Sven Christian [SC]: Is Ko Gae, the title for this project, the same as ‘Legae’? 

Kamogelo Walaza [KW]: Legae is just ‘home’ — plain, simple home. Ko Gae means ‘at home’. There’s a big difference. You know how semantics are, in terms of languaging. In English it sounds the same, but in Setswana it’s totally different. So ‘Ko Gae’ is within the home, and ‘Legae’ is just home. 

SC: The one being more private, or? 

Oupa Sibeko [OS]: For me, ‘Ko Gae’ is kind of imaginative, whereas ‘Legae’ is set. With ‘Ko Gae’ I’m more or less saying, ‘At your place.’ 

SC: And its encompassing of everything that happens there? 

OS: Ja. Like the imagined dramas, the stories that unfold at home. Rather than saying this is the home — ‘home looks like this' — I’m saying, ‘imagine what unfolds at home.’ Kamo, am I right? 

KW: Yes, you’re not speaking about a particular home. He’s speaking about his home. ‘Kea ko gae’. So, ‘Kga o bua ka Setswana o re nna kea ko gae,’ I’m going home. Home is a very metaphysical space too, so that’s what we’re speaking about — those things whereby something happens to you mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, because you’re going ‘ko gae.’ I’m not going to a home, I’m going to my home — my home, where I lived, where I grew up. Oupa is essentially speaking about, and archiving, things about his home and where home is for him. There are certain missing elements. He never had a traditional childhood, you know what I’m saying? 

OS: A set home. 

KW: With the drawings and installations — he’ll start making sculptures next week — you’ll begin to see some of these questions about the home materialise, to get an answer. And an answer could be nothing. There’s a beautiful, critical reflective practice taking place as he makes this work, as we move with it. 

SC: Walk us through how is started? From what I recall, this started when you were in residence across the pond? 

OS: It didn’t start with one specific residency. It’s a reflection on my life. I grew up with my gran, then I was in a children’s home, then on the street, then in a children’s home, then varsity, then on residency, so there’s no set home, no roots, if I can put it that way, except the word ‘Oupa.’ The whole thing started when I began to ask, ‘What does it mean to be Oupa? Why was I called Oupa? Where is home?’ It’s a question that’s been eating me. I grew up with my grandmother, until I was eight. She then suffers a stroke, and I lose my childhood. Then I have to be Oupa to take care of Ouma. Then Ouma passes on, two years later. I’m ten years old. That’s when I am placed in a children’s home, a community home, orphanage, street, varsity, and then now, with my practicing life, which began in 2015, moving from residency to residency. You never settle. You’re in residency for a short period, and you feel like, ‘Ok, I’m going to plant myself here. This is home.’ Then you realise that home has a time limit. That starts to eat you. It’s the same as the children’s home. You’re there for two or three years. Once you finish your matric you’re out. So my life has been informed by this temporality. Now I’m trying to root myself, but again, it’s not definitive. It’s something that I still question — ‘What is this home?’ I guess that’s where Kamo comes in, to say, ‘Ok, with these uprootings, where you haven’t settled, there’s lots of unfinished stuff — unresolved emotions, unresolved work, unresolved corporeality; my physicality, in itself…’ That’s what I’m trying to explore: ‘What is this metaphysical home that I’m going to, or that I imagine to be home?’

SC: I guess that’s also where Kamo’s process-orientated practice comes in.  

KW: I think the majority of artists I’ve worked with create from a place that is very emotional. It’s very labour intensive, and it comes from a place of memory — archival work or this kind of heavy-lifting, you know? As a curator, you’re not just there to come inside, take their work, and write a beautiful curatorial statement or essay and go, you know? It’s a matter of care. I really take the work that I do with artists seriously. I think that’s why, since I’ve been independent, my curatorial work has had this metaphysical component. I feel like there’s magic happening with it because I make sure artists feel like they matter and are cared for; that their stories mean something. 

Oupa is here with a story, and I’m involved in this process. In as much as you’re going to make work about it, you have to set boundaries too so that people know it’s not therapy. I know the space I can hold because I did drama therapy and I can hold space very well, which works with the ‘curator / care’ thing; with the whole social practice t   hing. It’s very therapeutic but it’s not therapy. So I do tell those I work with that, in the end, whether you get an answer or not, we need to come to a place were you also let go, you know? It’s a solo project, but an ending has to come. It may not be the end of your investigation into Ko Gae — what your home means — but for this project it needs to close. I don’t know when that is going to happen. The residency is quite short, six weeks, and the next person needs to come into the space to do what they need to do, you know? So that’s what I’m trying to investigate. I can’t really describe it. I will feel when this is the final set of works that you do for Ko Gae. That’s what I mean by process led. It comes in and out. And because it’s such a heavy project, I asked other art practitioners to come in. It would be nice to hear from other curators, collectors, artists, academics… People who really know the fine art practice, so that I can get my breathing space, he can get his breathing space from me constantly asking questions. It’s important to collaborate. Without collaboration I don’t think a process would be what it is. It would end up being very egotistical, very indulgent. You won’t really grow. It’s not all about me. It’s about the artist essentially, and about the work, living in that space. 

