar to the music that I listen to: I don’t know why this thing is working, but I like it.

SC: What sort of music do you listen to, classical or...?

SN: I like classical music, but one of the musicians that I listen to a lot is Salif Keita, from Mali. I like his music be- cause it sounds simple, but is very, very complex. If you listen to some of the instruments, and then play the beats, you realise that they’re resonating within the whole pie- ce, you know? I also like the South African saxophonist, Steve Dyer. Generally I like music that is well-composed; you can hear they took a long time to think about and produce their music. For me that is amazing. Sitting down and making all these connections that the musician was making... At the end of the day I go back, sit down, and listen to it properly, trying to isolate those instruments, you know? So that is also what I want to do with my work.

SC: And what are the ‘instruments’ you’re thinking about when you make something?

SN: It’s not about the instrument per se; it’s about the sound. I don’t know what they call it in musical terms, but it’s about how the beats interlock. To use the example of my bubbles, the bigger ones might represent a drum, the smaller ones a guitar, but the point is that some have to be bigger and some have to be smaller. It’s like a voice: you can have high pitches and low pitches. When you want to make the whole thing flat, you can just use this ordinary voice, you know? The basic thing is just manipulating tho- se highs and lows. That’s what I’m trying to do, but visua- lly. I don’t know if I can achieve what I’m trying to say, but at the end of the day I want to make something that people can say, ‘I like this thing, but I don’t know why.’