#curatorial statement

2020

by Lesego Seoketsa

In this collection, including the pieces Multividual, Cost of Living, Headstrong, and others, the artist creates a vivid, introspective journey into the layers of identity, culture, and self-perception. These works come together as a meditation on the “multividual”—a term that reflects the artist’s exploration of the self as a complex, multi-faceted entity shaped by various identities and histories. Each piece peels back the layers of personal and cultural identity, revealing an intricate dance between presence and absence, fullness and fragmentation.

The figures in these images are marked by both ancestral and ritualistic symbols, partially shielded by hands or structures that protect yet reveal. Through these gestures, the artist delves into themes of belonging and self-acceptance, with each hand or gaze suggesting a form of selective revelation—what one is ready to face, or hide, in moments of prayer, meditation, or introspection. These elements emphasize the tension between what is shown and what is concealed, embodying a process of both self-protection and self-revelation that resonates with anyone who has experienced cultural duality or an evolving sense of self.

The imagery also engages with broader social and economic realities, as seen in pieces like Cost of Living, which reflects on the constraints and complexities faced by marginalized bodies navigating modern landscapes. The figures stand within or emerge from structures that evoke the notion of “home,” yet these are homes that are not entirely complete or accessible. This evokes a powerful metaphor for the fragmented experience of those who feel both within and outside their cultures and communities, highlighting the struggle for belonging amid shifting cultural and generational landscapes.

Through Headstrong and other pieces, the artist emphasizes resilience and the act of holding space for one’s power, even when it feels neglected or avoided. In each work, the body becomes a site for personal and ancestral stories, embodying the strength, contradictions, and fluidity that come with navigating multiple identities. This body of work ultimately invites viewers to see identity as a constantly evolving tapestry—one woven from heritage, self-assertion, and the courage to exist as a “multividual.”

How does it feel to love something that doesn’t love you back? In popular culture, brokenheartedness is often portrayed in a cis-heteronormative relationship—a man longing for a woman to love him back or vice versa. Yet brokenheartedness also emerges through other affective regimes such as belonging towards land, community, or even a nation.

For my Cabinet of Curiosity I have curated objects around the concept of letting go and moving on from a failed relationship and the memories and nostalgia that is associated with it. I was influenced by the work of Joseph Cornell whose cabinets of curiosities often deal with the unseen; ideas, memories, fantasies, dreams. They also feature a lot of symbolism which I kept in mind when choosing my final objects, each of them have a purpose/represent something. The narrative of the cabinets is also very important in his work l and this is something I wanted to emulate in my own cabinet. Originally, I intended to fill my cabinet exclusively with “sentimental shit” I had already collected from the failed relationship. These objects are physical representations of my memories from that time. However, on their own they didn’t completely represent the story I wanted to tell. I wanted to represent the memories without destroying them completely but the idea that was the most important to me was moving on from them. To make a piece entirely focused on them seemed too much like a shrine to the failed relationship instead of what I really wanted to explore which was how to let these memories go. 

While brainstorming, I decided to look up Pagan rituals and how people of the past dealt with respecting memories while still moving on from them. While doing some research I came across a spell for “Letting Go Of A Lost Love” and found the idea of collecting items based around this to be intriguing. I curated objects such as crystals, tarot cards, a spell book, a little ceramic pot which looks like a cauldron, colored candles, incense and more. These items are commonly used in spells like this one to ward away negativity in order to let go and move on. I wanted the atmosphere of my cabinet to have an ethereal, unusual feel to it, almost like a witch’s cabinet. I was inspired by the work of Kevin Best in this respect. His work features a range of curious objects usually against a black backdrop with limited lighting which is why I chose to mirror this set up to achieve a similar affect in my own work.

The American Gun Show

Call to Artists: American Gun Show

Open call for artwork:

Few technologies have had the impact on civilization that the gun has had. With a storied history of a millennium and having been woven into American culture, it is not surprising that it is as contentious as it is empowering.

Dorothy Santos and James Morganare bringing together a series of works across media that consider all sides of…

 The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilization and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.