SC: Kamo, you’ve structured it in such a way that once a week, different people will come through and spend time in the studio, engaging Oupa, engaging the work. In that process, those who engage will inevitably think about this idea of Ko Gae from their own perspective; how they imagine it to be, for themselves. So there is this move away from the singular perspective of the artist or individual. But how much of that external influence are you willing to let into the work? Do the other individuals’ experiences of this idea become part of it, or is it more feedback about your specific experience and journey? 

OS: I don’t think it’s necessarily about centring my experience, but to say, how is memory shared? It’s about using my memory as a vehicle for other people to access their own memories. What does childhood mean for them? Bubblewrap, as a material, can take me back to being a child. When you press it, you’re like, ‘Oh ja. I remember. I used to do that.’ So, through this one memory, how can we all remember? What does bubblewrap remind us of? Is it the bubblewrap itself, or the wrapped object that you buy, that matters? Is it the air that you pop out? How can this one story be a vehicle for others to access their own memories?

One story that’s been troubling me is that of Solomon. Two women arrive to speak to him and are fighting over a kid. Solomon gets to decide who keeps the child, but the whole story focuses on the mothers, not the child. How can we not make that story solely about the women, but the women and the child? How can one person’s memory become a vehicle to carry all of us? The answer, I think, lies in play. 

My work always centres play. Where do I get this play? So, my grandmother suffers a stroke. She can’t speak or say anything, for two years. She’s bed ridden. She’s just facing up. Then one Saturday, before she passes on, she says, ‘Don’t forget to play.’ Those were her final words. She left me with quite troubling words. Play is not static. It’s something you always discover. So essentially, this work is about play. How do I take myself seriously as an artist working with mosquito nets, with bubblewrap? At the same time, there’s emotion there. Maybe I’m using this material as a soft opening to memory? These materials are see through — this plastic, these nets — yet it’s not about what we can see. It’s about what we cannot see. Again, it goes into the metaphysical, the spiritual; creating a space that we can all be safe in, a space that can enable us to play, to reflect. When people come visit they’re not coming to just be critical voices. They’re players in this whole thing. Once everyone leaves, I can then say, how did people play? How can I take that influence, and then say that the artist is not making alone; that those voices are also contributing to the making? The predominant way that artists work is to seclude oneself. You spend your time alone in the studio. You chew this idea, then you present it. I’m saying ‘No, let’s chew this idea, but perhaps it doesn’t get presented. It may not have an ending in a museum, a gallery.’ For me, it’s about having had space to play, reflect, and be critical.

SC: Like a series of play dates?

OS: Yes. The other night when we played Dixit was so fun. It’s this board game. In layman’s terms, it’s about how best to describe an image on a card, without giving it away. So, if I’m holding this pencil case and it’s got all these eyes and creatures and stuff, how can I describe it in a way that still lets you formulate your own ideas. 

SC: What I like about the Dixit analogy is that one has to let go, at some point, of one’s preconceptions. All the action takes place in the space between people, our understanding of what we’re looking at, as well as how we understand each other.

OS: Yes! [Laughs] Maybe we introduce that for visitors, too, as a way to engage the work. For me, it’s that tension that lies between what people see and what people hear. So, people come in. I’ve made these works of kids playing, a woman holding… But will people see that? Will that translate? Maybe not.

SC: You mention these two materials, mosquito-nets and bubblewrap, which are both very specific. Both are used for protection. In both, there’s also a clear delineation between what’s meant to be inside and what’s not. Whatever gets wrapped gets wrapped to protect it from the outside. A mosquito-net wraps you, essentially, to protect you from the outside. At the same time, bubblewrap suggests something in transit, whereas I associate mosquito-nets with settling down, being still, going to sleep. 

OS: Totally. For me, this material also speaks about movement, migration, the things we share; things that we wrap that are precious. But I’m not using it to wrap anything. The bubblewrap is empty. What it holds is an image, the residue of an image in the head, to be in transit, which speaks to my experience of moving around. Bubblewrap is forever in transit. Mosquito-nets are static. You find them in the home, where one wants to rest… but the bubblewrap is like, ‘No, we need to go. This is precious. Let’s wrap it and share it.’ There’s this tension between moving and staying. The mosquitos themselves are like the images or memories. What we do to mosquitos? We kill them. We don’t want them in our sight. But they’re common. They effect everyone. If you’re a king the mosquitos will still rise up to your castle. If you’re a servant, the mosquitos will still go to your shack. Again, the project is not about what is seen, but what goes unseen. Nothing is complete. If I have a wish, it’s that this work does not end. The idea of it ending haunts, like I’m going to make work about Ko Gae and finish it. 

