DONNA KUKAMA

My practice concerns the power relations between audience and artist, in the form of continuous tension, displaying an interest in ritual actions in the everyday, specifically the potential for transformation through displacement.

My current investigation of the gesture of language and emotion, translated as sound performance and image as a primary tool of power and control.

My aim is to investigate the hierarchal relation of performer-to-audience. Setting up a relationship where the public becomes complicit. The important aspect of this power-shift is that tension is created and explored, between artist and audience, as opposed to equilibrium.

This tension, for me, is the point at which an interaction or performance begins, and my interest is in maintaining this state, where binary oppositions exist on a continuous and unpredictable shift, for a moment or longer.

Untitled II (let go)
Video Still
Isle de Bréhat
2007

Curio
Johannesburg, South Africa
2004

Silang Mabele II
Performance
Sierre, Switzerland
2006

Education

2005-2007
M.F.A.
MAPS (Masters of Arts in the Public Spere), Ecole Cantonale d’art du Valais

2004
B.F.A.
Tshwane University of Technology

Performances

2006
Untitled1 (Red Suitcase), Elia Biennale, Ghent
Unity & Duality, collaboration with Katerine Oggier, Férme Asile, Sion
Nngwe-Pedi-Tharo, Club Ethno, Geneve
Silang Mabele II, The Container (FAC-ECAV), Sierre
Curio in Geneva, Rue du Grand Bureau, Geneve

2005
Maison Blanc, ECAV, Sierre
Dieledi, forming part of Take me to the River, Pretoria Art Museum,Tshwane

2004
Curio, L’Alliance Français, Johannesburg
Breath, forming part of Negotiate, Johannesburg Art Gallery
Silang Mabele, Yugoslavian Museum of National History, Serbia

2003
Diketo, Potchefstroom National Arts Festival

Selected Exhibitions

2007
M.A.P.S en Cuenca,

2006
Age of Hope, United Nations Gallery, Geneva
Visions d’artistes Dak’art off Biennalé, Yassine Art Center, Dakar

2005
Map, Graskop (self-titled exhibition under MapSA)
TUT Graduate and Postgraduate exhibition, franchise Gallery, Johannesburg

2004
Young Vision, L’Alliance Français, Johannesburg.
Geslag, Aardklop Arts Festival, Potchefstroom

2003
Telkom 100 years of Telecommunications, Telkom Centurion
Sasol New Signatures Competition, Pretoria Art Museum

Collections
Jack Ginsberg: Director, Ampersand Foundation, New York Graskop Hotel, South Africa
Telkom Art Collection, South Africa

Commissions
2003
CONVERGENCE, Telkom Art Collection, South Africa