Dineo Seshee Bopape, is i am sky (2013), South Africa

The short is a single-screen video projection with sound that displays the merging of the artist’s face with her surroundings as she walks through a landscape. Her face fades in and out of view as she moves and become intercepted by the background scene. Bopape’s face doubles or triples at times, with the skin of these additional faces obscured making only the eyes, nose, and mouth visible. The artist’s features merge with spillages of color, cosmic imagery, and black space. By the end of the video, her face is almost entirely obscured. Singing birds, tinkling noises, vocal music, and drumbeats make up the video’s soundtrack which progressed towards crashing percussive sounds and sustained notes as cosmic imagery took over the frame. Bopape set out into the Californian landscape and recorded the short with a small hand-held camera. The artist recorded herself singing in the wind using minimal equipment, and unprotected microphone. is i am sky was made in response to the trial of former African National Congress Youth League President Julius Malema that took place in South Africa in 2011. Malema, a prominent activist, was convicted of hate speech the contentious struggle song ‘Ayasaba Amagwala, dubuli bhunu [The cowards are scared. Kill the Boer]’. Bopape performed the African Cream Freedom Choir in response, she sang ‘Hamba Kahle Mkhonto’ for Malema. This song was often sung during the South African apartheid, especially at funerals as a gesture towards farewell. The soothing quality of Bopape’s voice contrasts with the abrasiveness of the wind, implying the resistance faced by those fighting for freedom of speech.

The title of the work, is i am sky, refers to jazz composer Sun Ra’s 1972 poem, ‘The Endless Realm’, which begins with: ‘I have nothing / Nothing! / How really is I am...’ . As the short progresses, her face becomes an expanding gateway into the vastness of the universe where the markers of her identity is blurred. Sun Ra’s celebration of cosmic infinity as a frontier for Black liberation echoed in the video.

‘I was trying to find a way of marrying the sky, [to merge with the] space that nothing occupies’ — Dineo Seshee Bopape, in conversation with Tate curators in 2019.

is i am sky enacts upon further liberation by ‘construct[ing] an alternate existence where the memories of black people are made visible and given space to unfold’ according to curator Portia Malatjie (Malatjie 2019, p.7).

Regarded as one of the most exciting young artists from the South African contemporary art scene in recent years, Dineo Seshee Bopape’s works often combined psychedelic video montages interspersed among assemblages usually consisting of found objects.

About Dineo Seshee Bopape

The screening of Dineo Seshee Bopape, is i am sky (2013) at the Cinema For All Pavilion is supported by Tate.