KW: But why does it haunt you? The ending is not final. Why can there not be a conclusion?

OS: For me, the conclusion lies in embracing the unknown; the conclusion is the unknown. Because it’s about memory, residue, the spit that remains. 

SC: This is something that was spoken about last Sunday, during the conversation between Bettina [Malcomess] and Serge [Alain Nitegeka], who also speaks a lot about uncertainty, the unknown, the void — ‘into the black.’ His work is also rooted in memory, both personal and collective, and the experience of trauma associated with that. One question that came up during the audience Q&A was about healing; what he does to heal. He was saying that he doesn’t believe in healing, that it doesn’t happen that way. You just make do. Rather than healing, the baggage from your past becomes a scar that you just have and carry with you. There’s always that unresolved aspect. 

OS: Yes, I like the idea of fading into black. For me, it’s that. That’s what I mean about the ending. I still need to come out of this, having confronted it and chewed on it, so it’s me fading into that black, not as an ending, but saying, ‘I don’t know.’ What’s at the end of the tunnel? I can see the light but I don’t know if I’m at the right side of the tunnel, whether the light is coming or going. For me, this project is literally that. It’s not knowing whether the light is coming from that end or from this end. I don’t know if these memories will bring resolve or fade me into the unknown. It feels like a dog coming to lick its wound. The end for me would be having to lick the wound myself. A wound has already opened up, by virtue of doing this work — a whole can of worms about my childhood, which I’ve never wanted to go back to, except through play. My whole story has been about embracing the cry of a black boy, or of a boy child. Let’s embrace the child, embrace that cry, rather than saying, ‘No, let’s comfort him.’ That’s why most of my work hides behind this slapstick, behind laughter. It’s easier to play pain than to face pain. 

KW: You’ll know when it’s time. To use your analogy — the tunnel that you’re in — when you find that left halo or that right halo, you’ll know. That’s what’s so different about this, in that I also don’t know. Usually you have a beginning and an end when you curate, but there’s something about just honouring the work in this moment. 

OS: Yes. Take for instance sculpture. In the old days, sculpture wasn’t just aesthetic; something to occupy space. It had this metaphysical thing. People could project how they’re feeling, or their wishes, onto a sculpture. If a woman could not have a child, she would make a sculpture of a woman carrying a child — her wish to the universe. Then the child is born. What does she do? She buries the sculpture, because she no longer needs it.Now that she’s given birth she no longer feels the need for the sculpture, so she’s going to bury it, because it’s a wound that she’s been carrying. Now she feels that that wound is healed. Her wish has come true. I haven’t reached that point of resolve when it comes to what my grandmother said. I don’t yet know what it means, not to forget to play. It feels like one is making a sculpture of play, but one doesn’t know what play is. When I find that play, maybe then I’ll bury it. 

SC: There’s a definition of play that I’m drawn to. I can’t remember it verbatim, but how I understood it is that play necessitates some leap of faith. There’s an aspect of danger, because the outcome is unknown. I think about it in terms of the guitar. There’s one scenario, where you know all the chords and you follow the blueprint. Then there’s improvisation, which for me is closer to play. So ‘Don’t forget to play,’ for me, is a bit like being asked to occasionally take risks, or to not take everything too seriously. 

OS: Yes. Ultimately, all of my work is prompted by those words. Those words keep me alive. One thing that is annoying about me is that I laugh. I have no time for serious. The only time I have for serious is when I’m playing seriously. [Laughs]. It’s hard to get me to be serious. It’s like, ‘No. Why? Why can’t serious be play?’ We can play seriously. Then again, nobody can teach you how to play. Nobody knows how to play, because it’s something that you’re always discovering. One thing that started to eat me was my Masters. I was literally investigating, ‘Don’t forget to play.’ In these university structures you need to come out with a definition and say, ‘Yes, for play I got this.’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t know. Play is searching.’ So for the MA, what do I present? I presented myself fishing. One day you throw the line, and in an hour you’ve caught. Another day, you catch nothing. But you love fishing. The investment is in fishing as a game, as a sport — something that you love to do for leisure. The question is how to embrace something even when you know you may not catch anything. For me it’s that. It’s how I see this project. NIROX has provided us with this dam, with trout fish, but we haven’t caught our fish yet. We are fishing, I think. 

SC: The trout fish got taken away in 2006.

OS: Really? [Laughs] I think the greatest catch is being inside this space, being given this space. That’s the catch. I got this space, this studio, the support I need. I can say I went fishing. Or maybe I’m the fish, looking for the fisherman.