—Edward Saïd, Orientalism

The understanding of East and West as dichotomous is old and deeply ingrained in contemporary culture. This binary often takes on a religious significance, for it coincides with the distinction between Christendom and the Islamic world. Modern political rhetoric in the United States often mobilizes these archaic ideas, just as it justified nineteenth-century colonialism and the Crusades of the Middle Ages. And, in fact, the Middle Ages often seem the point of origin for today’s concept of the East/West divide. However, surviving objects from the medieval Mediterranean suggest a vastly different story, one of permeable boundaries and cultural transfusion. This exhibition seeks to show the profound ways in which the artistic traditions of Islam and Christianity shaped each other in the Middle Ages. 

The decorative arts and architectures of the Middle Ages exemplify fluid cultural borrowing and appropriation. A wall painting from the Spanish hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga includes a depiction of a camel—a motif introduced by Islamic artists that made its way into Christian painting. A floor tile from the Moorish palace in Granada, the Alhambra, includes not only classically Islamic vegetal designs, but also a central armorial shield, an element taken wholesale from the art of feudal Europe. Such cultural transfer occurred not only in Muslim-conquered Spain, but also in areas with bustling trading systems, like Venice. A sixteenth-century Venetian glass pilgrim’s flask bears striking similarly to a thirteen- or fourteenth-century Mamluk vase from Yemen, suggesting an assimilation of Islamic forms into the Christian art of Europe. Thirteenth-century beakers from Syria incorporate both Arabic calligraphy and Christian motifs, apparently based on images of saints and of Christ entering Jerusalem. 

As this collection of objects demonstrates, even segregating the cultural products of Islam and Christianity or West and East is often a fool’s errand. Many artists worked in dual traditions, as in the case of the Muslim weavers living in late fifteen- or early sixteenth-century Granada who produced the Moorish textile exhibited here. Although these weavers lived under Christian-Spanish rule, they continued an artistic practice that predates the Reconquista and remains firmly Islamic. These weavers, then, cannot be easily severed from either identity: as Spanish subjects of Christian monarchy, or as Muslim artisans carrying on Islamic weaving practices. The lusterware basin from Manises, in Valencia, creates a similar productive confusion about its origins: it was made in Christian Valencia, but in the “Malaga work” style perfected by Islamic potters. In the Iberian peninsula, a thriving Jewish visual culture further obfuscated boundaries between faiths and cultures.

Through the juxtaposition and comparison of medieval objects from around the Mediterranean, made over a period of several centuries, this exhibition works towards a new vision of historical accuracy, one less harmfully mediated by politicized contemporary ideas. The objects exhibited here make visible a Middle Ages of not only religious and cultural conflicts, but also much more complex and ambiguous patterns of influence. These influences are not always positive—on the contrary, questions of power and control are often bound up in artistic appropriation. However, each of these objects pushes against the firm boundaries between religious traditions. As a collection, they suggest an ever-evolving dialogue of religious art and ideology in the Middle Ages.

BROWSE BY SECTION

Mirrored Forms: Cross-Cultural Influence on Artistic Production

Use and Reuse: The Appropriation of Objects across Contexts

Random Blends in any edition is to me, a showcase and celebration of students' works and ideas.

Also, being a Communications and New Media (CNM) exhibition, I would want to nail down the essence of the discipline Random Blends is exhibiting first. So, a quick search on the Internet reveals that Communication is:

 the meaningful exchange of information between two or more living creatures.

-Wikipedia

while New Media is:

on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, and creative participation.

-Wikipedia

Thus, Communications and New Media is broadly, meaningful exchanges of information through creative participation. Interaction, by far, captures the essence of that meaning.

Coupled with the fact that the theme for this year's Random Blends is Calibr8, holding notions of reassessment and renegotiation, this further epitomises the importance of interactivity. With interactivity, we have engagement, which translates to stimulation of thoughts and finally a reassessment of the audiences' preconceived notions of CNM.

Therefore, my Big Idea for Random Blends would be:

Random Blends 2014 invites visitors to partake in the showcase and celebration of National University of Singapore's Communication and Media students' works and ideas through direct and indirect interactions with the exhibits and fellow visitors.

I chose the word 'partake' to bring about a sense of involvement for the visitors while explicitly mentioning the way to be involved (through interaction with the works and other visitors). I also explicitly mentioned the discipline involved in Random Blends to prime visitors of what kind of exhibits they would see. Lastly, I used the word 'celebration' to condition visitors' mood and spontaneity (You often want to have fun and are seldom serious during celebrations).

I left out the purpose of 'calibrating' visitors' notions of CNM and what not as I feel that this is something intrinsic and a natural process that visitors will do when interacting and doing self-evaluation.